Language barrier

Published on 21/11/2012 00:00

Those of us who are against public expenditure on Gaelic are greatly disappointed that Inverness Council has failed to appoint a non-Gaelic-speaking Swede as head of its Gaelic-
medium primary school, there being a dearth of Gaelic-
speaking applicants (your report, 20 November).

What this does highlight, 
of course, is that whenever a Gaelic-related project is promoted, with accompanying 
jobs, discrimination against 
non-Gaels can be practised, with the support of the law and indeed a government quango, the Gaelic Board, and of course the bold Michael Russell.

This can happen in an English-speaking country, namely Scotland. It would be interesting to hear from a lawyer whether the rejected Swedish applicant, Annika Jansson, might have a claim against Inverness Council for unfair discrimination.

The latest Gaelic-speaking wheeze is Kilbeg, the “Gaelic speaking village” on Skye, a £40 million project on Sleat near the Gaelic College, endorsed by Highland Council, and essentially a Gaelic College promotion.

In this village it is expected that “Gaelic will be on everyone’s lips”. Although the promoters will deny it, it is hard to see how this could be possible without discrimination against non-Gaels, in, for example, the public housing involved. We should remember that most Scots are non-Gaels, and I have yet to meet a Gael who didn’t speak English.

Crawford Mackie

Loughborough Road

Kirkcaldy