Blowing a Gael

In any other context, the comments by Hugh Reilly (Perspective, 29 October) would be seen as offensively racist, if masquerading as wit, but, of course, his target is Gaelic, the easy old whipping boy (which it has been since the Statutes of Iona in 1609, but that’s another matter).

If he isn’t entirely complimentary to Scots either, there nevertheless seems to be some kind of effort to drive a wedge between the twa leids.

Mr Reilly might be surprised to learn that there is no hostility between genuine activists in either language.

Rather, we are happy to support each other.

Investment in Gaelic education (which enables children to grow up bilingual from infancy, at no extra cost to society) and broadcasting is, in global terms, negligible.

And we would encourage the Scots language community to have the confidence to develop its own pre-school groups, in the knowledge that English is so pervasive in our everyday world that fluency in it is a given.

Aonghas MacNeacail

Carlops

Peeblesshire