Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic ( ), locally just Gaelic or The Gaelic, refers to the dialects of Scottish Gaelic that have been spoken continuously for more than 200 years on Cape Breton Island and in isolated enclaves on the Nova Scotia mainland. To a lesser extent the language is also spoken on nearby Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Glengarry County in present-day Ontario and by emigrant Gaels living in major Canadian cities such as Toronto. At its peak in the mid-19th century, Gaelic, considered together with the closely related Irish language, was the third most spoken language in Canada after English and French. The language has sharply declined since that period, however, and is now nearly extinct. Recently, efforts have been made to revitalise the language.
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