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A Century on the Census
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Gaelic in Twentieth
Century Focus Dr. Kenneth MacKinnon
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A question relating to Gaelic was included
for the first time on
Scotland's national population census in
1881. A question regarding
Irish had been asked in the Irish census
since 1851, and pressure in
Scotland, inter alia from bodies such as
the Gaelic Society of Inverness,
secured a question for Gaelic in Scotland for
the first time. In view of the
position of Gaelic speakers over the preceding
centuries, the desire of a
representative Gaelic body to get official
statistics on the numbers of
Gaelic speakers may be surprising to us
today when there is marked
resistance on the part of ethnic minorities
- Blacks especially - to census
questions regarding race, ethnicity and language.
In nineteenth century
Scotland the Gaelic people could still be seen
as a potential threat to
national homogencity, for in the previous century
they had revolted, and
were still capable of stout resistance to
enforced emigration during the
notorious Highland Clearances. There were
Highland antecedents to
the 'Red Clyde', for in industrial Scotland
Gaelic people provided an
urban Lumpenproletariat in many ways similar
to the Gastarbeiter or
poor Black immigrant of today. The fear
amongst such today is that
census statistics will in some way be used
'against them'. Perhaps they
should take courage from Gaeldom's
experience? For Gaeldom's
champions of 1881 ("...including many of
the more influential landed
proprietors and other gentlemen in the north
of Scotland...") could urge
the then Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt
to include a Gaelic
question in the census. on the grounds of the
"well-being of the people of
the Scottish Highlands, and ... the promotion
of education in that part of
the country." (TGSI, 1881-83, p.51).
And the statistics were used in
subsequent years to improve the place of
Gaelic in Highland education,
with such effect
that in 1888 a Welsh deputation came to London to
plead for similar
provisions for Welsh in the English Revised Code.
(Smith, in Thomson, 1983, p.260).
The original
question asked whether persons spoke Gaelic 'habitually'
- and clearly
from analysis of returns from urban areas, and fringe areas
along the 'Highland
Line', where community language-shift was then
commencing,
the census under-represented the number of actual
speakers. In
1891, the question was changed to ask regarding actual
ability to speak
Gaelic alone, or Gaelic and English. Numbers of Gaelic
speakers rose
from 231,594 (6.76% of the Scottish population aged 3+)
to 254,415 (6.84%),
although language-shift from Gaelic to English was
gathering momentum.
The fortunes of Gaelic from then on continued to
decline, as the
graph in Figure 1 indicates. In his valediction to
Scotland's abolished
parliament in 1707, Fletcher of Saltoun lamented it
as 'ane end of ane
auld sang'. Scotland has since then experienced many
another. Is
Scotland's original but still surviving language to join them
in extinction?
However between
1961 - 81, some kind of upturn seems to have
occurred which
deserves explanation. Whether this can be regarded as a
new - or a false
- dawn merits discussion. The upturn was most marked
amongst schoolchildren
and young adults. (See Figures 2-3.) Meanwhile, some
sketch of the present geographical and demographic
dimensions of
Scotland's Gaelic population may be useful. To illustrate
this, the distributions
of Gaelic speakers in 1891 and 1981 (these years
for comparability
of question) are shown both by proportions of local
populations
speaking Gaelic, and by location of actual numbers of
Gaelic speakers.
(See Figures 4-7.) As between Highland and Lowland
Scotland, these
impressions mirror one another. Although the higher
proportions of
Gaelic speakers are found in the northwestern peripheries, the greater
numbers of Gaelic speakers live elsewhere.
Geographical Distribution of Gaelic Speakers.
The Scottish
Gaelic speech-community today numbers about 80,000.
About 23,500
of these are usually resident within the Western Isles
Islands Area,
about 16,500 in Highland Region, about 6,000 in Argyll &;
Bute District,
and about 500 in the Highland area of Perthshire. These
areas, which
approximate to the traditional Gàidhealtachd, or Gaelic-speaking area,
thus contain about 46,500 - or about 58% - of present-day Gaelic speakers.
The remainder lives within the rest of Scotland
mainly in the
Lowlands, 15,000 of them in the Central Clydeside
Conurbation centred
upon Glasgow.
In the 1981
Census, the usually resident population of Scotland
totalled 5,035,315,
of whom 4,843,553 were aged 3+. Of these, 82,620
were able to
read, write or speak Gaelic, amongst whom were 79,307
speakers of the
language, comprising 1.64% of the national population
aged 3+.
