The proximity of Gaelic

Speaking to a teacher recently who had worked for a year or two in New Zealand, I found out that all primary children there learn not only some basic Maori but learn about the place of Maori in the history and culture of the country. Maori itself though is a relative newcomer to the islands - it is thought that Maori speaking people settled there around 1000 years ago. To compare to Scotland, our last indigenous people have been here for twice that or more.

Because of this, Scottish/ Gaelic is all around us in Scotland. Though if we don't speak Gaelic or learn it to some extent and aren't told about it, we don't know. The obvious step for Gaelic activists and for a Scottish government should be to make people aware of their history and environment. This should be fundamental to anyone who calls themselves an internationalist - if you don't have a nation and culture of your own, then what are you going to take to the international stage?

The Scottish Government recently announced that Scottish Studies would be mandatory at some stages of a child's education. This frightened some of the usual naysayers who see anything Scottish as being inherently inferior. To most of us, a journey into Scotland's past and present history and culture is a fascinating one. We could go back to the days when lynx and wolves were plentiful. Or examine the reasons for the building of the various monuments at Calanais or the settlement at Skara Brae. We could study the composition of Y Gododdin and the real meaning of the term 'British'. There is the Celtic knotwork and the thesis, from musicologist John Purser, that instead of being just a pretty pattern it was actually an early method of transcribing music. There are also the Picts who may have died out as a separate grouping of tribes but whose DNA lives on in many of today's Gaelic speaking population. And, of course, there's the role and place of Gaelic.

Recent evidence would suggest that the Gaels were not invaders from Ireland 1500 years ago but that they'd lived in Argyll for as long as the Picts had lived in other parts of our landmass. Sadly, Pictish is no longer with us though it is likely that some of it entered the Gaelic language.

Finally, we have a campaign to make people aware of the Gaelic that they already have on their lips in everyday Scottish language. The posters which highlight well kent words in Scotland come courtesy of Ulpan - a group that facilitates the 'ulpan' method of language teaching for the Scottish tongue. Maybe the next step is to make people aware of the Gaelic on their doorsteps? In and around Edinburgh, this could include Calton Hill as Cnoc Challtainn - Hill of the Hazel Trees or Craigentinny as Creag an t-Sionnaich or Rock of the Fox.

After all, knowledge is power and many in our society - such as racists, Unionists and religious extremists - garner their strength through ignorance and fear.

Gaelic/ Scottish then is our present and living connection to our distant past.

Further reading/ listening:
A New History of the Picts, Stuart McHardy
Scotland's Music, John Purser
Scottish Place-name Society/ Comann Ainmean-aite na h-Alba

Auld Songs for Scottish Studies: Fichead Bliadhna

Surely it is a human right for children to be educated about their own nation and culture, especially if part of their indigenous culture is a marginalised one. I have long wished for Scottish education to come up with something like 'Scottish Studies', if only to counteract the ignorance that regularly surfaces in our media regarding Scotland and her history and culture. This naked and shameless ignorance was this week displayed by two of our politicians - one a Tory and the other claiming to be a Scottish nationalist.

Gaelic was never spoken here...

Jackson Carlaw, a candidate for the leadership of the Toxic Party in Scotland and SNP MSP Paul Wheelhouse - that's him above with more hair than historical accuracy - both claimed that Gaelic was 'never' spoken in the south of Scotland. No evidence was offered for this probably because all evidence points to Gaelic being spoken throughout the Lowlands at one point or another. For example it was spoken in parts of Galloway until the 1700s with the last Gaelic speaker of Carrick reputed to be a Margaret McMurray who lived until the time of Robert Burns' birth. It survived on Lomondside, Stirlingshire, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire until recent decades. Despite this Wheelhouse oiled the wheels of the Scottish-cringe bandwagon and Carlaw gleefully hauled his rotund frame aboard with his usual baggage of ignorance and bigotry to deride Scotrail for having the nerve to put Scottish language on their station signs. And all this... in Scotland!

Can't these tax-paying rebellious Scots be crushed or something? Or else, could some lackey burn down their houses again and hoof them off to Canada? Certainly, Carlaw is regarded as something of a 'loose cannon', even amongst Tories, and has form on the racist front.

...nor here.

