John Fleming writes that “objections to Lowland road signs in Gaelic” rest on the premise that "Gaelic was never spoken throughout the Scottish mainland” and that this premise has now been shown to be false (Scotching a myth about Gaelic, Letters, October 2).
Not all objections rest on this premise, so even if it is false, that does not do away with all objections. Further, Fleming’s own position appears to rest upon a curious land-and-language mysticism: that if a language ever was spoken on a patch of earth, it must be revived on that patch of earth, whether or not the people living there speak it or want to. It is not clear why we should accept this premise. Certainly, the mere fact that something once went on in an area is not by itself reason to revive it, else we should be reviving bad things like witch-burning.
Besides land-and-language mysticism, Fleming’s position appears to have another premise since he says that the persistence of “falsehoods” about the extent over which Gaelic was once spoken “plays a part in maintaining the status quo by weakening belief in anything that makes Scotland different from England”. But what is the point of trying to make Scotland different from England? Only people and their concerns matter, not lands and countries and the artificial pointing up of differences between them.
Paul Brownsey
Bearsden, Glasgow
John Fleming is forgetting the other Celtic language, much older than Gaelic, that was spoken in west/east central Scotland from the Roman invasion until its incorporation into a united Alba (Dalriata/Pictavia) (Scotching a myth about Gaelic, Letters, October 2). That is Cumbric, which was spoken in Alt cluith (Strathclyde) and Goddodin (Lothians) in the 10th century. It was the language of the ancient Strathclyde Britons and the same tongue as Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Dumbarton means "fort of the Britons" and the towns of Renfrew and Renton on the Clyde are reminders of this area's British Celtic connection. Indeed the large stone at the head of Glen Falloch, called rock of the Britons, was the boundary between three Celtic kingdoms, Dalriata, Pictland and Alt cluith, and to deny this would be an insult to modern Scotland.
As the name Wallace means Welshman, Wallace's name in Gaelic was Uilleam Breatanach (William the Briton) and I am all for Gaelic signage north of Tyndrum as this was the ancient kingdom of Dalriata, where Gaelic was spoken. Tyndrum itself is an old Cumbric name.
I love the Gaelic tongue but the other Celtic tongues must not be forgotten, which brings me to the other British Celtic tongue, Pictish, which is related to Cumbric and Welsh. Scotland can never forget these languages which shaped our modern nation.
Scott Walker
Erskine
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