Of these 79,307 speakers of Gaelic, only
20,345 resided in local
neighbourhoods (census enumeration districts)
in which 75% or more of
the inhabitants spoke Gaelic. (Almost all
these areas were in Skye
and the Western Isles, but also included the
Isle of Canna, western and
northwestern enumeration districts in Tiree,
the Kilninian enumeration
district in Mull, and the Tormisdale enumeration
district in Islay.) Thus
only 25.65%, or just over one in four of Scotland's
Gaelic speakers could
have been said to live in a truly Gaelic
local environment. A further
7,471 Gaelic speakers lived in enumeration
districts which were between
50-75% Gaelic-speaking. These areas were chiefly
in remaining areas of
Skye and the Western Isles, but also included the
rest of Tiree, four
enumeration districts in Islay and one in Mull.
So in total there were
only 27,816 Gaelic speakers normally resident
in predominantly Gaelic-speaking neighbourhoods. This represented
34.92% or just over one in
three of all Gaelic speakers at the time of the
1981 Census.
In 1981, virtually every parish in the traditional
Gàidhealtachd still
had a proportion of Gaelic-speakers greater
than the national average
and within this area, comprising the Western
Isles, Highland Region
(less Caithness District), Argyll & Bute
District, and the Highland area
of Perthshire, there were 46,410 Gaelic speakers
or 58.52% of Scotland's
total. In 1981 there were thus 32,897 Gaelic
speakers, or 41.48% of the
national total, normally resident in areas which
could not be described
in any sense as Gaelic in either present-day or
recent, historic character.
It cannot really therefore: be said, as it sometimes
is, that Scotland's
Gaelic speakers are to be found mainly in
the Hebrides and northwest
coastal fringes. Today, the majority are in fact
to be found elsewhere in
Scotland. Their numbers are sufficient to
liken them to a Gaelic
Archipelago more populous than the Hebrides
- but set in a Lowland
"sea".
Problems of Communication and Administration
The problems which result from this distribution
pattern of Scotland's
Gaelic speakers make contacts within
the Gaelic speech-community
particularly difficult.. The Highland mainland
is mountainous and
deeply indented by the sea. Thus the small
Gaelic populations of the
western glens and peninsulas are very much
isolated from one another.
The islands are today typically connected
by modern lines of communication, not so much with one another as through
ferry ports on the west
coast via road and rail links to the Lowland cities.
In the past (prior to
the 1975 reforms) Highland local government administrative
areas had
typically encompassed both, thoroughly Gaelic
island and west-coast
areas with the more populous and anglicised east-coast
areas - as in the
former Highland county education authority
areas. In these and other
ways, the Gaelic areas have in the past been
divided from one another,
and mutual
contacts between them have been reduced. Both transport
and local administration
patterns give evidence of the satellitisation of
these areas
and their internal colonialisation.
The rôles
of the present-day broadcasting and education services, and
the policies
of the new structures of local administration are thus
of
particular
importance in overcoming these difficulties. The present
pattern of
BBC Gaelic radio broadcasting on VHF under the banner
Radio nan Gàidheal
provides services of a more local kind: as Radio nan
Eilean in
the islands, and as Radio air a' Ghàidhealtachd on the
Highland mainland.
In total, these stations broadcast about 25 hours in
Gaelic per week,
inclusive of schools' broadcasting.
In addition
to the bilingual educational and administrative policies of
Comhairle nan
Eilean in the Western Isles, four other local authorities
have formulated
bilingual policies and have constituted Gaelic committees. These
are Highland Region, Skye & Lochalsh District, Ross
& Cromarty District,
and most recently Argyll & Bute District. Although
Strathclyde
Regional Council has not constituted a Gaelic committee
as
such, it has
designated a councillor with responsibility for Gaelic.
Age, Sex and Social Distribution of Gaelic-Speaking Abilities
Age and sex
statistics for Gaelic speakers were first reported for the
1921 census.
The effects of recent war in the national population resulted
in a reduced
birth rate, and the reductions of numbers amongst young
adult males.
Within the Gaelic population these effects were very much
more pronounced.
The greatly reduced numbers of young adults,
especially males,
indicates that the Gaelic population bore a disproportionate share
of war casualties and dislocation. This was exacerbated by
lower birth
rates and a shift from Gaelic to English as the language
of
child socialisation.
This process
continued throughout the middle part of the century, but
in 1971 some
slight increase in Gaelic speakers occurred amongst
children (as
shown inFigure 2). By 1981 this had become more
pronounced amongst
10- 14 year-olds. This effect can be shown to relate
specifically
to those areas with primary Gaelic teaching schemes.
Comparison
of areas with bilingual and second-language primary
schemes in 1981
with the corresponding areas ten years earlier in 1971
before the inception
of these schemes in their present form suggests that
education has
had an enhancing effect of Gaelic-speaking ability
amongst young
people. (MacKinnon 1985).
