Gaelic’s status in modern Scotland
Regardless of how positive Scotland’s political parties are towards Gaelic in their public statements and manifestos and regardless of the policies that the Government make and Scottish Parliament pass – the real measure of Gaelic’s vitality is in its’ use and status in Scotland.
This chapter will analyse the output effects of party and public policy on Gaelic within Scotland and determine whether the devolution era has had any effect on the precarious position in which Gaelic finds itself. It will discuss key performance indicators such as Census population figures, educational enrolment as well as public opinion to determine whether Gaelic’s status within Scotland has improved since devolution.
Gaelic’s population problem
One of the key indicators of Gaelic’s status within Scotland is the strength of its’ population, with “the concept of reversing language shift [being] the process whereby the contracting language-group reverses this process and gains in numbers.” (MacKinnon, 2004: 110) With this in mind all organisations within the Gaelic community, from the grassroots to the Government, see growing the language base as a priority.
The number of people speaking and using the Gaelic language has been in perennial decline throughout the recorded history of Census data.
In 1991, the most recent census at the time of devolution, there were 65,978 Gaelic speakers across the country which declined by a further 11% to 58,652 speakers in 2001. (Scotland’s Census, 1991 & 2001)
However, in the decade between censuses the developments of devolution do seem to have had an impact on speaker numbers. In 2011, there were 57,602 Gaelic speakers identified by the census – a drop of only 2%, which is the smallest decrease in Gaelic speaker numbers in over 30 years. (Scotland’s Census, 2011)
Bòrd na Gàidhlig believe that the arrest in Gaelic’s decline “can be largely attributed to the progress that we have seen in Gaelic-medium education” across the country. (Bòrd na Gàidhlig, 2014: 5) Census figures show that the number of under 20s who can speak Gaelic grew very slightly by 0.2% between 2001 and 2011, giving credence to the Bòrd’s claims that there can be “hope and confidence as we look to the future.” (ibid.)
That hope and confidence is shared at the highest levels of the Scottish Government, as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon re-iterated whilst giving the annual Sabhal Mòr Lecture in 2015. There, the First Minister stated that the number of children beginning Gaelic-medium Education in Primary 1 had “increased by half” since the SNP Government came to power in 2007 and that she believed there was now:
“the opportunity in the coming decade to reverse, not just slow down the decline in Gaelic which for generations has seemed almost inevitable.” (Sturgeon, 2015)
As discussed in the previous chapters, action is the most meaningful indicator of change rather than intention, and the nature of generational language shift is that it will not be until the 2021 or 2031 censuses that we see real evidence of any change in direction for Gaelic language speaker numbers.
Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s initial National Gaelic Language Plan set ambitious targets for the language into the future – with the aim of having 65,000, 75,000 and 100,000 speakers in 2021, 2031 and 2041 respectively. (Bòrd na Gàidhlig, 2007: 15)
While the rate of decline in the language base had indeed slowed between the 2001 and 2011 census, there is little evidence to suggest that there will be such considerable growth in the near future.
Gaelic-medium Education
Gaelic-medium Education is seen as one of the key processes through which speaker numbers can recover and has been expanded greatly in the post-devolution era. In 1999-2000 there were a total of 1,835 pupils in 59 primary and 13 secondary units. By 2013-14 this had expanded to 2,791 pupils in 62 primary units and 792 pupils in 36 secondary units. This amounts to a 52% increase in primary school numbers, which by any means is a considerable growth. (National Statistics, 2014; Robertson, 2000: 95-6)
However, there has only been a net gain of three primary schools built since 1999. While it has been a major achievement of the Scottish Parliament era that Gaelic-medium Education has been entrenched and strengthened, with the Gaelic Language Act 2005 and Education Act 2016 representing legislative progress, the expansion of provision is far from matching the requirements to replace speakers lost by failures of intergenerational transmission, with estimates that “the numbers enrolled… would need to grow five-fold simply to maintain the existing Gaelic-speaking population.” (McLeod, 2014b: 8)
Therefore while the uptake of Gaelic-medium Education has been encouraging, the fragile and inconclusive progress that has been made thus far with regards to the language base is still far from sufficient to restore Gaelic to “a state of natural growth” as the Bòrd aim to do. (Bòrd na Gàidhlig, 2007: 15) Progress in other language acquisition areas outwith the school have been largely neglected. The institution of education within the Gaelic community has been strengthened, but perhaps by not enough to have initiated true revitalisation yet, certainly not on its own.
