, acceptance = , image = , imagesize = , imagealt = , imagecaption = , pronunciation = , states = , region = Eastern coast of Sutherland , creator = , created = , setting = , ethnicity = , extinct = , era = , speakers = 1 , date = 2017 , dateprefix = , ref = , refname = , speakers2 = , revived = , revived-category = , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Celtic , fam3 = Insular Celtic , fam4 =

Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically ...

, fam5 =

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...

, ancestor =

Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Ársa), also called Proto-Goidelic, is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages. It is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the ogham alphabet in Ireland ...

, ancestor2 =

Old Gaelic Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...

, ancestor3 = Middle Gaelic , ancestor4 =

Classical Gaelic Classical Gaelic or Classical Irish () was a shared literary form of Gaelic that was in use by poets in Scotland and Ireland from the 13th century to the 18th century. Although the first written signs of Scottish Gaelic having diverged from Ir ...

, standards = , stand1 = , stand2 = , dialects = , listclass = , dia1 = , dia2 = , script = , sign = , posteriori = , nation = , minority = , agency = , iso1 = , iso1comment = , iso2 = , iso2b = , iso2t = , iso2comment = , iso3 = , iso3comment = , lc1 = , ld1 = , lc2 = , ld2 = , iso6 = , isoexception = , linglist = , lingname = , linglist2 = , lingname2 = , glotto = , glottoname = , glottofoot = , glottorefname = , glotto2 = , glottoname2 = , glottorefname2 = , aiatsis = , aiatsisname = , aiatsis2 = , aiatsisname2 = , guthrie = , lingua = , lingua_ref = , ietf = , map = , mapsize = , mapalt = , mapcaption = , map2 = , mapalt2 = , mapcaption2 = , pushpin_map = , pushpin_image = , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_map_caption = , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_label = , pushpin_label_position = , coordinates = , module = , notice = IPA East Sutherland Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig Chataibh ) is an obsolescent dialect of

which was spoken in fishing villages on the eastern coast of Sutherland, especially in Brora,

Golspie Golspie ( , gd, Goillspidh) is a village and parish in Sutherland, Highland, Scotland, which lies on the North Sea coast in the shadow of Ben Bhraggie. It has a population of around 1,350. History The name derives from the Norse for "gull ...

, and

Embo Embo ( gd, Eurabol, IPA: �iaɾəpɔɫ̪ is a village in the Highland Council Area in Scotland and the former postal county of Sutherland, about north-northeast of Dornoch. On 16 July 1988, Embo declared itself independent from the rest of the ...

History

The

language has been in decline since the fourteenth century, when its speakers were a majority of Scotland's population, due to the higher

prestige Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...

of Scots, then later of English. The East Sutherland dialect was spoken in coastal villages by fisherfolk descended from Gaelic speakers who had been evicted from the fertile interior valleys of Sutherland during the Highland Clearances of the early nineteenth century. Because of their occupational, social, and geographical isolation, the fisherfolk retained the use of the Gaelic language about half a century longer than surrounding communities, in the process becoming isolated from other dialects of Gaelic. East Sutherland speakers could only understand other dialects of Gaelic with difficulty, if at all. By the turn of the twentieth century, Gaelic was still the community language; there were even a few

monolingual Monoglottism (Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

speakers. Although the decline of the fishing industry following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

had impacted the local dialect's viability, when

Nancy Dorian Nancy Currier Dorian is an American linguist who has carried out research into the decline of the East Sutherland dialect of Scottish Gaelic for over 40 years, particularly in the villages of Brora, Golspie and Embo. Due to their isolation fro ...

started studying the dialect in 1963, there were still more than 200 speakers in Brora,

and

, including 105 in Embo, where they were more than a third of the population. Dorian found that the Gaelic language was able to adapt to modern life even while becoming moribund, because speakers were able to borrow words from English and apply them to any discussion, even for highly technical topics. She was able to classify speakers as "older fluent speakers", "younger fluent speakers", and "semi-speakers", describing the linguistic differences between each speaker type. The socioeconomically homogeneous community was characterized by a high degree of variation between speakers, even those classified in the same speaker type. Certain types of syntactic distinctions, such as

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...

, case markings, and the two passive constructions, were lost gradually, rather than erased wholesale, as some theoreticians had predicted. By the 1991 census, the number of speakers had declined to less than a twentieth of a century earlier. One of two remaining

native speakers A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

, Wilma Ross of Embo, died in 2017; the

terminal speaker Within the linguistic study of endangered languages, sociolinguists distinguish between different speaker types based on the type of competence they have acquired of the endangered language. Often when a community is gradually shifting away from ...

is her sister Jessie.

Study

The East Sutherland dialect became well known in the field of

language death In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the de ...

based on the research by Nancy Dorian, beginning in 1963. Dorian's 1981 book ''Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect'', was described by Wolfgang U. Dressler as "the first major monograph" on language death.

References

Citation

Bibliography

* * * * * * {{Scottish Gaelic linguistics Scottish Gaelic dialects Brora Sutherland Endangered Celtic languages