Gaelic Gaelic

[The_Kincardine]

1 hour ago, Snobot said:

Also, further to an earlier observation there are many monoglot Gaels, they just all happen to be under the age of 5.

Nah...my father's generation, he was born in 1922, was the last of the monoglot Gaels and didn't speak English until he was 5.  I can accept that some households have Gaelic as their first language - and this is a good thing - but I simply cannot believe that there are any monoglot weans unless said households have no access to telly, radio, the internet, CDs, DVDs or, in the case of the Gàidhealtachd, 8 Track and VHS.

Unless these households have Callum Kennedy and Alasdair Gillies records constantly  on repeat then it is not at all possible that their weans have no exposure to English.  Add in the capacity of children under the age of 6 to acquire language like a sponge then I suggest you're talking bollocks.

[Snobot]

4 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

Nah...my father's generation, he was born in 1922, was the last of the monoglot Gaels and didn't speak English until he was 5.  I can accept that some households have Gaelic as their first language - and this is a good thing - but I simply cannot believe that there are any monoglot weans unless said households have no access to telly, radio, the internet, CDs, DVDs or, in the case of the Gàidhealtachd, 8 Track and VHS.

Unless these households have Callum Kennedy and Alasdair Gillies records constantly  on repeat then it is not at all possible that their weans have no exposure to English.  Add in the capacity of children under the age of 6 to acquire language like a sponge then I suggest you're talking bollocks.

Dismal stuff. A’bheil smùid ort?  

[The_Kincardine]

4 minutes ago, Snobot said:

Dismal stuff. A’bheil smùid ort?  

the point is valid, though.

[The_Kincardine]

2 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 

More to the point translating the Bible into English was never really their bag in Rome

 

No but the Vulgate still translates it as 'scandalum'.  I suggest that the point you raised was little to do with a 17th C sectarian debate and much more with the trickiness of translation and its concomitant, hermeneutics.

[invergowrie arab]

Can't be arsed going back to the start here so apologies if these points have been made.

1. Gaelic was once the dominant language in all parts of Scotland except Orkney and Shetland at one point although it's fair to say in Lothians and borders it was little more than a few hundred years and may have been the dominant language of the ruling class rather than the, for want of a better word, peasantry.

2. The retreat north west was not as dramatic and early as some suggest. It was the dominant language in parts of Aberdeenshire,Perthshire and Stirlingshire as recently as between the wars and the last native Perthshire Aberdeen shire Gaelic speakers only died in the 1980s

3. Gaelic is spoken wherever Gaels are. The largest number of Gaelic speakers are on Lewis/Harris. Then it's Glasgow, Edinburgh and then Skye.

4. The Urdu /Polish comparison is daft. Neither language are under threat. They have tens/hundreds of millions across the world. If Gaelic dies in Scotland it dies.

5. If Gaelic stopped tomorrow and all funds diverted not one of you would be any better off. You wouldn't get nicer English only road signs, the football wouldn't magically appear on BBC 1 so stop fucking whinging.

[The OP]

44 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

 

4. The Urdu /Polish comparison is daft. Neither language are under threat. They have tens/hundreds of millions across the world. If Gaelic dies in Scotland it dies.

 

[AyrshireTon]

On 5/22/2018 at 13:22, mizfit said:

 

I'd have rather learn Gaelic than French in school tbh. 

This. Any language that can't even have a word for "eighty" loses the right to be taken seriously.

[ICTJohnboy]

16 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

the point is valid, though.

 

What's the point in you contributing anything to this debate when you don't even know the difference between "Scots" and "Scotch"..?

[invergowrie arab]

2 hours ago, AyrshireTon said:

This. Any language that can't even have a word for "eighty" loses the right to be taken seriously.

Ochdad(80) is a very recent addition to the Gaelic lexicon and you will almost never hear it amongst native speakers who prefer to stick with ceithir fichead (fourscore) 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Ochdad(80) is a very recent addition to the Gaelic lexicon and you will almost never hear it amongst native speakers who prefer to stick with ceithir fichead (fourscore) 

French apparently inherited it from Gaulish which explains the similarity

Belgians and Swiss Francophones will feel free to use huitante

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-4751,00.html

[invergowrie arab]

27 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 

French apparently inherited it from Gaulish which explains the similarity

Belgians and Swiss Francophones will feel free to use huitante

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-4751,00.html
 

 

I long for the day the football shite is abandoned on here and we can all just talk about etymology

[The_Kincardine]

3 hours ago, ICTJohnboy said:

 

What's the point in you contributing anything to this debate when you don't even know the difference between "Scots" and "Scotch"..?

Sake, bud.  Nursing that grievance since Saturday?  

