The Neo-Gaelic was formerly spoken in South and North Carolina and Tennessee in the United States, particularly in counties along the North Carolina/South Carolina state line and the Smoky Mountains by mostly Scottish immigrants and their descendants. The label "Neo-Gaelic" is very recent, being called "the Gaelic" or "Arsh" by its speakers.
Deriving from a mixture of Scottish and Irish dialects (particularly that of Ulster), Neo-Gaelic received profound phonological, grammatical and lexical influence from other languages spoken in the area, particularly Lowland Scots, Welsh, Cornish, and Southern German dialects. Further vocabulary came from English, African languages (via African American English dialects or creoles like Gullah), French (spoken by the Huguenots) and perhaps a handful of terms from local Native American languages.
Coming to the Carolinas and Tennessee throughout the 1700s and early 1800s, Gaelic-speaking Scottish Highlanders and Irish immigrants joined Protestant settlers from Wales, Cornwall, Southern Germany and Northern/Western France. While Gaelic speaking communities such as Robeson County, NC, encouraged the survival of the Gaelic language, many speakers became strongly influenced by the languages of other settlers - especially Scottish Lowlanders and immigrants from Wales. This led to changes in the common spoken variety that would distinguish it greatly from the Gaelic of Scotland and Ireland: a simpler phonological and grammatical system, the loss of initial mutations, etc.
As Gaelic died out in these areas and English became the common language of the increasingly multi-ethnic communities, Neo-Gaelic was no longer spoken. Today, people of Scottish and Irish descent in these states interested in preserving their cultural heritage usually learn the standard varieties of those languages.
