Scottish Blog

Scottish Gaelic was at one point the most prominent language spoken throughout Scotland.

With its ancient origins and prominence within Scottish history, Scottish Gaelic is a linguistic heirloom of the Scots.

Scottish Gaelic belongs in the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages, alongside Irish and Manx. Outside of Scotland Scottish Gaelic is often mistakenly referred to as Scots, while in Scotland and related areas this name would refer to the Scots language.

Scotland has the highest concentration in the world of Scottish Gaelic speakers, although the actual number of capable Scottish Gaelic speakers is relatively low. A survey conducted in 2001 found that there were approximately 92,000 speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Scotland in addition to 900 in Nova Scotia, 1,600 in the USA, followed by roughly 100 speakers in both Russia and Kazakhstan. The study also estimated that by the year 2007 there would be over 100,000 speakers of Scottish Gaelic throughout the world. Although the numbers of people who can speak Scottish Gaelic in recent years is low, it is still recognized by many Scottish as an official language of Scotland, whether they themselves can speak it or not.

It is known that Scottish Gaelic was a prominent, if not the main, language of the Scottish nation for many years. But, due to the difficulty of surveying the entire population of Scotland in its early years, not to mention the difficulty of preserving the results of such a survey, it is impossible to tell exactly what percentage of the Scottish population were speakers of the Scottish Gaelic language. It is strongly believed that the population of Scotland had a large number of speakers of Scottish Gaelic at the time of the arrival of the Romans. It is also known that the use of Scottish Gaelic suffered heavily during the Highland Clearances in the late 16th century.