Brian Wilson: Gaelic s decline continues for reasons that are obvious – and they are not all about language heraldscotland.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heraldscotland.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Under existing and extremely challenging circumstances, Gaelic public bodies will soon outlive Gaelic communities. This outcome, despite over a generation of official Gaelic promotion, is analysed in our recently published Scottish Affairs article on ‘Moving beyond Asocial Minority-Language Policy’, co-authored with Iain Caimbeul. The inadequate strategic response to the Gaelic communities in crisis has its origins in four inter-related issues: the emphasis on the institutional status of Gaelic rather than on cultural and socio-economic development for Gaelic communities; the limitations of the 2005 Gaelic Act, as seen in the questionable relevance of poorly verified public authority Language Plans; the atomisation of Gaelic culture, whereby capable individuals benefit from the opportunities which the institutional promotion of Gaelic has provided; and the ideological acquiescence by key Gaelic power brokers in the sectoral provision of the Gaelic status quo.
GAELIC policy in Scotland will soon outlive Gaelic communities, experts have warned, as they called for an urgent change of approach. Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin and Iain Caimbeul, a former chief executive of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, said Scotland s Gaelic language policy risks becoming part of the problem . In a new academic paper, they argue existing policy is contributing to the decline of Gaelic communities. Mr Ó Giollagáin, who is director of the University of the Highlands and Islands’ (UHI) Language Sciences Institute, previously led a major study that warned Gaelic-speaking communities are at risk of dying out within a decade.
Irish language will not be saved by symbolic-focused bureaucracy Gaeltacht requires community trusts to stimulate familial transfer of vernacular
Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 01:26 Conchúr Ó Giollagáin
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Symbolically reinforcing the civic status of Irish when communities of Irish speakers are in terminal decline is both strategically misguided and a wasteful use of scarce resources.
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The State is about to embark on another bout of outcome-blind public spending on Irish. This is seen in the recent bureaucratic wrangling in the Oireachtas over the largely irrelevant Official Languages Bill and the political grandstanding on Lá na Gaeilge.