More excerpts gleaned from the Gaelic-News digest:

Similar to Vitaliev, Am Peursa in The Inverness Courier. 28 February 2003 asked who "under the sun" said that a language is dead if less than 50 thousand people speak it. He cites tribal languages which are are only spoken by a few thousand people.

"Agus cò fon ghrèin a chruthaich am figear seo de leth-cheud mìle - fom bi cànan sam bith gu h-oifigeil "marbh"?

"Ma tha 49,000 duine a' bruidhinn cànan, chan urrainn gu bheil i marbh, agus shaoilinn gum biodh sin follaiseach do dhuine sam bith aig a bheil leth-eanchainne. Ann an Astràilia, mar eisimpleir, tha eadar 80 is 90 cànan dùthchasach ga bruidhinn. Chan eil ach 50,000 duine uile gu lèir anns a' bhuidhinn sin! Is, ged a tha cuid de na cànanan gun teagamh a' bàsachadh, tha feadhainn eile a tha gu math fallainn le eadar 3000 is 5000 neach-labhairt.

"Tha a' Ghàidhlig tinn is feumach air leigheas. Ach chan eil i aig uchd a' bàis, is cha bu chòir do dhaoine a bhith a' bruidhinn tuilleadh air bàs fo 50,000. Chan eil sgot aig an argamaid sin."

As Vitaliev wrote "all Scottish newspapers in their coverage of the
census quoted (with no source revealed) the figure of 50,000 language
speakers, below which, allegedly, the tongue was considered 'officially
dead'." - I finally did see an article which attributed this demarcation figure: "The registrar-general, John Randall, believes that if the number of speakers
falls below 50,000, the language will have reached the point of no return."

John Randall is named in "Scotland will lose out in a war of words" by Brian Meek in
The Herald 4th March, 2003. Meek takes a middle line on the issues of support for Gaelic language and he thinks the language-bill goes too far in requiring councils all over Scotland to draw up language plans for Gaelic, regardless of whether or not Gaelic was ever a community language in those areas.

While I have expressed my particular concern that Gaelic be conserved where it is still spoken, I note that there has been a valuable contribution to this thread from a young Gaelic learner in Aberdeen. Aberdeen is not a traditionally Gaelic area, but it has a strong Celtic dept. in its university, native-Gaelic speaking workers from the west coast and islands (once in the fishing industry, now in the oil industry) and there is apparently now a keen group of Gaelic speakers and learners in Aberdeen.