XPost: soc.culture.welsh, soc.culture.cornish, soc.culture.irish   
   XPost: soc.culture.scottish   
   From: innes8@verizon.net   
      
   "Robert Peffers."  wrote in message   
   news:tqudnSV9DK4ioF_bnZ2dnUVZ8qaqnZ2d@bt.com...   
   >   
   > "allan connochie"  wrote in message   
   > news:OVpwi.35954$sI3.29312@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...   
   >>   
   >> "Chess One"  wrote in message   
   >> news:32pwi.355$7f.202@trndny09...   
   >>>   
   >>> "Robert Peffers."  wrote in message   
   >>>> Laughably you ignore the simple fact that most Scots still speak either   
   >>>> Gaelic or a form of Lowland Scots, or even both, in addition to   
   >>>> Standard English.   
   >>>   
   >>> They do not Sir, and you lecture someone whose name is Highland Scot.   
   >>>   
   >>> Scottish Gaelic has of habitual speakers now just 30,000 persons. Irish   
   >>> Gaelic some 22,000 speakers, Welsh 326,000 habitual speakers, and for   
   >>> Breton 250,000 habitual speakers. [census 1991] More understand it than   
   >>> speak it, particularly in Wales where the numner is 1.1 million people.   
   >>> But of Scots Gaelic only 55,000 now understand it.   
   >>>   
   >>> Almost all Scots do not understand the Gaelic, and are no longer   
   >>> Curadh-uasisle Inssi Gall. You understand this phrase?   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> I think you'd better reread what Bob said. He never claimed that most   
   >> Scots speak Gaelic.   
   >>   
   >> Allan   
   >>   
   > It is fairly obvious he is not really listening.   
      
   I had just wondered what you meant by your list, Bob. Obviously lowland   
   scots would have to speak something, and I wondered what your emphasis was?   
   Certainly 'most highlanders don't speak a form of lowland scots [dialect]'   
   and most lowland scots don't speak Gaellic. Even 'standard' English is a   
   [invented] dialect, courtesy the BBC.   
      
   I doubt lowland scots to be any more difficult to ken than Cornish accented   
   English.   
      
   > More like a case of, "I've read the book and this is what it says".   
      
   If we need to fall out - so be it - but I think that's the second   
   speculation you have offered. Do you want to pick a more acuitous topic to   
   discuss, or are you content with strawmen?   
      
   > I suppose I could quote some text from Daemonology by Jaimie Saxt and a   
   > poem by Elizabeth I to demonstrate that Scots did indeed speak a   
   > different, but related language when Jaimie Saxt gaed doon til London.   
   > Daes the gadgie jalouse Jaimie Saxt an Ane wad, aiblins, spak wir ain leid   
   > tae the Iglis court? Cud wi doot he maun eyven hae a Scottish tune tae his   
   > Iglis leid? Efter aa twa unalik Kinricks ben twa unalik Kitras  maun mak   
   > eyven eydent lugs dirl.   
   > So to speak.   
      
   There is a huge difference in dialectal speech versus root~ language   
   differentials. Language follows culture, after all. In Cornwall hardly   
   anyone spoke Anglo Saxon, and not 'English' until well after the Elizabethan   
   period. This to great degree has preserved a sense of cultural identity,   
   whereas the Lowlands might as well be Tyneside-North.   
      
   Phil Innes   
      
   > Robert Peffers,   
   > Kelty,   
   > Fife,   
   > Scotland, (UK).   
   >   
   >   
   >   
      
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