Gaelic in Inverness

[Linwoodictsc]

is the gaelic language strong in Inverness (Inbhir-nis) or is it dieing on it's feet,

it is starting to thrive in my part of the country with classes all the time

i started learning a couple of years ago but i find it quite hard although BBC A lba is a good help

thoughts please

[DALNEIGHCALEY]

Polish is more commonly heard in the Sneck these days.

[SMEE]

Its dying a death EVERYWHERE...despite the amount of money been thrown at it. Wish they would let it go quietly. And dont get me started on the Highland Council Gaelic Clique and their create a job for the boys brigade. Its Infuriating! Theres only 2% of the population speak it FFS!

To put it in context....in my near 40 yrs on this planet....i have heard gaelic been spoken TWICE in everyday life. Thats no exhageration!

Polish is more commonly heard in the Sneck these days.

Polish is more commonly heard ALL over Scotland, never mind Inverness. Not that i want Polish getting the Gaelic treatment either.

[CaleyHE]

As most of my family speak the gaelic, 1 generation and upwards of me, i have heard it all my life, but just really know the swear words myself. I plumped for French in school to annoy my Mother.

Thats what you get with parents from the Western Isles though.

[DALNEIGHCALEY]

Have you not thought that the reason cash is being thrown at our native language is due to the fact only 2% of the population speak it?

[SMEE]

Aye DC, and if i was on a life support machine in hospital...with a 2% chance of living, am sure they would switch the machine off!

[DALNEIGHCALEY]

So our language thats been spoken since before the time of the Romans should be allowed to die ?

Deary me.

Edited November 23, 2008 by DALNEIGHCALEY

[SMEE]

Sometimes you just have to let things go....much the same way as Pictish, Nordic etc died. You dont see money being thrown at them languages, despite pre dating Gaelic.

[Linwoodictsc]

Its dying a death EVERYWHERE...despite the amount of money been thrown at it. Wish they would let it go quietly. And dont get me started on the Highland Council Gaelic Clique and their create a job for the boys brigade. Its Infuriating! Theres only 2% of the population speak it FFS!

To put it in context....in my near 40 yrs on this planet....i have heard gaelic been spoken TWICE in everyday life. Thats no exhageration!

Polish is more commonly heard in the Sneck these days.

Polish is more commonly heard ALL over Scotland, never mind Inverness. Not that i want Polish getting the Gaelic treatment either.

it's not dying in Renfrewshire, in fact it's flourishing with classes most nights of the week that are well attended

there is even talk of the MOD being staged in Paisley in 2012, i think it's about time there was a gaelic tv channel the welsh have their language of tv so why should Scotland not have the same.

[DALNEIGHCALEY]

Sometimes you just have to let things go....much the same way as Pictish, Nordic etc died. You dont see money being thrown at them languages, despite pre dating Gaelic.

So to use your example SMEE if you were on a life support machine with a 2% chance of surviving , you'd like them to pull the plug and not try to save you. I think not.

[Linwoodictsc]

Sometimes you just have to let things go....much the same way as Pictish, Nordic etc died. You dont see money being thrown at them languages, despite pre dating Gaelic.

some things are worth fighting for and this is one of them imo

[SMEE]

NO!...I would expect them to pull the plug on me! The last thing I would expect is for them to throw vast amounts of money at me trying to keep me alive!

As far as the OP point about Welsh compared to gaelic....difference is, about 25% of Wales speak the language, 1.2% of Scots speak gaelic. HUGE difference!

Galeic usage has halved in the last 60 odd years. That tells its own story!

Edited November 23, 2008 by SMEE

[Linwoodictsc]

NO!...I would expect them to pull the plug on me! The last thing I would expect is for them to throw vast amounts of money at me trying to keep me alive!

As far as the OP point about Welsh compared to gaelic....difference is, about 25% of Wales speak the language, 1.2% of Scots speak gaelic. HUGE difference!

Galeic usage has halved in the last 60 odd years. That tells its own story!

25% of the welsh speak it because their people refused to give it up, now it's up to us to as passionate about our langage as them.

there are more people learning it now than there has been for years so the future looks good

canan nan gael gu brath

[SMEE]

there are more people learning it now than there has been for years so the future looks good

been hearing this for about 20 yrs now, yet the stats dont seem to back it up. With the Gaelic fraternity, its either......its dying on its feet....give us cash...or...its booming, give us cash. If it was worthwhile, it would be sustaining itself.

Maybe if Gaelic was the REAL language of the Scots, it would be more widely used like Welsh.

[Glen Mhor]

In recent years Gaelic has spawned its own support industry of big money jobs for Gaeldom's mafia in the quangos with millions of pounds thrown at it. Let it die quietly and let's move on and the Gaelic fat cats can move into the real world and earn their living in a real job.

Rather unlikely I would say.

[Renegade]

This gaelic garbage is a load of nonsense. The roadsigns, the primary school and all that is an absolute insult to people in Scotland who struggle to pay their taxes, the 1 in 4 kids in poverty and so on, but the Gaelic gang would have us believe that we all love it dearly and would hate for it die out. WRONG. I couldn't give two hairy hoots if it dies out and probably neither could that majority of Scots because if they did it wouldn't be in the state it's in. It's a waste of money and a waste of time.

[martinskye]

What is the real language of the Scots, history would disagree with you.

[SMEE]

Scotland does not have an indigenous language. As i said earlier, before Gaelic.....there was Pictish, Norse and even Cumbric spoken by MOST of the population.

Scots Gaelic has its roots in Ireland FFS! So its about as "Scottish" as Bagpipes!

