Scotland is probably THE closest example of a country to compare with in every aspect relating to the languages as to why they aren’t used more, why the majority aren’t fluent and so on.

Scotland is a bad comparison with Scottish Gàidhlig. All the gàidhlig speakers are concentrated right up at the very top of their country, and mostly on the islands. Our language is scattered around our country.

In Wales, we were all Welsh speaking before, but Scotland has never been that way. Gàidhlig never managed to cover the entire country. I've heard the argument that Gàidhlig is not the language of the country, but the language of the Highlands. This is a huge point people use against bringing the language in in lower Scotland.

Scotland's history with the language is really messy. A lot of its loss was due to Scots themselves. You had a lot of different groups/races in Scotland speaking different languages. Cumbrians, Scots, Picts, Anglo-Saxons, Normans etc. Languages and customs were constantly changing. Wales and welsh is far more consistent. Decline of Welsh is due to interference from a neighbouring country. The push against English language that is found in Wales, doesn't exist in Scotland because of this.

All this has made welsh a far more prominent language in the country than gàidhlig in Scotland. And I don't think they can be compared. Gàidhlig is not even recognised as an official language here. Only an indigenous one.

I think we're most comparable to Belarus. Belarusian has been getting slowly squeezed out by Russian.