I've gotten a chuckle from this - and have to counter with "why NOT Gaelic?" For the same reasons that someone else put in. Also, to be inclusive in perhaps one of the two areas of UK where English is not the native language. I was just mentioning to someone a conversation in the fall of 1996 with the poet Uilleam Neill (Willie Neill) who lives in Crossmichael in the Stewartry, wherein the question arose of what sort of Gaelic was spoken in what's now Dumfries & Galloway in centuries past. Willie, for those who don't know him, is an ardent Scottish nationalist and fluent Gaelic speaker who has edited many books of literature and poetry in that language. His take on the matter is that very early on, that area was largely populated by the P-Celtic-speaking Brythonic Celts who occupied a large part of England and Wales, but that at about the same time as the Irish Scoti (speaking a Q-Celtic language we now call Gaelic) moved in a large number to settle in western Scotland and to form a Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, quite a number did move south of the Clyde River as well, the land being excellent. He feels there is no question that the various Celts managed to understand each other despite the Brythons saying "pen" for head and the Scoti saying "ceann," nearly the same pronunciation, one using P and one using a K sound, easily understood once you get the idea. Then, it seems that he had found descriptions of Prince Charlie's army of highlanders and Irish moving through the area on their way into England, with Gaelic being the language in use ... and he stressed that the locals in D&G had no problem in understanding or conversing with the soldiers. Beyond that, I am reminded constantly of how far people traveled in early days, on foot or on horseback or later in carriage or wagon, and it is truly impressive, and not just in UK, I mean all over the world. With the need for trade and exploration, not to mention war and exploitation, it makes sense that folks from north of the Highland Line would travel southward to look around, trade, take up residence, and so on. There were always pathfinders and always people to follow along the paths. So I agree with Willie that there would have been folks who spoke the Gaelic in D&G (probably still are), mixed in with Brythonic Celts, Angles and Saxons and Normans, the latter of whom were merely Norse folk who, in their travels by sea and land, found a nice place that's now called Normandie, after them, and settled there, the same way they settled in Scotland, northern England, and Ireland. The growing season was much longer in those places than in Norway, from which most of them came. Same with Highlanders/Islanders, who may have found the more southern lands much more suitable to farming than those in the stony hills up north and west. And Shetland and Orkney, along with Sutherland and Caithness, were owned by Norway (after the viking invasions started in AD 793, many vikings and Norse farmers settled in those areas as well as in Northern England and Ireland and Man) and were given to Scotland when Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who was granddaughter of Alexander III, was to inherit his crown and become queen of Scotland in 1290 at the age of 7, and Edward I had the grand idea of marrying her to his son Edward (II). But the boat she was on went down in a storm, there was a fight for the regency, John Balliol was elected as regent, and Edward I found this a good enough reason to try to subjugate Scotland. But that's why the name Sutherland, or "south land," which was the southernmost county of Norway, is at the top of Scotland. Scotland accepted the land in lieu of the queen and has kept it since. Yes, there were also vikings from Denmark, but that's another history lesson. Cheers - Muff On Monday, November 15, 2004, at 07:00 AM, DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY-D-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > From: "James Milligan" <jimbobaloobub@btinternet.com> > To: <DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 5:03 AM > Subject: [D-G LIST] Why Gaelic? > > >> I am surprised that so many people, especially on this list, are >> taken in > by the notion that we are somehow connected to Gaelic culture - > witness a > call for a Gaelic passport. What absolutely self deluding, pathetic, > romantic nonsense. Historically we are not. This myth struck up with > the > Victorian novelists and has the world thinking we are haggis eating, > kilt > wearing Gaelic whinging twits. OK, go back several hundred years and > people > from South West Scotland did speak some form of Gaelic (perhaps more > associated more with Cardiff than Stornoway) - but then go back even > further > and we were probably all Ethiopians. Muff Worden Ranargata 3 710 Seydisfjordur Iceland Phone: +354-472-1775 Mobile/Cell/GSM: +354-849-2744 Web: www.geocities.com/mworden.geo/

Innes McLeod's Galloway (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers (1986), ISBN 0-85976-114-2) says, at pages 87-88: "After the collapse of Northumbria, Anglian 'governors' and landed men and churchmen may still have maintained some order in galloway into the 900s or even the 920s, but they were eventually overwhelmed by new invaders from the north and the west, the Gall-Ghaiidhil or 'foreign Gaels', partly pagan and partly Christian, men from the Hebrides and Kintyre and from Ireland and Man. National and notional boundaries changed between Britons of Strathclyde and Scots and Picts and Danes and Norsemen with alarming rapidity, but Galloway was securely part of the new North Sea empire from Norway and Iceland and Greenland to the Faroes and Shetlands and Orkneys to Man, and eastern Ireland and Cumberland through most of the tenth and eleventh centuries." I can't find the reference now, but I'm sure I've read that many Galloway place names have Norse origins. Fleet, as in Water of Fleet, was one (from "flojt"?) and I think Twynholm was another. Cheers. Dan MacMeekin At 12:47 PM 11/15/2004 +0000, Muff Worden <muff@eldhorn.is> wrote: >. . . >And Shetland and Orkney, along with Sutherland and Caithness, were owned >by Norway (after the viking invasions started in AD 793, many vikings and >Norse farmers settled in those areas as well as in Northern England and >Ireland and Man) and were given to Scotland when Margaret, the Maid of >Norway, who was granddaughter of Alexander III, was to inherit his crown >and become queen of Scotland in 1290 at the age of 7, and Edward I had the >grand idea of marrying her to his son Edward (II). But the boat she was >on went down in a storm, there was a fight for the regency, John Balliol >was elected as regent, and Edward I found this a good enough reason to try >to subjugate Scotland. But that's why the name Sutherland, or "south >land," which was the southernmost county of Norway, is at the top of >Scotland. Scotland accepted the land in lieu of the queen and has kept it >since. > >Yes, there were also vikings from Denmark, but that's another history lesson. > >Cheers - > >Muff Dan MacMeekin Silver Spring, Maryland, USA Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society member #2839 Researching McMiken, McMekin, McMeekin, McMichan, etc. from Girthon and Anwoth parishes, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland