Age structure of LOCAL Gaelic speakers in Upper Deeside 1891 and 1911
The above graphs show the change tha occurred in numbers and age structure of Aberdeenshire Gaelic speakers in the area, over the 20 year interval between 1891 and 1911 - in both cases there were no persons for whom Gaelic was their only language. The largest group is seen to be women in their 60s and 70s i.e. women born before 1831. The numbers in younger age groups for this year show an overall decline from those in the seventh decile (i.e. aged 60+)
It can be seen from the 1911 graph that, with three exceptions, in 1911 all the local Gaelic speakers were over 40 years of age. This means that parents of upper Deeside must have stopped speaking Gaelic to their children about 1870 (the youngest Gaelic speaker, apart from the exceptions shown on the graph, is shown as being 40 years old). It is interesting to note that the railway from Aberdeen reached Ballater in 1866 - this line brought many changes to Deeside, particularly due to its use by Queen Victoria and her Royal Family. It could be that rapid decline in the use of Gaelic was one of these changes.
The youngest exception was Ian Alistair Grant, shown on the 1911 census as aged 7, living with his Gaelic speaking parents at Mar Forest (near Mar Lodge). He died in Braemar aged 77 in 1980. The last native speaker of Aberdeenshire Gaelic was Mrs Jean Bain, born in London 1890 but brought up by her Gaelic speaking uncle and aunt at Claybokie, Inverey. Mrs Bain died in 1984 (see Watson & Clement,1981)
Although the sample is small, there is a greater number of men than women over the age of 50 who spoke Gaelic. While this could be a chance variation, it can be seen that there are more women in this age group than men, born outwith the district. This may be related to women, on marriage, moving away from where they were born to set up home with a local husband. This inwards movement of non-Gaelic speaking women, together with a presumed corresponding outward movement of Gaelic speaking women to other areas, may have been a contributary factor in the demise of Deeside Gaelic.
The 1891 Census shows a small number of families in upper Deeside and Donside where both parents were Gaelic speakers and where at least one of the children, recorded in the family, was Gaelic speaking (normally the oldest child), with the others being non-Gaelic speaking.
YoB YoB
Youngest Oldest non-Gaelic
surname residence parish Gaelic child child
Stewart Belhandy Strathdon 1874 1878
McDougall Allanaquoich Crathie & Braemar 1858 1872
Grant Havelock Crathie & Braemar 1870 1872
Lamond Balnoe Crathie & Braemar 1855 1862
Sim Castleton Crathie & Braemar 1850 1862
YoB = Year of Birth
It would appear from this that the switch to English or Scots took place early in the second half of the 19th century, taking over a century for the language to disappear in its local form in western Aberdeenshire. The North-East Scots dialect, sometimes referred to as Doric, which replaced Gaelic. has now also been on the wane - but that is a subject for another essay! Meanwhile echoes of the language live on in the abundance of Gaelic placenames in the area, particularly in the Cairngorm mountains, though without the local flavour of spoken Aberdeenshire Gaelic. e.g. Beinn 'a Bhuird appears on OS maps but locally was rendered as 'Ping Burd' while Corriemulzie - the birth pace of John Lamond - is rendered by Diack as 'corr-vullyi'
. Much more detail on this topic can be found in ‘The Place Names of Upper Deeside' (Watson and Allan, 1984)