Talk:Canadian Gaelic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good article Canadian Gaelic has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
May 17, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
Canada Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada and related WikiProjects, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Canada-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project member page, to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Languages, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, and easy-to-use resource about languages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
language Portal
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
WikiProject Celts Canadian Gaelic is within the scope of WikiProject Celts, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Celts. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article or you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks or take part in the discussion. Please Join, Create, and Assess. The project aims for no vandalism and no conflict.
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the Project's quality scale.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the Project's importance scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.


I have located a document that lists several different Gaelic lexical items unique to Canada here but unfortunately it's a scholarly journal and I can't access the information. Strangely, however, searching through google returns one or two words, so piece-by-piece I am putting together a list. If anyone has access to this journal site (JSTOR) please find out these terms! —Muckapædia 6e mai 2007, 2h12 (UTC+0900) 머크백과 tǂc


Should this page not be called ' Scots Gaelic in Canada' ? There is no dialect difference between scots gaelic in canada and in scotland.. infact cape breton is said to have preserved local gaelic dialects from scotland (eg: the barra accent) better than in scotland...

If you had read the article prior to writing your post, you would have learned that there are documented dialect differences between the Gaelic of Cape Breton and that of Scotland. If you had read the discussion page prior to writing your post, you would have read about the rationale behind the page name.—Muckapædia 6e avr. 2007, 1h17 (UTC+0900) 머크백과 tǂc

Swingbeaver 03h41, 21 August 2005 (GMT-5h00) says:

I noticed that the article was renamed from "Canadian Gaelic" to "Canadian Gaelic language." I have changed it back, because I feel it's important readers understand this is not a language per se, but a regional variety. There are articles on Canadian French and Canadian English, and this page is analagous to those.

Contents

[edit] Gaelic name

The Gaelic name was given as Gàidhlig na Canada, which is ungrammatical in Gaelic because Canada is a masculine noun (na is the feminine genitive singular form of the definite article), and it doesn't take the definite article anyway. I changed it to Gàidhlig Chanada, which is grammatically correct, but that is still a neologism and has no Google hits. Probably Gaelic speakers would just call it Gàidhlig ann an Canada ("Gaelic in Canada") or Gàidhlig na h-Alba ann an Canada ("Scottish Gaelic in Canada"). --Angr/tɔk tə mi 19:58, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

Again, this page has been renamed to "Canadian Gaelic" in accordance with Wikipedia article naming conventions. Currently there are four articles which exist on Wikipedia that describe European languages with Canadian dialects: French, English, Ukranian and Gaelic. The titles of the first three articles are Canadian French, Canadian English, and Canadian Ukrainian.

The special problem with Gaelic is that there are (at least) two distinct living versions (Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic, classified as separate languages by some, seperate dialects by others), and the version pertinent to this article is Scottish Gaelic. By not putting "Scottish" in the title of the article, it becomes ambiguous to some.

It should not be, however, for the following reasons:

  1. Throughout the language's history in this country, it has been almost universally known as -- by both speakers and non-speakers -- as simply "Gaelic." The Scottish variety of Gaelic is the only one to currently have Canadian-born native speakers.
  2. In the UK, where the language originated, the two varieties are commonly referred to as "Irish" and "Gaelic," rather than as "Irish Gaelic" and "Scottish Gaelic." This is necessary to avoid ambiguity. The inclusion of "Canadian" does exactly this for the purposes of this article, and for the purpose of referring to the variety of Gaelic spoken in Canada.
  3. The belief that "Scots Gaelic" or "Scottish Gaelic" is straight-forwardly the name of the language, and that the article should therefore be titled "Canadian Scots Gaelic," "Canadian Scottish Gaelic," or some further combination complicates the article, oversimplifies the issue, hinders intelligibility and ignores all the points I have made above. —Muckapædia 11h08, 21e Octobre 2006 (GMT +9h00)