Whatever, its a topic that's been oft covered here. Most of the opposition to Scottish kids learning about Scotland has unsurprisingly come from Labour and Tory. Is the 'Union' so worth saving that it means that ordinary Scots will be impoverished because of tribal party loyalty? Paul Wheelhouse proves though that ignorance and stupidity is not the preserve of one party.

This auld sang is very apt. Runrig again. It lays bare the attitudes of the Anglicised education system in Scotland until at least the 1970s. The process that started in the 1600s when Inglis was renamed 'Scots' and Scottish as 'Gaelic' reached its nadir during a century of clearance aimed primarily at the Celtic or 'Erse' speaking population. The bitterness of those in power towards the 'barbarity' of the indigenous Scots language and its speakers continued after the Clearances with Gaelic speaking children variously having skulls hung around their necks, being belted or caned or just being ridiculed. As a policy, it was very effective. Even in areas of Scotland that were Gaelic speaking within the past century, some locals will confidently tell you that 'Gaelic was not spoken here'. Even some older Gaels still wonder at why people would actually want to learn Gaelic.

This was Runrig's 'Another Brick in the Wall' and it was born of first-hand experience. Even to some Scots, we are just Porridge Wogs. Fichead Bliadhna...

Ruith's a mhonadh
Ruith nam beann
'S mar sin dhan sgoil aig deireadh samhraidh
'Nar clann
Aig coig bliadhna dh'aois
'S gun facal Beurla 'nar ceann

Seo do leabhar
Sea do pheann
"Dean do leasan," thuirt iad riumsa
" 'S gunn eirich sibh suas anns an t-saoghal
'S gheibh sibh an adhart ann

Fichead bliadhna'airson firinn
B'fheudar dhomh feitheamh
'S b'fheudar dhomh lorg
Fichead bliadhn' de bhreugan
Thug iad eachdraidh air falbh bhuainn

Dh'ionnsaich sinn a leithid ann
Canan's bardachd, bardachd Bheurla
Ceol na Gearmailt
Eachdraidh na Spainnt
'S b'e sin an eachdraidh mheallt

Bhon sgoil do'n oilthigh chaidh sinn ann
A' leantail foghlum, tuilleadh foghlum
Mar amadan air deiradh streang
Seorsa de dh'fhoghlum 'nam cheann

Fichead bliadhna'airson firinn
B'fheudar dhomh feitheamh
'S b'fheudar dhomh lorg
Fichead bliadhn' de bhreugan
Thug iad eachdraidh air falbh bhuainn

Ach dh'eirich mi suas anns an t-saoghal
Fhuair mi deise, 's fhuair mi leine
Fhuair mi aite ann an suilean dhaoin
Fada bhon mhonadh mi'n drasd

Carson a chùm iad eadchraidh bhuainn
Innsidh mi dhut, tha iad gealltach
Mas èirich clann nan Gaidheal suas
Le ceistean sireach is cruaidh

Fichead bliadhna'airson firinn
B'fheudar dhomh feitheamh
'S b'fheudar dhomh lorg
Fichead bliadhn' de bhreugan
Thug iad eachdraidh air falbh bhuainn

Nuair a thoisich mi air lorg
Cha do chreid mi mo shuilean
Obair olc

Freedom of the moor
Freedom of the hill
And then to school at the end of summer
Children,
Five years of age,
Without many words of English

"Here is your book
Here is your pen”
Study hard that's what they told me
"And you will rise up in the world
You will achieve"

Twenty years for the truth
I had to wait
I had to search
Twenty years of deceit
They denied me knowledge of myself

I learned many things
The English language, the poetry of England
The music of Germany
The history of Spain
And even that was a misleading history

Then on to further education
Following education, more education
Like puppets on the end of a string
Our heads filled with a sort of learning

Twenty years for the truth
I had to wait
I had to search
Twenty years of deceit
They denied me knowledge of myself

And I did rise in the world
I found my suit, I found my shirt
I found a place in the eyes of men
Well away from the freedom of the moor

But why did they keep our history from us?
I'll tell you they are frightened
In case the children of Gaeldom awaken
With searching and penetrating questions

Twenty years for the truth
I had to wait
I had to search
Twenty years of deceit
They denied me knowledge of myself

