Building a National Language? The Plight of Gaelic

A recent report by the Royal Society highlighting concerns over the development of the Gaelic language claims that every year up to 860 individuals need to become fully bilingual in order to halt the decline of the language. This news presents me with a moral dilemma - as a linguist it pains me to see the decline of any language since it also represents a cultural loss to mankind, another part of the intercultural patchwork of humanity unravelling - but as a Scot I am also tempted to think “So what?”

In recent years there have been huge steps forward in the development and promotion of Gaelic language learning, largely due to the fact that the Scottish Nationalist Party is in power. That in itself makes the whole process quite suspicious and - characteristically SNP - more to do with political ambition rather than educational or cultural reasons. However, despite these advances the general uptake of Gaelic has failed to stem the decline of the language, and that in part may be due to other factors.

Firstly, the concept of Gaelic as the “language of Scotland” is more of a romantic notion than a historical reality. It was only the language of the Western Isles and the Highlands. The majority of Scotland’s population actually spoke Scots or Lowland Scots as it is sometimes called. While some people class Scots as nothing more than a variation of English, it was a language in its own right which developed alongside English until James VI of Scotland became James I of England and moved his Court down to London. From then on English became the language of social mobility and prestige and Scots became less popular among the educated rich. The language went into further declined after the Act of Union in 1707.

So really, the majority of Scots today have no real affinity to Gaelic but they still do preserve some Scots dialect in their regional variety of English - with words like bairn (child), gleckit (stupid) or tane (taken). There is seen in the great variation in the vocabulary of cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh of Dundee for example. That being the case, why even bother to learn Gaelic? Should we not be trying to develop our use of Scots? That’s something the SNP seems to have neglected and for good reason.

You see to go down the road of independence you must have a strong sense of national identity. To develop the concept of national identity you need to develop national symbols - like a national anthem, national symbols and of course a national language. (Although initiating small changes like having a Scottish Government instead of an Executive also contribute to this end because it develops a sense of legitimacy.) Herein lies the problem. To develop a national language you have to control some specific steps - all of which take time - and the first step is to develop an acceptance that Gaelic is a language of prestige, something worth learning, and that’s just not happening!

Secondly, in a globalised world of international trade, should we really be devoting so many resources to learning Gaelic? At a time when the Scottish economy is struggling, when there is such a lack of modern language uptake among school children and young adults, when we need to develop export and trade links abroad in order to grow our economy, is Gaelic really a priority? We need to look outwards not inwards.

And thirdly, language learning in itself does not produce bilingualism in the academic sense of the word. At its most simple level bilingualism can be defined as the ability to speak more than one language. However, it is actually a very complex and diverse condition, and the majority of advance proficiency language learners might never develop true bilingualism. So what is really required is that at the very least, up to 860 people per year have to be brought up speaking both Gaelic and English from infancy to adulthood so that both languages are acquired at a native or near-native speaker level. Quite a mean feat under the current circumstances.