A name which would be in a similar vein to Canadian French, Canadian English, Canadian Ukrainian etc would be Canadian Scottish Gaelic. French, English and Ukrainian are all specific languages while Gaelic, regardless of how the term may be used colloquially, refers to a language grouping. The title Canadian Gaelic is misleading and is the equivalent of naming the article on French in Canada Canadian Romance/ English in Canada Canadian Germanic. siarach 11:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, with regard to your statement:
The special problem with Gaelic is that there are (at least) two distinct living versions (Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic, classified as separate languages by some, seperate dialects by others)
I disagree - there is no special problem with regard to these languages anymore than there is with French being part of the dialect continuum of Romance languages. I cannot recall anybody (who is knowledgeable on the issue and speaking in modern times) seriously putting forward the opinion that Irish and Scottish gaelic are anything but seperate languages - the fact that that they are mutually unintelligable stops there being much debate on this issue ( now if a Gaelic dialect continuum still existed there might be reasonable case for an argument but there isnt so there isnt ). Anyway regardless of this the fact remains that the correct article title, if you wish to maintain a level of consistency with the other Canadian language articles you mention, is Canadian Scottish Gaelic. siarach 11:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the recent page move: First of all, Muckapedia, please use the "Move" function when you want to move an article. Don't just replace text with a redirect. If the "Move" function doesn't work because the intended target already has a history, please use WP:RM to get an admin to move the page for you. I have now merged the histories of the two pages, but it's a pain in the ass and I don't want to have to do it again. As for the name itself, I don't think "Canadian Gaelic" is really ambiguous since Irish is almost never called Gaelic unmodified except by a few elderly people in Ireland. "Canadian Scottish Gaelic" does sound rather odd. I was partial to the old name "Scottish Gaelic in Canada" myself. What does the published literature call it? —Angr 11:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
A Shiaraich, the main thrust of your comment seems to be exactly what I hoped to address with the third bulleted point of my original post. For an example of the Scottish Gaelic Language being referred to as simply "Gaelic" by a reputable source, I direct you here, as well as to almost every source document I cited in the Notes and References section of the main article. Gaelic is not to my knowledge a family of languages, as you claim --- if it is then I would enjoy reading your sources. There is no official name for the Scottish Gaelic language, because there is no international body empowered to bestow such a name. The only standard is international consensus, which I agree in matters dealing with the dialect spoken in Scotland is clear ("Scottish Gaelic"), but in discussing the dialect spoken in Canada custom has also been just as clear ("Gaelic"). Among native speakers and their descendants in Canada, the country at the centre of the article, the language is known as "Gaelic," fullstop.
I recognise (for the second time in this page) that there is the potential for confusion, but as the Scottish variety of Gaelic is the only one that may reasonably claim native-speakers born on Canadian soil, there should not be confusion. Scottish Gaelic is a variety of Gaelic in the same sense that Morroccan Arabic is a variety of Arabic (with the only substantial difference being that Scottish and Irish Gaelic are *more* mutually comprehensible than, say, Morroccan and Iraqi Arabic).
Beyond these points, which I really believe have been sufficiently addressed, the additional problem is that the so-called proper title you suggest --- namely "Canadian Scottish Gaelic" --- compels the appearance of another country's name in a language spoken by people with limited ties to that country. You are basically telling Canadian Gaelic speakers that the language they speak is more accurately "Scottish Gaelic," than it is "Canadian Gaelic," even though the speakers are themselves more Canadian than they are Scottish. That's an untenable paradox. —Muckapædia 30e nov. 2006, 21h33 (UTC+0900) 머크백과


First of all Gaelic does indeed refer to a family of languages - as is shown by the very wikipedia articles dealing with the topics. Secondly your final argument is subjective ( as well as being rather peculiar considering Canadian French, Canadian English etc).The language canadian Gaelic speakers speak IS Scottish Gaelic - this is totally undeniable. The fact that its speakers are of Canadian, rather than British/Scottish, nationality has no more a bearing upon the correct designation/name of the language than the Canadian nationality of the Quebecois has on the correct designatiion of their their language as a form of French. Ive said it before and il say it again - colloquial terms/norms/views should not be given precedence over technically correct nomenclature. Mentioned and stated yes, but never give precedence over the correct forms. At the moment this article could well be seen as going against Wikipedia:No Original Research and WP:NPOV and several of the points ive put forward previously stand unanswered - particularly regarding the comparative situation with Canadian French and other languages which you argue should be treated differently to Canadian Scottish Gaelic. I am indeed stating that the language Canadian Gaelic speakers use is more accurately "Scottish Gaelic" just as i would state that speakers of Canadian French speak a language more accurately named "Canadian French" rather than "Canadian Romance". There is no paradox to be found here. siarach 13:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The article cannot be named "Scottish Gaelic in Canada" because the standard naming practice has been "Canadian something." Changing this convention for Gaelic would necessarily imply that Gaelic is somehow less Canadian than English, French, or Ukrainian.
The problem is that there is little to no precedent as regards the name of the dialect spoken in Canada. Its speakers call it Gaelic, but you say that's ambiguous. Yet, the dialect exists, and the subject clearly requires a Wikipedia article. I am flattered by your accusation of No Original Research and NPOV, but neither charge resolves the issue at hand.
On the other hand Canadian Scottish Gaelic sounds weird, clearly, but more to the point it is also ambiguous. Primarily, is the Gaelic under discussion Canadian or Scottish? If the language were still called Erse this problem would not exist and you would be unquestionably right. Unfortunately this is not the case, and despite the fact that you feel the name has no bearing, it does — the special nature of *this* language's name in *this* article creates problems. An article entitled Canadian Gaelic, which may be guilty of the sin of not specifying what variety of Gaelic it is exactly, is on the other hand more immediately comprehensible. By changing the name to Canadian Scottish Gaelic, the clarity gained in specifying which variety of Gaelic, is more than outweighed by the impenetrability of the title.
Your definition of Gaelic as the term describing a "family of languages" is interesting though. It would seem then that by merging the Newfoundland Irish article into the Canadian Gaelic article, the problem would be solved. The topic of the article then would be the Gaelic "family of languages" as spoken in Canada, rather than solely the Scottish or Irish varieties.
The analogy with "Canadian Romance" is nonsensical, because the Romance branch of the Indo-European Language family is analogous to the Celtic Branch, as regards Gaelic. Sociopolitically Scottish Gaelic is a fully autonomous language, but linguistically it shares enough in common with Irish Gaelic to arguably define the two as distinct dialects, although whether or not they are mutually intelligible is something else. (I should note here that mutual intelligibility is not the benchmark for whether or not a language is a dialect)...
A better analogy would be Arabic, which is commonly referred to as a language (much like Gaelic) but is in fact a collection of (or your term "family of...") mutually unintelligible languages. If an article was written on, say, a regionally distinct variety of Arabic, like say Levantine Arabic, such a hypothetical article would be analogous to the longstanding article on Scottish Gaelic. Then, if such a language had in turn its own dialect, significant enough to warrant its own article, then, according to the standards I have outlined in my three posts, such an article might be titled Palestinian Arabic, and not, by your standards, Palestinian Levantine Arabic. —Muckapædia 2e déc. 2006, 17h40 (UTC+0900) 머크백과


