Gaelic

How does one go about saving a 2, 000 year old language?

I once tried to get an idea off the ground that would make it work. My idea was to help what were then called RMLs (Regional Minority Languages) prosper. How? The idea was based on the concept of 'language economies'. in Ireland the government spent huge enterprise budgets on attracting jobs to Gaelic speaking areas. It backfired as when Irish speakers returned to the Gaelic speaking area were they grew up and brought their English speaking family with them..

My idea then was create a RML support 'mark' across Europe so that minority language speakers could, in solidarity, buy products whereby the producing company's operations; administration, operating manuals and so on were all in and supportive of the minority language. This would create a boom in translating to and from Eurpean language straight into Gaelic which, if subsidised, would mean operating in the RMLs would be more cost-effective than English. It would mean you couldn't work in such a company unless you spoke the language. Success in your career then would mean literacy in Gaelic or Basque or Flemish was materially useful and so language learning was not just a bore that some 'cultural nationalists' forced you into but it paid the bills. Once the model is thus presented then there is no case for denying that 'enterprise grants' are not 'language neutral'. In Gaelic speaking areas hundreds of millions of pounds were being spent on enterprise schemes. Consequently, the £10 million a year that the government was giving to Gaelic would have been but a drop in the ocean. I took the idea to a Gaelic supporter and former merchant banker Sir Iain Noble who liked the idea. Unfortunately, at that point I had problems with my personal life. I wound up my own translation agency business and moved to Spain where I now teach English.

Many Scots are very dismissive of support to Gaelic and think that support is a waste of money. Ok, let's look at it one way - how much money has been spent on English in Gaelic speaking areas over the last few hundred years? In schools, libraries, post office stationary, official documents and so on? Incalcuable. Let's just say English owes a lot more money to Gaelic than it currently gets back by a long margin!

Such ignorance about a language which is a vital part of Scotland's heritage is angering to me, a lowland Scot, so imagine what it feels like for a Gael who's culture is continually denigrated by those they consider their 'fellow countrymen'?

Imagine then also that such an important media outlet as The Herald on Sunday indulges in such crass cultural vandalism?:

Leave endangered languages to die in peace

This article was brought to my attention by those who run the excellent Bella Caledonia blog. I would like to take the time to dismantle this Herald piece myself but I really couldn't do it better than their own blog entry which contains an article written by Alasdair Mac Gill-eain:



Bad Language & Dodo Journalism

In In 2006, the £4 million (equivalent to only one mile of two-lane road) Glasgow Gaelic School threw open its doors in the city’s west end to a mere 320 pupils. This was to meet enormous pent up demand (to which it is having to expand to meet). This, and simple initiatives to recognise our cultural heritage after decades of abuse and neglect is too much for the commentariat. The tired predictable argument is that the latest onslaught of cuts should be made to our culture and our language evoking the response: Cuimhnichibh air na daoine bho ‘n d’thainig sibh (Remember the people whom you come from).

Read on here.