True cost of Gaelic

The replies to Rosemary Macdonald’s letter criticising the setting up and public funding of a Gaelic school in Edinburgh (1 November) were not only patronising but were largely irrelevant.

The government grant of £1.9 million was no “financial drop in the ocean” in this time of austerity but part of a huge sum of £40m that the SNP government is spending annually on promoting Gaelic.

This no doubt helps to explain why conventional state schools in Scotland are not getting the resources which they need and deserve.

Both Kevin Cordell and Alasdair Macinnes (Letters, 2 November) ignore the fact that Gaelic is a commercially useless language that is very difficult to learn and even more difficult – if not impossible for a non-Gael – to spell or pronounce correctly.

Besides, Gaelic was never the national language of Scotland. If anything, that title belongs to Scots, the language of Burns, which was declared by the monarch to be the official language of the Scottish people more than 400 years ago. If people wish to learn Gaelic let them do so, but at their own expense, not that of the tax payer.

WILLIAM GROVES

Stalk Hill

Lanark