Gaelic and public opinion
The Scottish Social Attitudes survey data presented in Table 1 (p. 5) showed that there is broad support for the language, with more people believing that Gaelic should be encouraged everywhere in Scotland than that it should not be encouraged at all. However, it is clear that the majority of respondents believe the optimum level of support for Gaelic is to encourage it where it already is established, with that being understood as the Gàidhealtachd.
None of this evidence suggests that the changes in Scottish politics since devolution have particularly affected public opinion towards Gaelic, at least as a party political issue. This could be as a result of Gaelic’s continued cross-party support since devolution.
However, general support for Gaelic and its role within the modern Scotland do appear to be “strengthened over a 30-year period” as Mackinnon’s survey analysis suggests:
| 1981 | 2003 | 2011 | |
| Importance of Gaelic to the Scottish people and Scottish Culture | 41% | 68% | 78% |
| Gaelic as important or relevant in Scotland nationally | 70% | 87% | 86% |
| Availability of Gaelic in schools studies throughout Scotland | 49% | 66% | 63% |
Table 2. Gaelic’s importance in Scotland. (Mackinnon, 2013: 15-16)
This suggests a much more positive public attitude towards Gaelic since the advent of devolution, one which can be attributed to a stronger Scottish identity and Gaelic being seen “by a large majority as being important to the heritage of the whole of Scotland.” (Paterson et al., 2014: 446) People now believe that “the Gaelic language contributes to constructing Scottish national identity symbolically.” (ibid.: 448) The position of Gaelic within society is becoming entrenched through what Bilig called:
“a ‘banal’ aspect of national identity, something in the background that impinges little on most people’s lives but which is taken for granted in quite a positive way.” (ibid.: 447)
Therefore, we can determine that attitudes from the Scottish public towards Gaelic have been more favourable since devolution – with cross-party public support and increased presence in public life creating a stronger position for Gaelic and for further progress towards the language’s revitalisation.
Gaelic’s public visibility
Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s power to demand public authorities to produce a Gaelic language plan has been an avenue through which Gaelic’s visibility has slowly gained ground in public consciousness, which may indeed have had one of the most significant positive impacts for the language since devolution.
These language plans are created with consideration to the National Gaelic Language Plan published by the Bòrd whilst also requiring the “authority to set out its core commitments as to how it will use Gaelic in its internal processes and in dealing with the public”. (Dunbar, 2011: 163)
At present at least 25 different public authorities have active Gaelic Language Plans, including 10 local authorities – with Glasgow and Edinburgh city councils among them – and other national institutions related to education, tourism and heritage.
Despite limited resources, Bòrd na Gàidhlig has succeeded in its role of managing Gaelic language planning in the public sphere, which have contributed to “increasing the visible and audible profile of the language” and further entrenching the language in the national consciousness. (ibid.: 164)
However, existing Gaelic Language Plans can often be limited in scope and fail to deliver the “real, substantive changes” necessary for Gaelic’s preservation and despite a progression in the availability of Gaelic’s services across Scotland it still does not, “represent the step-change in provision…and for the use of Gaelic…that the present state of the language requires.” (ibid.: 165)
Discussion
Gaelic is still in decline even after seventeen years of devolved policy-making, and that suggests that either not enough progress has been made through legislation or that the Gaelic community’s revitalisation aspirations for devolution were too ambitious.
However, whilst Gaelic’s decline is still ongoing there is evidence that it is slowing. Speaker numbers are still dropping but the rate has been dramatically reduced between 2001 and 2011, and coupled with the growth in Gaelic-Medium Education there is reason for optimism.
Gaelic has also benefitted from an increased status in public life through the language plans demanded by Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and despite some media criticism there is still widespread public support for the protection of Gaelic across Scotland.
It would be naïve to suggest that Gaelic was in a positive state, but true revitalisation of the language and its’ community is closer now than it has been for decades.