Why is the Gaelic language dying out?
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Gaelic (let’s say Scottish Gaelic) has been marginalized to the point that life would be very difficult for someone who spoke exclusively Gaelic. Most of the people you meet will speak to you in English. Most media is in English. Most signs and official documents are in English. As a result, essentially everyone who speaks Gaelic also speaks English.
This makes the language less likely to spread to future generations. Parents may choose to speak English in the home, especially if one of the parents is not fluent in Gaelic. This means children grow up learning only English during their primary language acquisition years. In the next generation you now have even more locals who don’t speak Gaelic so even more families that speak English in the home. Rinse and repeat until nobody speaks Gaelic in the home and possibly anywhere.
This path can be avoided, but it takes a conscious effort on the part of both parents and schools to maintain the language. In some places that effort is being made, and it’s unlikely that Gaelic will ever fully “die out” in the sense of having no fluent speakers. However, even famously “dead” languages like Latin clear this bar. They only places where Gaelic could currently be said to be “alive” in the sense of being the primary language of a community is in very remote parts of the Hebrides, and that is unlikely to last forever.
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