Do ShinnsireachdGenealogy
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- Àiteachan far an cluinnear GàidhligGaelic Places Gaelic PlacesÀiteachan far an cluinnear Gàidhlig
Roghainnean CànainLanguage choices BeurlaEnglish Gàidhlig ShìmplidhSimple Gaelic GàidhligGaelic
Ùidh agad a dhol an sàs sna buidhnean?Interested in joining groups? Faic buidheannanView groups
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- GàidhligGaelic
Gaelic Places
As one song says: “Thig thugainn, thig còmhla rium gu siar, gus an cluinn sinn an cànan nan Gàidheal.” In other words, come west and you’ll hear Gaelic, and this is, in many ways still very true, as the largest concentrations of Gaelic speakers still reside on the west coast of Scotland, especially in the Highlands and Islands. Of the 58,000 or so people who speak Gaelic in Scotland today, some 40,000 of them stay in the local authority areas covered by Highland Council (Comhairle na Gàidhealtachd), Western Isles Council (Comhairle nan Eilean Siar) and Argyll and Bute Council (Comhairle Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bhòid). Many Gaelic speakers stay in rural areas, but there are also large numbers who stay in cities and in the central belt. Thousands of Gaels can be found in cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness; and so remember that Scotland’s Gaels may be few in number, but they can be found just about anywhere.
One statistic which is very difficult to calculate is: how many Gaelic speakers are there outwith Scotland? Gaels have spread far and wide, people from other countries have learnt Gaelic, and there is still a small community of Gaelic speakers in Canada. Who knows how many Gaelic speakers stay in England, or how many Germans have learnt the language? Two Gaels could meet anywhere in the world, and so wherever you are you may hear Gaelic spoken!
And one more way to hear Gaelic is in the place names of Scotland, and in the geography of Scotland. What is Calton Hill in Edinburgh but Cnoc Challtainn (or Hazel Hill)? What is Portree in Skye but Port Rìgh (or the King’s Port)? And how do we best understand Inverness, but as Inbhir Nis (or the mouth of the River Ness)? Gaelic is the key to countless other place names and it brings them to life. The same is true of so many bens (beanntan), glens (glinn) and lochs (lochan). These words depict Scotland’s landscape and without them it would be nigh-on meaningless. These words are as solid and grounded as Scotland’s crag-strewn landscape, and signpost a language and a topography which are uniquely Scottish. You can hear Gaelic in a shop, in a school, in a nightclub, on television, on top of a mountain: it rises out of the land and water of Scotland.
