XPost: soc.culture.welsh, soc.culture.cornish, soc.culture.irish   
   XPost: soc.culture.scottish   
   From: micheil@shaw.ca   
      
   On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 02:08:28 +0100, Féachadóir  wrote:   
      
   >Scríobh "allan connochie" :   
   >>   
   >>"Chess One"  wrote in message   
   >>news:OGBwi.1285$Be.654@trndny04...   
   >>>   
   >>> "Robert Peffers."  wrote in message   
   >>> news:tqudnSV9DK4ioF_bnZ2dnUVZ8qaqnZ2d@bt.com...   
   >>>>   
   >>> 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.   
   >>   
   >>All forms of speech are dialect. That of course includes Gaelic which also   
   >>shares a similar relationship to Irish that Scots shares with English.   
   >   
   >Not quite. I'd submit that while Scots and English have grown closer   
   >over the past 400 years or so, Irish and Scots Gaelic have grown   
   >farther apart.   
      
   As indeed have the various Scots Gaelic dialects from each other.   
      
   With no written guide to keep people aware of the preferred model -   
   the language of the Gaelic Bible; Perthshire Gaelic; the original   
   Irish spoken by the Highland people naturally drifted apart in the   
   details, especially as even the Gaelic Bible of the times before   
   Culloden was the Irish language Bible, written in the Irish alphabet,   
   which no one but ministers and the occasional chief educated in Paris   
   by Catholic Irish priests could read.   
      
   This was not helped by the retreat of Irish Gaelic from the closer   
   Irish points to Scotland, like Rathlin Island and it is noteworthy   
   that the Gaelic of Scotland's Islay where Gaelic has been spoken for   
   longer than in almost any other part of Scotland, the local Gaelic has   
   closer affinities with Irish Gaelic than most other Scottish Gaelic   
   dialects, which makes it unique.   
      
   Furthermore, with Islay being only  18 miles from the north coast of   
   Antrim, some Islay Gaelic words and pronunciations are closer to Irish   
   Gaelic than to the Gaelic of the Northern Hebrides. However, the   
   pronunciation, grammar and structure of Islay Gaelic is undoubtedly a   
   dialect of the Scottish Gaelic language, rather than Irish, although   
   many local words are Irish, rather than Scots Gaelic and some are   
   unique to Islay. Islay phrases such as 'Gu robh maith agad' are   
   clearly of Irish origin, as opposed to conventional Gaelic's 'Tapadh   
   leat' or 'Mòran taing'. (For non-Gaels, all are ways to say 'Thank   
   you').   
      
      
      
      
   The Highlander   
   Tilgibh smucaid air do làmhan,   
   togaibh a' bhratach dhubh agus   
   toisichibh a' geàrradh na sgòrnanan!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)