Comment I support any move away from "Canadian Gaelic" to something including the word Scottish. In Scotland it seems to be common to devalue the language by relieving it of the national adjective, something Irish and Manx Gaels don't put up with. And that's the other reason - Manx and Irish are Gaelic too, and Irish has been spoken in Canada. Sure, it's different from the language in Scotland, but so's "Canadian French" and "Canadian English" (although the latter isn't hugely differently).--MacRusgail 17:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gaelic endonyms

The portions of the article written by myself adhere generally to endonymic language conventions. Multiple names in the article have been supplied in their Gaelic forms --- this has been done in situations where the person's first language was Gaelic, and so their native name (read: true name) was originally Gaelic. For an analagous situation in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Irish Orthography in naming people —Muckapædia 3h00, 2e Novembre 2006 (GMT +9h00)

I would prefer if you only do that in situations where you know for certain the name origins. If we don't know for certain, the name may not have been of gaelic origin. For example, many people wrongly assume that George-Étienne Cartier was named "Georges", assuming that his would be french. Similarly, a "Thomas" might have been named after an english person, etc. --JGGardiner 08:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, but Gaelic has a special convention on this matter, owing to its historical development in such close proximity to English. Unlike most other languages, Gaelic-speakers historically had Gaelic names when using Gaelic (or by extension --- and this is the standard that I have employed for this article --- when referring to them in a Gaelic-language context), and English-derivations thereof when using English. Gaelic is one of the only languages in the world to have met a longstanding historical pogrom of assimilation through English --- anglicised placenames and personal names (essentially all proper nouns that Gaelic-speakers might have tried to employ in their English-speaking lives) were historically segregated from English.
In contrast, today in Canada the linguistic situation is the very opposite --- liberal and generally accommodating of linguistic diversity. I don't have the link on hand, but as regards French, there are only thirty or so proper nouns in Canada that are still officially translated between the two offical languages --- all the rest maintain their "native language", that is the original language in which they were named. The same is true of Inuktitut and other native languages. The link is here.
Simply put, George-Étienne Cartier only had one name, because most people only ever have one name. Gaelic speakers, on the other hand, have two, and because Gaelic is the focus of this article, I have used the Gaelic variant of names when the choice is available (ie, when the person was a native speaker of Gaelic). —Muckapædia 26e mai 2007, 12h34 (UTC+0900) 머크패저 TALK/ CONTRIBS

[edit] Last Gaelic immigrants in NS

"It is estimated more than 50 000 Gaelic settlers immigrated to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island during this period, the last ship arriving in 1840."[9]

The source referenced there doesn't actually say the last ship arrived in 1840. What it actually says is that Scottish emigration to North America was fairly constant from 1815-1870. Perhaps the person who contributed the above meant 1870 instead of 1840, but my sketchy knowledge of history won't permit me to say for sure whether the last ship really did arrive in 1870.

The source referenced above refers to North America as a whole, but I think the date of 1840 is also wrong if applied only to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. Some of my Gaelic-speaking MacLeod ancestors arrived in Nova Scotia on a ship called the John and Robert in 1843 (they'd left Tobermory on the Catherine but had to change ships in Belfast). I've changed the date from 1840 to between 1815 and 1870. Iordan MacBheatha 02:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA pass

This article is well written and comprehensive. I would even go as far to say that, with a bit of expansion, it would be FA-material. A lot of very good work clearly went into this article! ErleGrey 23:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "...in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Eastern Québec"

This must surely be somewhat limiting. My family on both sides were Gaelic speakers in the District of Assiniboia, later the Province of Saskatchewan; their roots were respectively in Ontario and eastern Quebec, yes, but clearly they briefly brought the language with them. I well recall great aunts and uncles in the 1970s giggling about the fact that all they could now remember were swear words; but the policy of corporal punishment in school for speaking it certainly also pertained there and it seems unlikely there would have been any such policy if instances of its being spoken were rare. Masalai (talk) 00:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pugwash, Nova Scotia

Pugwash has a population of gaelic speaking residents. All the road sings are in both english and gaelic, but Pugwash isn't mentioned in the article nor placed on the map. Perhaps it's too small, but Pugwash has quite the history. What do you guys thing? Notible enough for inclusion or even a mention? QBasicer (talk) 04:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)