 The school in Embo was designed by William Fowler in 1859.Nancy Dorian's research of the local East Sutherland Gaelic dialect showed that in 1964, over 100 of the village's total population of fewer than 300 still actively spoke Gaelic, and that many more had a "smattering" or were perfect passive bilinguals.This percentage even briefly increased during the 1970s with "returners" to the village.