[topcat(The most tip top)]

 

 

According to French Wikipedia the Gallic convention of counting in 20s was so established that in the middle ages they had trois vingt for 60 and they’d write Roman numerals past 60 as multiples of 20

 

So instead of LXXX they’d write IIIIxx

With the xx for 20 being a super script that I can’t type on my phone so here’s a picture

 

 

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_(nombre)

 

 

 

[welshbairn]

Twenty was a handy number, like 20 shillings in the pound. Easy to divide up into equal parts, and to multiply.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

The earth is flat. Research it. 

[alta-pete]

Can't be arsed going back to the start here so apologies if these points have been made.
1. Gaelic was once the dominant language in all parts of Scotland except Orkney and Shetland at one point although it's fair to say in Lothians and borders it was little more than a few hundred years and may have been the dominant language of the ruling class rather than the, for want of a better word, peasantry.
2. The retreat north west was not as dramatic and early as some suggest. It was the dominant language in parts of Aberdeenshire,Perthshire and Stirlingshire as recently as between the wars and the last native Perthshire Aberdeen shire Gaelic speakers only died in the 1980s
3. Gaelic is spoken wherever Gaels are. The largest number of Gaelic speakers are on Lewis/Harris. Then it's Glasgow, Edinburgh and then Skye.
4. The Urdu /Polish comparison is daft. Neither language are under threat. They have tens/hundreds of millions across the world. If Gaelic dies in Scotland it dies.
5. If Gaelic stopped tomorrow and all funds diverted not one of you would be any better off. You wouldn't get nicer English only road signs, the football wouldn't magically appear on BBC 1 so stop fucking whinging.

Haud on here a minute. I’m not usually one to take people to task but there’s a lot of bold statements up there.

You got anything to back up your assertions; 1-3 in particular?
4, I agree.
And 5, surely if an amount of money isn’t spent on something it will go to some other use?

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Twenty was a handy number, like 20 shillings in the pound. Easy to divide up into equal parts, and to multiply.

12 has more prime factors which is why the dozen is even handier. Most languages I’ve encountered have specific words for 11 and 12 but have some equivalent of x-teen. Does Gaelic or Welsh break with this pattern?

[invergowrie arab]

4 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

Haud on here a minute. I’m not usually one to take people to task but there’s a lot of bold statements up there.

You got anything to back up your assertions; 1-3 in particular?
4, I agree.
And 5, surely if an amount of money isn’t spent on something it will go to some other use?

I don't keep a bank of readily linkable sources but I'll try my best

I'll answer in random order because...reasons

5. The money will go elsewhere but the spend is so minute you won't notice.

4. 'S math sin

2. I can't find any transcriptions about Perth/Stirling shire but it is all in here but in Gaelic in sound files  with people talking about their Gaelic upbringing around Blair Atholl , Aberfeldy, Loch Tay, Rannoch, Glen Dochart, Deeside etc http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk

Pictured above is Rob Bain of Ardoch, Deeside, Aberdeenshire who died in July, 2010. Rob was the son of Jean Bain, the last native speaker of Deeside Gaelic who died in 1984. In an interview with Sheena Blackhall, Rob said, of his mother’s Gaelic,

http://www.andywightman.com/archives/763

3. This is the best I can find at short notice. I don't know why Edinburgh has been missed out I suspect it is an error there definitely more Gaelic speakers in Edinburgh than Stirling . Obviously Skye is included in Highland.

EilEan Sar 61.2 16,489

Highland 7.4 16,596

Argyll and Bute 5.9 5,550

Glasgow City 1.7 9,469

Stirling 1.6 1,360

SCOTLAND 1.7 87,056

1.  By the 10th century, Gaelic had become the dominant language throughout northern and western Scotland, the Gaelo-Pictic Kingdom of Alba. Its spread to southern Scotland was less even and less complete. Place name analysis suggests dense usage of Gaelic in Galloway and adjoining areas to the north and west, as well as in West Lothian and parts of western Midlothian. Less dense usage is suggested for north Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, the Clyde Valley and eastern Dumfriesshire. This latter region is roughly the area of the old Kingdom of Strathclyde, which was annexed by the Kingdom of Alba in the early 11th century, but its inhabitants may have continued to speak Cumbric as late as the 12th century. In south-eastern Scotland, there is no evidence that Gaelic was ever widely spoken: the area shifted from Cumbric to Old English during its long incorporation into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. After the Lothians were conquered by Malcolm II at the Battle of Carham in 1018, the elites spoke Gaelic and continued to do so until about 1200. However commoners retained Old English.^[1]

 

^{https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Scottish_Gaelic}

[invergowrie arab]

20 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 

12 has more prime factors which is why the dozen is even handier. Most languages I’ve encountered have specific words for 11 and 12 but have some equivalent of x-teen. Does Gaelic or Welsh break with this pattern?
 

 

Deich 10

Aon deug 11

Dà dheug 12

Trì deug 13 

So, no eleven or twelve as such.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Deich 10
Aon deug 11
Dà dheug 12
Trì deug 13 
So, no eleven or twelve as such.

Oneteen, Twoteen, Threeteen, Fourteen....