"Many a thing I have seen in my own day and generation. I have seen the townships swept, and the holdings being made of them. The people being driven out of the countryside to the streets of Glasgow and to the wilds of Canada, such as them that did not die of hunger and plague and smallpox while going across the ocean. I have seen the women putting the children in the carts which were being sent from Benbecula and the Iochdar to Loch Boisdale, while their husbands lay bound in the pen and were weeping beside them, without power to give them a helping hand, though the women themselves were crying aloud and their little children wailing like to break their hearts. I have seen the big strong men, the champions of the countryside, the stalwarts of the world, being bound on Loch Boisdale quay and cast into the ships as would be done to a batch of horses or cattle in the boat. The bailiffs and the constable and the policemen gathered behind them in pursuit of them. The God of life and He only knows all the loathsome work of men on that day."

Signs of Lowland Gaelic in Gleann Iucha

 

Reversing attitudes can be as difficult as reversing language shift. But I fully subscribe to the idea that sees a little progress as better than none at all. Better that than metaphors of rain wearing down mountains over millennia. The corrosive power of rain is a fact but is of no use when talking about a minority language struggling against institutionalised ignorance to reverse centuries of repression and decline.

Therefore, the erection of bilingual English-Gaelic signs at Linlithgow railway station is a battle won in the war against the erections who parade their ignorance and bigotry in the pages of the Daily Mail and readers' comments of the Scotsman.

Some may say that 'Gaelic has no history' in Linlithgow but cannot offer proof of their assertion. Whether or not Gaelic was the 'dominant' language of the entire Scottish mainland is difficult to prove or disprove. What is certain though is that Gaelic speaking populations - be they kings, lairds, monks, migrant farmers or just land working peasants - have left their mark in the form of many placenames all over the Lothians.

From 'Placenames collected by Iain Mac an Tailleir'.

Furthermore, as Scots, Gaelic is an inseparable part of our nation's fabric. Our national iconography is almost entirely Gaelic in origin - think of whisky and tartan (it should be noted that the Victorians only adapted an ancient design), the bagpipes, Wallace and Bruce ( who also commanded Gaelic speaking armies whose 'sluagh-ghairm' was 'Albannaich'), the clàrsach, shinty, our personal names from Douglas in the Borders to Mackay in the North and of course our placenames. 

Is there any corner of Scotland that does not have a ben, glen, drum, loch, corrie, bal, dun, knock, kyle, strath, camus, inch, ard, auch, ault or craig?

Historical presence is only one reason though for bilingual signs - English is not the 'native' language of most of the world but it can be found in almost every airport. The 'usefulness' of a written or spoken language can be measured in many ways. I'd argue that for every passenger that notices the Gaelic sign and realises that this area has another identity other than 'British' (in the modern sense) the value of these signs increases. Even more so if they then go and research it all. 

Even without that value, I'd argue that the handful of taxpaying Gaelic speaking locals are entitled to see their, and Scotland's, mother tongue displayed next to the English wherever possible and practical. After all, for centuries Gaelic speakers received nothing in return for their tax money other than the right to enlist as cannon fodder for the British Army and to have their children beaten for speaking their home and community tongue. Strangely though, Gaelic was found to be very useful when attracting Gaels to the Highland regiments that fought on the front-line of London's many global conflicts.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to use spoken Gaelic whenever possible. I'll get my window on the world's current affairs from BBC Alba, Radio nan Gaidheal and Eorpa. I'll browse with Firefox in Gaelic and surf with Google in the same tongue. My address will read Dùn Eideann instead of Edinburgh. My kids will go to the local Gaelic unit/ school and read Tormod a' Bhocsair's output alongside JK Rowlings. The linguistic melange that is global English is not under threat. My actions add to my knowledge of my environment and therefore enhance my life. More than selfish gain though, it's another stane in the dyke along with the others that are placed there by those who seek to protect the earth's biocultural diversity.

From 'Spoken Here - Travels Among Threatened Languages' - an entertaining and mind-opening journey into the wonder of the worlds' linguistic wealth. Buy here.

* Iain Mac an Tailleir's 5-part collection of Scottish placenames can be downloaded, along with many other language resources/ goireasan cànain by clicking here.