Gaelic names

Gill Turner makes a good point (Letters, 25 November) when she mentions that there are Gaelic place-names in lots of places in Scotland and even in Edinburgh and the southeast. This is a not uncommon

feature of a controlling elite who gave place-names to land they controlled.

Perth, in Western Australia, having a Scots name does not mean that the people who live there are all – or even largely – Scots. The same goes for Brisbane and Calgary in Canada. They, too, are Gaelic names in English-speaking territories.

Likewise, after “Lothian” (ie south-east present-day Scotland) was given to the Scots king Kenneth by King Edgar of England in 973, King Kenneth gave his faithful followers lands there, as was normal throughout Europe.

They gave place-names in their own language, Gaelic, in the south-east of Scotland. They did not ethnically cleanse the English-speaking people from their land, however.

Also interestingly, after 1070 the odd situation was that the only English-speaking court in the world was in Scotland, whilst in England it was Norman French speaking! Scots English is a native language which we should be proud of, whether we call it English, Scots, Lallans or whatever. Most of the world loves speaking our language, after all.

It is ours in this part of Scotland, just as Gaelic is a part of the history of Gaeldom and they should rightly be proud of it. However, Gaelic is not part of our tradition in Edinburgh.

ANDREW H N GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh