i grew up in rural north east nova scotia. we were sirrounded with people who sand traditional songs in english french and gaelic. no one called it folk. if anyhting it was called scottish or acadien music. we had no concept there were lowland scotts, it was quite a shoc
k to me when i wnet to scotland, particularily because of the hatred there of highlanders(again their term--we never used it except for the games) we called ourselves celts or scotts, or acadien as you have it.

my first songs were galic lullabys and my first three albums were omar blondin sings the songs od newfoundland, doc watson and the cat came back, and the clancy brothers songs of rebellion and revolution(being eythniclly cleansed scotts we had a lot of sympathy with the ethnic cleaning in ireland--although again we didn't call it that then, we mosdtly called it transportation--but every one knew of the terrible conditions and the low survival rate for the early transportees)

i discovered later that we were not considered folk by the sixties and seventies folk people in london england and vancouver. the world is wierd and "folk' is full of wierd people building empires in their minds. so i oprefer to call whast i do celtic or traditional music(i do play some acadien music)