The Gaelic
population is on the whole an ageing sector of the
population -
but there were proportionate increases of Gaelic speaker's
amongst older
children and young adults in their early thirties in 1971 -
81 (as shown
inFigure 3). This was a feature only of the most strongly
Gaelic-speaking
areas, comprising the Western Isles, Skye and Tiree in
which over
50% of the population are Gaelic-speaking, and where
various forms of bilingual education have been
in operation since the
late '50s and where more thorough-going
bilingual primary Gaelic
teaching schemes have operated since the late
'70s. The demographic
"bulge" also occurred amongst teenaged
groups in other areas with
second-language primary Gaelic teaching
schemes, which comprise
mainland Highland areas whose local native
Gaelic speakers are middle-aged to elderly.
This situation illustrates the position of
the Gaelic population in areas
where Gaelic was being taught as a second
language in primary schools
in 1981, but where Gaelic had ceased to
be the predominant community
language. The population profile of Gaelic
speakers in the essentially
Lowland area is greatly attenuated in the
age-ranges of childhood and
youth.
Since 1981, a further second-language scheme
has been introduced in
northeast Perthshire, the Wester Ross scheme
lapsed in 1986 through
staffing difficulties, but by 1988 Gaelic-medium
primary units had been
established in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness,
South Uist, Skye and
Lewis.)
There are within the present-day Gàidhealtachd
a number of areas in
which the proportion of young people
(aged 5-24) speaking Gaelic
matches or exceeds the proportion in the
older age-ranges. These areas
may be said to demonstrate some viability
in their maintenance of the
language. At the 1981 Census, these areas
comprised some 30 of the 140
enumeration districts of the Western Isles,
chiefly in western Lewis,
southern Harris, the Uists and Barra, and
some 9 of the 50 enumeration
districts in Skye, chiefly in its northern
and southern extremities. It is
interesting that there were examples of
such potentially viable Gaelic
communities in close proximity to such anglicising
centres as Stornoway
and the military base on Benbecula.
In some other areas Gaelic
maintenance in the 5-24 age-range was within
1-2 percentage points of
the older generations, as in the Western Isles
communities of Barra and
Vatersay, or within 3.4 points, as in the
remainder of Harris, Scalpay
and remoter parts of Lewis. (See MacKinnon
1987a.) In the Isle of
Ornsay postcode sector of Skye, the incidence
of Gaelic was stronger in
the 3-24 age-range than amongst the older population
- the likely result
of the estate policies of Fearann Eilean Iarmain,.
which uses Gaelic as the
language of business and daily administration.
(MacKinnon 1984b.)
In these strongly Gaelic communities, supportive
attitudes and usage
of the language seem less well represented
amongst younger women,
compared with other age and sex groups. There
is a definite differential
migration of younger women, as compared
with younger men, from the
most strongly Gaelic areas. (MacKinnon
1977, 1984b, 1986.) Other
research suggests that within the occupational
continuum of Gaelic
communities, Gaelic is best conserved within
the semi-skilled agricultural group, which comprises the crofting
"core" of these communities.
Supportive
attitudes and Gaelic-speaking abilities weaken away from
this core
in both directions - towards the skilled technical and
commercial
occupational groups on the one hand, and towards the
unskilled and
non-crofting manual occupational groups on the other.
(MacKinnon 1977, 1985, 1986a, b.)
The Gaelic Upturn - Stabilisation, Regeneration or Respite ?
As has been
noted (Figure 1) the decade 1961-71 marked an upturn
for Gaelic in
numbers of speakers. This increase, of almost 10%, from
80,978 to
88,892 speakers, was a feature of Lowland rather than
Highland Scotland.
The numbers of Gaelic speakers in the Highlands
and Hebrides
actually continued to decline. However, in 1981, although
some small
overall contraction on the 1961 figure occurred: back
to
79,307 (or 82,620
depending on definition), there were for the first time
ever actual
increases, both numerical and proportional in Gaeldom's
core heartlands:
the Western Isles and parts of Skye. (MacKinnon
1987a).
Some of
this variation might be explained by changes in census
question, and
change in definitions of population. But there have clearly
been actual
changes in the numbers of children and young adults being
returned as Gaelic
speakers in these areas. Such changes, as have been
seen, also
occurred in other Highland areas with supportive Gaelic
educational
practice.
In any process
of language-shift, there are of course factors which are
promoting the
abandonment of one language for another, stabilisation of
the status quo,
and actual reversion to an anterior state. The situation at
any given time
represents the resultant of these factors. Thus for Gaelic
in the later
20th century, there have been very clearly a number of
stabilising
and regenerating factors sufficiently effective to overcome the
processes of
attrition which have operated during the modern period.
