Scottish Gaelic or Scots Gaelic, sometimes referred to as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Celtic and Indo-European language family, native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish, it became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by Gaels in both Ireland and Scotland down to the 16th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced by Gaelic-language placenames. In the 2011 census of Scotland, 57,375 people reported as able to speak Gaelic, 1,275 fewer than in 2001; the highest percentages of Gaelic speakers were in the Outer Hebrides. There are revival efforts, the number of speakers of the language under age 20 did not decrease between the 2001 and 2011 censuses. Outside Scotland, a dialect known as Canadian Gaelic has been spoken in eastern Canada since the 18th century. In the 2016 national census, nearly 4,000 Canadian residents claimed knowledge of Scottish Gaelic.

Scottish Gaelic is not an official language of the United Kingdom. However, it is classed as an indigenous language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which the British government has ratified, the Gaelic Language Act 2005 established a language-development body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig. Aside from "Scottish Gaelic", the language may be referred to as "Gaelic", pronounced in English. "Gaelic" refers to the Manx language. Scottish Gaelic is distinct from Scots, the Middle English-derived language varieties which had come to be spoken in most of the Lowlands of Scotland by the early modern era. Prior to the 15th century, these dialects were known as Inglis by its own speakers, with Gaelic being called Scottis but from the late 15th century, it became common for such speakers to refer to Scottish Gaelic as Erse and the Lowland vernacular as Scottis. Today, Scottish Gaelic is recognised as a separate language from Irish, so the word Erse in reference to Scottish Gaelic is no longer used.

Based on medieval traditional accounts and the apparent evidence from linguistic geography, Gaelic has been believed to have been brought to Scotland, in the 4th–5th centuries CE, by settlers from Ireland who founded the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata on Scotland's west coast in present-day Argyll.:551:66 An alternative view has been voiced by archaeologist Dr. Ewan Campbell, who has argued that the putative migration or takeover is not reflected in archeological or placename data. Campbell has questioned the age and reliability of the medieval historical sources speaking of a conquest. Instead, he has inferred that Argyll formed part of a common Q-Celtic-speaking area with Ireland, connected rather than divided by the sea, since the Iron Age; these arguments have been opposed by some scholars defending the early dating of the traditional accounts and arguing for other interpretations of the archeological evidence. Regardless of how it came to be spoken in the region, Gaelic in Scotland was confined to Dál Riata until the eighth century, when it began expanding into Pictish areas north of the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde.

By 900, Pictish appears to have become extinct replaced by Gaelic.:238–244 An exception might be made for the Northern Isles, where Pictish was more supplanted by Norse rather than by Gaelic. During the reign of Caustantín mac Áeda, outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than as the kingdom of the Picts. However, though the Pictish language did not disappear a process of Gaelicisation was under way during the reigns of Caustantín and his successors. By a certain point during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become Gaelicised Scots, Pictish identity was forgotten. In 1018, after the conquest of the Lothians by the Kingdom of Scotland, Gaelic reached its social, cultural and geographic zenith.:16–18 Colloquial speech in Scotland had been developing independently of that in Ireland since the eighth century. For the first time, the entire region of modern-day Scotland was called Scotia in Latin, Gaelic was the lingua Scotica.:276:554 In southern Scotland, Gaelic was strong in Galloway, adjoining areas to the north and west, West Lothian, parts of western Midlothian.

It was spoken to a lesser degree in north Ayrshire, the Clyde Valley and eastern Dumfriesshire. In south-eastern Scotland, there is no evidence that Gaelic was widely spoken. Many historians mark the reign of King Malcom Canmore as the beginning of Gaelic's eclipse in Scotland, his wife Margaret of Wessex spoke no Gaelic, gave her children Anglo-Saxon rather than Gaelic names, brought many English bishops and monastics to Scotland.:19 When Malcolm and Margaret died in 1093, the Gaelic aristocracy rejected their anglicised sons and instead backed Malcolm's brother Donald Bàn. Donald had spent 17 years in Gaelic Ireland and his power base was in the Gaelic west of Scotland, he was the last Scottish monarch to be buried on Iona, the traditional burial place of the Gaelic Kings of Dàl Riada and the Kingdom of Alba. However, during the reigns of Malcolm Canmore's sons, Alexander I and David I, Anglo-Norman names and practices spread throughout Scotland south of the Forth–Clyde line a

The låtfiol is a type of fiddle native to Sweden, which features two sympathetic strings running underneath the fingerboard. According to Lennart Carlsson, fiddles with up to eight sympathetic strings were common in 18th century Sweden; the similarity in construction and the geographical proximity suggests some connection with the Western Norwegian Hardanger fiddle but further research is needed to confirm this. The word "låtfiol" translates as "tune fiddle" and is used by Swedish folk musicians for a regular violin when used to play a tune rather than a dance. Hardanger fiddle Nyckelharpa Vioara cu goarnă Kontra Rabeca Viola d'amore Lennart C Nordic Music

Timocharis is a prominent lunar impact crater located on the Mare Imbrium. It was named after ancient Greek astronomer Timocharis; the closest crater of comparable dimensions is Lambert to the west. The smaller craters Feuillée and Beer lie to the east of Timocharis; the rim of Timocharis has a somewhat polygonal outline, with an outer rampart that extends over 20 kilometers in all directions. The interior wall is slumped and terraced; the center of the floor is occupied by a craterlet. This impact has completely removed the original central peak; the crater may have a minor ray system. The lack of prominent rays puts the age of this crater at about a billion years or more. To the north of Timocharis is a tiny crater chain named the Catena Timocharis. By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint, closest to Timocharis; the following craters have been renamed by the IAU. Timocharis A — See Heinrich. Timocharis F — See Landsteiner. Timocharis K — See Pupin.

Wood, Chuck. "Ringed with Almost Nothing Visible". Lunar Photo of the Day. Archived from the original on February 10, 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-05. LTO-40B3 Kovalevskij — L&PI topographic map of crater and vicinity