[Heilandee]

Just back from visiting me old dad,a native gaelic speaker who at 85 still goes to every mod,he reckoned this year at Falkirk,male singing competitons that used to attract upwards of 30 competitors now draw 7 or 8,also kids at the provincial mods start dropping out around 13-14 and he has never known of a youngster who has gone through the Gaelic medium system carry on participating into adulthood.

[Alex MacLeod]

Scotland does not have an indigenous language. As i said earlier, before Gaelic.....there was Pictish, Norse and even Cumbric spoken by MOST of the population.

Scots Gaelic has its roots in Ireland FFS! So its about as "Scottish" as Bagpipes!

Nor does England or Wales. Historians would also dispute whether there was a Pictish language as such. It is more believed that local areas had their own forms of verbal communication indigenous to their tribe or sect. Cumbric, which is believed to be derived from Welsh, pre-irish influence, was only spoken in the north of England and south Scotland. The language we speak today and call English was derived from Roman, French, Norse and Irish influences.

The Irish settled in the Western Isles, some parts of the mainland west coast, right down to Cornwall from about the 7th century and maintained their own language. This Irish language became diluted in time, by the languages spoken in those areas at the time. Hence the differences between modern day Gaelic, Cornish and Welsh. At that time much of the south spoke a language that was akin to French. Over the centuries, as people moved around and the needs for communication outside their own areas became greater the english language developed.

Welsh is a widely spoken language, not because it always has been but, because the people of Wales realised their language was dying and did something about it. Which is what we are trying to do here now.

[SMEE]

Welsh is a widely spoken language, not because it always has been but, because the people of Wales realised their language was dying and did something about it. Which is what we are trying to do here now.

Obviously the Welsh are a more determined race that us Scots then Alex. The last 60-70 yrs has seen a rapid decline in the numbers of people speaking it. Even before that.....you were only talking about 3% of the population. The problem is, the Gaelic Mafia have wangled there way into positions of power and are now forcing this down our throats. To call this a minority is an understatment, its a minortiy minority. Any less interset and it would be extinct. Heres hoping!!

[KingBeastie]

The welsh language nearly died out but they fought for it to survive and now it is in a healthy shape.

If Gaelic is dying out in Scotland I think its most likely because people just don't give a sh1t.

The reasons for this are an entirely different (and large) argument. The fact that we just don't seem to care speaks volumes about how we view our society and heritage IMO.

[Guest Spectre]

I was told (but it may be completely wrong) that the Gaelic schools in Inverness are well subscribed but that a lot of it is white settlors (ie middle class English).

Not my kids though!

It's a bit ironic that recently in France the Academie Francaise has I believe been forced to concede doctoral theses may be written in English though with a French summary.

[CaleyD]

I think a large part of the problem is that those fighting to promote Gaelic seem to go about it in the wrong way and have a habit of just getting under the skin of the non Gaelic speakers.

What gets to me and generally causes me to turn against it is the fact that we seem to be more concerned about creating fat cat jobs from the issue. They're trying to put jobs in place which really don't need to be there (yet) and for which there's little or no justification.

If they were to turn around and say that they were going to employ a Gaelic teacher at every primary and secondary school and these teachers would be paid on a par with their peers and that Gaelic would be a compulsory part of the curriculum for all kids up to the age of whatever, then I don't think I would have any problem with that whatsoever.

If the language then sparked back to life and generated the need for schools dedicated to it, and for growth of departments within schools, and then growth beyond schools and in to business etc, then fair enough. Changing road signs and spending millions on producing brochures etc in both languages could then be justified.

As it is, we seem to be putting the cart before the horse. We have a very small minority of people spending vast sums of money on bombarding the public with Gaelic when only 1 in every 100 (at best) people who see a road sign or pick up a brochure written in English and Gaelic will have any appreciation or understanding of it.

Gaelic is not a necessity and we need to stop trying to tell people that it is and creating a false environment which kids on that it is. It's not being sold to us on the basis of "saving a part of our heritage", it's being sold to us on the basis of "wouldn't it be nice if you could read those signs we've spent millions on"....it's as if we're being told that they are going to spend the money whether we like it or not and it's up to us to then get the benefit of it...and that's why so many give it the 2 fingered response.

Gaelic is a "nice to have", a luxury...a hobby for most. That's the angle that should be taken in trying to resurrect it. If someone said to me, "wouldn't it be fun to sit and have a conversation with someone in Gaelic" then they are far more likely to attract my attention than they are by trying to tell me that I'm somehow partaking in the destruction of our heritage by not knowing it and that makes me less of a Scot.

As a slight aside to the main issue, and because the road sign thing really gets to me. Road signs are there to provide information to those who need them in a manner which they can quickly decipher. The last thing we need when approaching a roundabout, junction or slip road is to be running up the erse of someone who's slowed down to work out if Inbhir-nis is the same as Inverness and that they are in fact going the right way or not. They are not an educational tool and to treat them as such is stupid, irresponsible and dangerous....as well as completely pointless.

[absent friend]

The dying out of the Gaelic language and the Clearances are related in that they owe this to the English! The language and politics respectively.

As we have also given up our inherited natural treasures with no resistance, it is plain to see that we are not a nation, in comparison to the Welsh, but a fragmented country more interested in line dancing than bloodline. We stand up and sing 'Flower of Scotland' 'to be a nation again' No Chance! Unless it is the English nation( North Britain)

Why don't we accept that Gaelic is only an annoyance as it offers that which we don't have, an Identity through speech and behavior, carrying forward their traditions that still play a big part in their lives and while we watch the 'jungle' and 'corrie' they will delight in music and song!

Envy is an awful thing!

D when the police come to take to statement as to why you ran up the 'erse' of the car in front, just be careful he is not from Harris or you are in big trouble!