Plan for all-Gaelic-speaking communities

Published on Friday 31 October 2008 20:35

COMMUNITIES where only Gaelic is spoken are being planned for Scotland to help develop everyday use of the language.

It is hoped to set up the initial community of about 1,000 people near Inverness, with the aim of Gaelic being used socially and not "stopping at the school gates".

Finlay MacLeod, who is behind the plan, said while residents in the community would speak Gaelic, there would be a centre to allow people coming in to learn the language within six weeks.

A meeting is to be held in the Highland capital next month to advance the idea, with support said to be growing among activists in Scotland, England, the US and Canada.

"We have to have a space where Gaelic is being used all the time, and without that space the social angle of the language will never be developed," Mr MacLeod said.

"The education of the language will be developed in schools, but what happens is children often stop speaking it as soon as they come out of the school gates, because they do not have the social language that they desire."

He said over the last 50 years the Gaelic community has been destroyed "to the extent that people who speak the language don't believe it should be spoken", and he believes a network of communities could reverse the trend.

"This is to bring together people who speak the language and those who don't, but where there are facilities to learn Gaelic quickly.

"It's easier when neighbours and such like around you speak Gaelic, because it's very difficult in towns and cities, where you don't know people who speak the language."

Critics have said the plan would create Gaelic "ghettos", but Mr MacLeod said: "The same criticism was levelled at Gaelic medium education 25 years ago, but no one is forcing people into these areas and otherwise the language has no chance of survival."

A similar scheme is already in place in Ireland, where the Gaeltacht refers to any district where the government recognises that the Irish language is predominant. One of these areas is Donegal, which has a population of 23,783 and represents 25 per cent of the total Gaeltacht population.

There are fewer than 60,000 Gaelic speakers in Scotland. However, there is a growing interest, with another 30,000 having some knowledge of Gaelic.

Mr MacLeod said education on its own will not be sufficient to save the language: "Social communal language will not get developed in a school, and for that reason families are just as important as education, if not more so."

Arthur Cormack, of Brd na Gidhlig, the agency that advises the Scottish Government on Gaelic issues, said:

"If we can ensure there are reasons for people to use Gaelic in social circumstances, we can achieve, in part, what Finlay wants to see happen.

"But it would be very difficult – and maybe not even desirable – to create an all-Gaelic-speaking community. It would almost be a ghetto of some kind. We would prefer Gaelic to be strengthened and normalised across Scotland."