"Late in the 19th century 100,000 residents of Cape Breton spoke Gaelic, today fewer than 1,000 speak it in the province," I often wonder about the figures banded about and isn't it true that the Canadian census doesn't even differentiate between Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. I know wiki gives the figure as between 500 and 1,000 but for instance the attached Nova Scotian site suggests there are less than 500 speakers of Scottish Gaelic left in the whole of Nova Scotia - never mind just Cape Breton. hence if that is so Nova Scotia has a lot less Gaelic speakers per head than even the most un-Gaelic parts of Scotland like the Borders and Northern Isles. Though it is great that the language is still spoken there it probably is true that the only place where Gaelic is a viable community language is in the Western Isles of Scotland.

"Today there are estimated to be less than 500 native Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, many of these seniors in the community; whereas 100 years ago there were over 50,000 native speakers. In 1901, Gaelic speakers in some areas of eastern Nova Scotia, particularly in over half of Cape Breton, Gaelic speakers comprised 75 to 100 percent of the population."

https://www.novascotia.ca/oga/pubs/GaelicStrategy-English.pdf


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