XPost: soc.culture.welsh, soc.culture.cornish, soc.culture.irish   
   XPost: soc.culture.scottish   
   From: innes8@verizon.net   
      
   "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.   
      
   True. He said they spoke either, or, ...   
   Where they do speak a Gall as first language is on the west coast islands.   
   There are also some isolated pockets on Mull. I remember staying in some   
   lighthouse keepers cottages overlooking Iona, where Stevnson had done some   
   writing. Wondering around I found some of the older folk with the Gaelic, no   
   tv, and no electricity either. But that was a few years ago.   
      
   Further up the coast [I won't be exact] there is a small colony of bothies   
   which is accessed either by a 5 mile hike, or taking the row boat across the   
   loch, and the natives have mostly left now, and the place occupied by   
   writers.   
      
   Phil Innes   
      
   > Allan   
   >   
      
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