The first university courses in Gaelic studies in the US will be launched next year.

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be able to pick up the subject during the 2018/19 academic year, with the visiting lectureship funded by Scottish Heritage USA (SHUSA).

The funding comes after a campaign by the Scottish Gaelic Foundation of the United States (Gaelic USA) to establish the lectureship.

It describes Scottish Gaelic culture as a "missing piece" of America's national story.

The university is the oldest public university in US and is ranked as one of the top 30 universities and colleges in the country by the US News and World Report and the Wall Street Journal.

The university's department of English and comparative literature will host the lectureship, with four or five courses enabling students to explore literature, identity, and folklore from a Scottish Highland perspective.

It is hoped it will be the first step towards a broader goal of endowing a full chairman in Scottish Gaelic Studies at the institution.

SHUSA president Rev Dr Douglas Kelly said: "The Carolinas were home to the largest Gaelic-speaking communities outside of Scotland for generations and people of Highland ancestry still make up a large segment of the region's population.

"This donation from SHUSA fulfils its commitment to serving the Scottish-American community by ensuring the recognition of this important cultural legacy."

He added: "I was keenly aware of my Scottish Highland heritage when I was a student at the University of North Carolina and had always wanted to see Gaelic taught there. Now, I may live to see that happen."

Edinburgh University's Celtic chairman Professor Robert Dunbar, welcomed the announcement.

He said: "We are greatly encouraged to see that students at North Carolina will be able to connect with an important and sadly neglected part of the heritage of the state and, indeed, of North America in general, and that desperately-needed research on the very rich legacy of new world Gaels will be facilitated."

Professor Thomas Owen Clancy, Celtic professor at Glasgow University, said: "This is fantastic and unlooked-for news, a real ray of hope.

"At a time when academic posts are shrinking in Celtic Studies generally on both sides of the Atlantic, this investment in Gaelic in the University of North Carolina will make a real difference, and Chapel Hill is most certainly the right place to host this."