I loved this bit, from a Wall Street Journal review of The Marches: A
Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland," by Rory Stewart:
>>He wryly remarks upon seeing a sign in Scottish Gaelic that reads
“Welcome to Scotland / Fàilte gu Alba”: “The people who lived on this
spot today, like 99 per cent of Scots, spoke English. Over the last
2,000 years, people here had spoken Cumbrian Welsh, Latin, Northumbrian,
Norman French, and Borders English, but they had never spoken Scottish
Gaelic and they had never called this place Alba. . . . Only 58,000
people in Scotland out of 5 million spoke Scottish Gaelic in 2012;
almost as many spoke Polish; and there were twice as many people in
Scotland of South Asian descent.” Yet the sign is in Gaelic.<<
We see the same signs in Ireland, of course. There are even make-believe
ones, like Telefon for Telephone.
-- Daniel Ford USA
