Linguistic innovation among Glasgow gaelic new speakers

Abstract

This chapter discusses new speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Glasgow. In particular, I focus on adolescent speakers in Gaelic immersion education and discuss their linguistic behaviour within the wider context of the revitalisation of Gaelic. Three phonetic features are considered in detail: tone and intonation, vowels, and laterals. The speakers in this study produce these phonetic features in ways which differ from the traditional Highland and Island Gaelic communities, and are instead typically Glaswegian. I discuss the future development potential in this new way of speaking Gaelic.