The Peculiar Case of Canadian Gaelic

Cause why not

Further Reading:

[philpaine]

I'm a Canadian. Once, I was on a train in Scotland (Aberdeen to Thurso). In the car, on the other side of the aisle from me were two women, one elderly, the other probably in her twenties. They spoke to each other in Gaelic. But something was odd about it. The younger woman spoke Gaelic very differently from the older. She had a distinctive accent, and also a very different rhythm and pattern of stress. When the answer hit me, I leaned over and said: "Excuse me, but are you speaking Canadian Gaelic?". The answer was yes. The younger woman was from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and fluent native speaker of Gaelic. She had just married a man from the Scottish Isles. The older woman was her mother-in-law. I gave myself a buttered scone as a reward for keen (or accidental) observation.

[possepat]

Gaelic speaker from Nova Scotia here. Well done!

[RaghnaidAnnaNicGaraidh]

10:00 I can confirm that there are young people speaking it amongst themselves! I'm a Gaelic-speaker in my early twenties from Australia and went to Cape Breton for a university short course in early 2019. I lived on campus at Colaisde na Gàidhlig and had to sign a Gaelic-only-on-campus agreement, but even when we went off-campus we kept speaking Gaelic to each other, and on a number of occasions met up with other young people from the community and spoke only Gaelic with them as well. I actually spoke English only once or twice while I was there because I was in such a sheltered environment, but it was pretty clear to me that most of the Gaelic-speaking young people I met usually spoke only Gaelic to each other. That goes equally both for the teenagers I met and for the people a few years older than me with small children.

[HaiLsKuNkY]

my grandma passed away last year, she was the last native Gaelic speaker in my family, she was from the isle of Skye. it sad that they didn't pass the language down to me.

[historiau]

Glè Mhath! Tha mi à Baile Shidni ann an Alba Nuadh ach tha mi a’ fuireach ann am Melbourne ann an Astràlia a-nis agus tha Gàidhlig beag agam.

(Very good! I’m from Sydney, Nova Scotia but I live in Melbourne, Australia now and I’ve got a bit of Gaelic.)

Great to see the language getting some air time. Gaelic is alive and well in Cape Breton and amongst the Cape Bretoners, even if our numbers have declined. Interestingly, I spent my summers very near to where the Maxwell twins lived in Cape Breton.

[scott.macdonald]

My great-grandfather spoke Gaelic as a child in the 1920s. Apparently that's what everyone spoke on Cape Breton Island. I wish he had passed it down.

[brendamorrison]

Student of Scottish Gaelic, it’s a beautiful language. Gaelic was the first spoken/written language for my Nova Scotian grandfathers.

[j.obrien]

You missed something -- there were two Canadian Gaelics, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the Newfoundland variety was Irish Gaelic. Also its disappearance kind of spurred Francophone fears.

[Zastrava]

Taanshi and maarsii! Crawling out of the woodwork! I'm a Scotch-Metis who grew up in Manitoba and I agree, Scotch folk are greatly overlooked in Canadian history. Scotch-Metis get grouped in with French Metis and Euro-Scots will almost without fail get grouped in with English folk.

My Scots family left Orkney and the Aberdeen area during the highland clearances brought over by the Hudson's Bay Company to Rupert's Land via York Factory (modern day Manitoba) and eventually down to the Selkirk Settlement where they were given land after their HBC tenure. They intermarried with my Maškēkow (Cree) and Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) ancestors and were part of the Scotch Metis community. My family up to my great nan all spoke Bungee and my great nan apparently had a strong Scottish-sounding accent (likely a very decreolised Bungee remnant). Unfortunately the language was not passed on- my great nan likely stopped speaking it to hide from being taken away to residential schools to instead go to an English-speaking day school. To the best of my knowledge, Bungee doesn't have any remaining speakers alive, there were very few in the 1970s when it was recorded.

Also, modern Canadian Gaelic likely wouldn't have any Cree influence- the Red River / Manitoba community isn't very strong if it's around at all. The modern Canadian Gaelic community on Cape Breton Island and around Pictou would have Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk (Mi'kmaq) influence. It's also an Algonquian language like Cree, but it's from a different branch of the Algonquian family and mutual intelligibility would be limited if any.f

[Squirrelmind]

Canadian Gaelic has also recently (well, the last thirty years anyway) had a presence in music, with recording artists Mary Jane Lamond and The Rankin Family.

[MayaSchluter]

Super cool video! I’m from Nova Scotia and I remember in grade 7 we got the choice to take either French or Gaelic classes in school. Most people chose French but I kind of wish they would make it mandatory. They also write Gaelic on a lot of the signs on the roads, in schools, etc. Also, my hometown of Antigonish has the largest annual Highland Games outside of Scotland 😄🇨🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[ajcschmidt]

Your work on these topics is Amazing! Thank you Much! (And you are Literally the only human I’ve ever encountered who can imitate the Scots accent! Congrats from a Canadian Gaelic learner in Calgaraidh!

[redbeangreenbean]

Great video. My grandmother was a native Gaelic speaker from Cape Breton. She would speak it with her grandmother who could only speak Gaelic. I will be sure to share this video with my family.

[Joe]

wow your Scottish accent is like, worryingly good

[dionbaillargeon]

I had a French Canadian grandfather and a Welsh grandmother and neither of their ancestral languages were passed on to me. Actually, my great-grandparents cut off transmission of Welsh because they feared the stigma associated with the accent at the time. The end of the video hit real hard. 😢

[PRoche-ymfe]

A great video. I am a speaker of Irish and support all the Celtic languages (as well as 1st Nation languages). I look forward to seeing more videos from you.

[raquelc]

I'm Filipino-Canadian but I want to learn Canadian Gaelic!

[dorteweber]

Very nice video. If you are wondering why Manitoba had such an isolated community of Gaelic speakers, it is because there were two completely different migration and settlement events.The Selkirk settlement in Manitoba consisted to a great extent of people from Orkney, who were brought in via Hudson's Bay and the Nelson River-terrible story, that. Also, there is a Metis language called Michif. As I understand it, it features a Cree structural base with a lot of French vocabulary. Very roughly.

[adhamhmacconchobhair]

there's also Argentinian Welsh :0

[rileymaclennan]

I've lived in Pictou all my life, seen all the bilingual signs. Every event has kilts and bagpipes (Multiple family members own both) The replica of the ship Hector sits in the bay and everyone I know without exception has Scottish last names. The culture is alive and well except for Canadian Gaelic, In all my years I've never heard a word of Gaelic. Its a shame but if you don't live in Cape Breton it seems that very little is being done to prevent further extinction of the language.