Obviously I can understand why as a company they won’t release data on how many people actually finish the course, or get halfway through, it’s nice to see more people starting it.
Though as I’ve said elsewhere (and I’m as guilty as anyone as a learner), it will take more than just doing Duolingo to keep Gaelic alive. There definitely need to be more conversation circles, more opportunities to actually *speak* with one another in an informal setting, and more visibility. I’m grateful for Discord and for a couple of mates I can chat to slowly to at least get that part of my brain going in real-time – something much more difficult in languages where immersion is not really as possible (compared to French/German, for example).
More than anything else, funding for it needs massively boosting, and focus not necessarily on getting more people to know a few basic phrases but on keeping it alive as a community language. You’ll do more to stave off language death with 10,000 people in the Western Isles being able to use it all day every day in a variety of contexts than you will with 100,000 people across the world knowing “tha an t-sìde math an-diugh” and never actually speaking it to another living person.
I tried it for a bit but my concentration span went out the window years ago. Then I started doing Turkish because I’m convinced my barber is talking shit behind my back.
I’m never really enthused by these stories.
The religious culture which defined the hebrides since the end of the clan system has collapsed. The vast majority of surviving literature is religious in nature.
The townships were allowed to collapse from the 1970s onwards and have been hollowed out more since. The community my father grew up in was shrinking in the 70s, and barely an echo was left when I grew up in the 90s and I see almost none of it left now for my children.
The number of native speakers is so low on the radio one hears almost exclusively the taught (english) gaelic accent or lewis gaelic. Skye, harris and uist gaelic is rare and I have never heard the southern dialects- Argyle, Islay etc.
It just feels a bit colonial- people who despise our religion and did not support our communities when we needed it now learning a caricature of our language to reconnect with an imagined past.
They may create a new gaelic culture of a sort. But it will be Scots dressed as Gaelic and will not really have a connection to what came before. Its a bit like the ‘Scottish’ Americans who turn up here from time to time.
If you imagine never hearing scottish accents on TV and only ever hearing one specifix dialect from the south of England and thickly accented voices from Eastern Europe. Yes you can understand them just about, but all the wee idosyncrasities that make a mother tongue special are missing. It is kind of hard to explain.
Very concerning.
Have they made any successful effort at keeping it in Nova Scotia?
I think a modern version of the efforts by bands like Runrig to make contemporary music in Gaelic would be more effective than a bunch of English speakers learning the basics out of vague patriotism.
6 comments
Obviously I can understand why as a company they won’t release data on how many people actually finish the course, or get halfway through, it’s nice to see more people starting it.
Though as I’ve said elsewhere (and I’m as guilty as anyone as a learner), it will take more than just doing Duolingo to keep Gaelic alive. There definitely need to be more conversation circles, more opportunities to actually *speak* with one another in an informal setting, and more visibility. I’m grateful for Discord and for a couple of mates I can chat to slowly to at least get that part of my brain going in real-time – something much more difficult in languages where immersion is not really as possible (compared to French/German, for example).
More than anything else, funding for it needs massively boosting, and focus not necessarily on getting more people to know a few basic phrases but on keeping it alive as a community language. You’ll do more to stave off language death with 10,000 people in the Western Isles being able to use it all day every day in a variety of contexts than you will with 100,000 people across the world knowing “tha an t-sìde math an-diugh” and never actually speaking it to another living person.
I tried it for a bit but my concentration span went out the window years ago. Then I started doing Turkish because I’m convinced my barber is talking shit behind my back.
I’m never really enthused by these stories.
The religious culture which defined the hebrides since the end of the clan system has collapsed. The vast majority of surviving literature is religious in nature.
The townships were allowed to collapse from the 1970s onwards and have been hollowed out more since. The community my father grew up in was shrinking in the 70s, and barely an echo was left when I grew up in the 90s and I see almost none of it left now for my children.
The number of native speakers is so low on the radio one hears almost exclusively the taught (english) gaelic accent or lewis gaelic. Skye, harris and uist gaelic is rare and I have never heard the southern dialects- Argyle, Islay etc.
It just feels a bit colonial- people who despise our religion and did not support our communities when we needed it now learning a caricature of our language to reconnect with an imagined past.
They may create a new gaelic culture of a sort. But it will be Scots dressed as Gaelic and will not really have a connection to what came before. Its a bit like the ‘Scottish’ Americans who turn up here from time to time.
If you imagine never hearing scottish accents on TV and only ever hearing one specifix dialect from the south of England and thickly accented voices from Eastern Europe. Yes you can understand them just about, but all the wee idosyncrasities that make a mother tongue special are missing. It is kind of hard to explain.
Very concerning.
Have they made any successful effort at keeping it in Nova Scotia?
I think a modern version of the efforts by bands like Runrig to make contemporary music in Gaelic would be more effective than a bunch of English speakers learning the basics out of vague patriotism.
An annual Gaelic festival/ diaspora event, maybe?
I bet a fair few are Outlander fans….