Dear Kaye,
As a speaker of the Gaelic language [and 2 others along side English], I find that your show has proved it’s own point. Out of the whole 40 minutes, more bad was said about the language than good. Having previously listened to a show hosted by yourself where the topic of Gaelic has come up, I found the tone almost exactly the same – there seems to be a large feeling of contempt and ignorance towards Gaelic, from both yourself and the general Scottish public. As such, I feel it’s important a few things are cleared up:
- Today in Scotland there are over 100,000 people with a knowledge of Gaelic – 55% of whom live in the Lowlands [with more than 15,000 in Greater Glasgow alone].
- Over 3,600 children are in currently in Gaelic Medium education [a figure which is, yet again, up on last year]. A further 10,000 learn it as a standalone subject through the medium of English. Over 1,400 adults are registered with Ùlpan and it is estimated that over 8,000 adults take short courses every year. More Universities than before offer Gaelic courses and we now have one fully bilingual University – UHI.
- By saying, “Gaelic has no word for “helicopter” or “microwave”", this goes to presume that English has a word for them. Both these words, along with countless others in English, are from Latin and Greek. Gaelic has taken them into it’s own orthography in the same way that French [hélicoptère/micro-onde [micro (micro) + onde (wave)]] and Spanish have [helicóptero/microonda]. For what it is worth, the Gaelic for helicopter is “heileacoptair” and "microwave is “meanbh-thonn”.
- We heard the last caller say to the BnaG rep., “It seems that you obviously didn’t understand. Probably because I was speaking English.” [Therefor inferring that he was stupid because he speaks Gaelic]. This is a prime case of where mockery crosses the line. Would the caller have been allowed to say that to a speaker of Hindi or Polish? The problem here is that because it is said against Gaelic it is seen as acceptable.
- The issue of road signs also appears to be a rather major one. It is true that bilingual signs are replacing [note, replacing] English ones but the idea that they are being thrown up left, right and centre is ridiculous at best. The current law regarding road signs is that they be replaced on a regular 10-15 year basis. As you can probably tell by the state of our signs, many are due to be replaced. When, and only when they get replaced, is a bilingual one put in it’s place at none to very little extra cost [some companies put the Gaelic on free of charge in some areas]. Regarding “Gaelic only signs” – these only occur in areas where over 75% of the population speaks Gaelic as a first language. As you pointed out, if we were to travel to, say, Italy you would expect the signs to be in Italian because almost everybody speaks Italian. It is the same for the Western Isles – as almost everybody can speak or read Gaelic the road signs are either Gaelic only or with Gaelic first and English second. In areas such as Caithness, where this issue has gone further than just road signs, the level of ignorance to the language is ridiculous. “We are Norse”, they all proclaim. However, it has been almost 300 years since the Norse language of the north disappeared – Gaelic however is still spoken natively and has it’s own distinct dialects within the area.
I could go on and on relaying the misunderstandings that people have about Gaelic, but I’d be here all day. I just feel that it is important to get across that Gaelic is not dead or lavished in money or given preference over other things, it’s just that the Government and educational boards have finally realised, after more than 140 years, that they owe it to the language to show it in a positive light. It’s just a shame that our national and local press hasn’t come to the same conclusions.
Le gach deagh dhùrachd,
Alasdair Crow
Perth
A bheil beachdan aig duine sam bith eile air a seo?
Halò Alasdair, 'S e litir glè mhath a th' ann do litir an-seo. Apologies in advance for the ramble... I just listened to that program and I am always surprised by the bitterness that typifies these debates. I think the fact that the discussion was allowed to fall into ill-informed bickering about the costings of Gaelic education, signage and speaker numbers was another great example - wasn't the issue supposed to be the media's portrayal of Gaelic? I think that the professor from Aberdeen could have done himself a favour by trying to stay on topic, rather than getting involved in these quarrels – though I realise it’s hard not to get involved when that’s the dominant narrative.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the bitterness that underlies it all seems to be about a threat to people’s ‘Scottishness’. After all, a national language like Gaelic is surely the strongest marker of socio-cultural ethnicity, and the most Scottish thing that I can think of. Is a Gaelic speaker then ‘more Scottish’ than a non Gael? Gaelic is everywhere: placenames; personal names; family names; even in our English. We all known how we love our ‘Scottishness’ in Alba. Isn’t that what stops us being English or ‘British’ after all? what then, if some stranger from Na h-Eileanan Siar or An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, or even luchd-ionnsachaidh can tell you the meaning of your family’s name, the name of your town, or what ‘sgian dubh’ means? It’s all very threatening, especially when you drive up the west coast and see Gaelic signs that reveal a whole other identity for a place you thought you knew. You probably don’t feel very Scottish when you’re English friends ask for a pronunciation or meaning and you have to pardon yourself. You hear people saying all the time that they feel “like a foreigner” anns a’ Ghaidhealtachd. Because of bilingual signs?
You can see the child-like defences that people develop to this threat, the same kind of things that children do when they feel threatened or challenged: People deny the fact that this is a vital living part of Scottish identity “Oh, nobody speaks that anymore”; resort to bullying and degrading Gaelic and Gaels “Oh, only daft teuchter farmers speak that”; Lie and criticise about ‘excess expenditure’ on Gaelic and try to one-up Gaelic’s bid on Scottishness “Oh, well we all speak Scots, Doric etc. And there’s more of us than you”. In the end it all paints a suspicious picture of a very insecure Scottish identity.
I think that the unfair news coverage that we see is partly a manifestation of all of this (among various other interests). Likewise however, I think that PART of the Gaelic movement is a reaction to all of this, and it seems to get everyone into a vicious cycle of defensiveness with increasingly militant Gaelic championing and criticising alike – Most of what I see in the media is often heavily biased in one direction or the other, with less in between.
Ultimately, it all makes me think that we need to be very careful about how we push-forward Gaelic in the public arena, so as not to alienate people and maintain the bickering.
Tòm
In fact, 's ann às an fhacal Fhrangach 'hélicoptère' a thàinig a' helicopter Beurla. Agus a bharrachd air sin, tha fhios nach eil faclan Beurla ann airson biro, paprika, vodka, robot is na mìltean eile... ;-)
ReplyDeleteGle mhath, 's docha gu bheil uidh agaibh air seo cuideachd:
ReplyDeleteGaelic renewal
Leugh mi sin an là roimhe. Gu math inntinneach!
ReplyDelete