The Gaelic
communities have over long periods been subjected to
high rates of
migration - chiefly of younger people, and more especially
women. (MacKinnon,
1986a, b) Lack of employment facilities at home
has been the
spur, opportunities for further education and employment
in the services
and industrial centres have been the magnet. Gaelic
communities
have probably been adequately reproducing themselves
biologically,
but the haemorrhage of population has continued to reduce
the size of
the speech community. Within the speech community
changing patterns
of societal diglossia have reduced the domains within
which Gaelic
has predominated. The supersession of the Gaelic Society
schools in the
19th century by Board Schools after 1872 in which English
held sway typified
the process. In the 20th century, commerce, public
administration,
and broadcasting represent other, adventitious, processes. More
recently the slippage of the church as a predominantly
Gaelic domain
represents a potentially powerful anglicising factor
operating from within the community. (MacKinnon,
1986, pp. 73-75).
Amongst the stabilising factors for Gaelic
has undoubtedly been
crofting. The survival of Gaelic as community
speech can be readily
correlated with the incidence of crofting within
the local community (as
further discussed in MacKinnon, 1987b, p.2).
Without the passing of
crofting legislation in 1886, there would
probably be no surviving
crofting community anywhere today - and
no survival of Gaelic as
community speech either. Arran, for example,
was as Gaelic an island as
any in the Hebrides a century ago. Landowner
interests ensured it was
not included in crofting legislation. The
last club farm in run-rig
survived into the 1940s - and today few
regard Arran as part of
Gaeldom. There is hardly a single native
Gaelic speaker left. John
Burrel's promise on taking over as factor
to the Duke of Hamilton's
estates in 1766 has eventually been fulfilled,
that there would be "not
one single inch of community in the whole island."
(Milne 1982, pp. 2-3)
But within the counties in which the Crofters'
Commission operates as a
'gatekeeper', the numbers of crofts and crofters
gradually dwindles,
month by month. Crofting, as at present constituted,
can only secure for
Gaeldom some measure of staying the attrition,
and slowing its eventual
demise.
Whether the recent improvements in Gaelic
broadcasting, and the
introduction of the bilingual administrative
policy in the Western Isles
might also have some stabilising effect is
even more debatable. The
inception of Radio nan Gàidheal in 1985
was intended to be the
precursor of an all-Gaelic channel, similar
to BBC Radio Cymru in
Wales. The limitation of the licence fee
has meant that BBC Scotland's
total Gaelic output is only around 25 hours
a week. For about half the
year both BBC2 and ITV put out a half-hour's
Gaelic current events
on television - although the
situation for children's
programme
television on both BBC and ITV is somewhat
better. The inception of an
all-Gaelic radio channel would not be too
much to expect in terms of
public service provision for the language
and its speech-community.
Television airtime goes nowhere towards providing
an all-round variety
of programming sufficient to sustain a media
domain for Gaelic, as does
Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C) for Welsh. As
a significant language-stabiliser, the place of Gaelic in the broadcasting
media would need to
be greatly expanded. And as justification, it
can still be argued that the
portion of Gaelic speakers in the population
still fails to secure its
proportionate share of airtime.
Since 1975, there have been notable advances
in the place of Gaelic in
local administration. The Western Isles -
one of only three 'most-purpose' single-tier authorities in the new system
- took a Gaelic title
Comhairle nan Eilean, and two of its first new
policies were to institute
bilingual policies in primary education and
local administration. The
bilingual administrative policy was liberal and
permissive, enabling
individuals who
wished to use Gaelic in transactions with the local
authority to
do so, and councillors who wished to speak in Gaelic at
meetings to do
so (with simultaneous translation for members unable to
follow Gaelic.)
Some committee meetings were held in Gaelic - and
bilingual signs
made their appearance on public buildings, to be
followed by Gaelic
street and place-name signs. These last engendered
the predictable
squeals from incomers, monoglots and certain local
commercial interests
- and even led to some sign daubing by militant
pro-English activists!
Highland Region set up a Gaelic committee which
has funded a
useful number of activities, and some token of bilingual
signposting.
These modest
advances for Gaelic in the local government field have
been greatly
fêted as being a great advance on anything which had ever
happened before.
Any such demands had in the past been stoutly
resisted by 'the
powers that be' (viz. bilingual signs in Skye in the early
"70s.) In
reality, the policies only amount to liberal measures of common
justice and
human rights. Many Gaelic speakers are happy enough to
use English,
of which they have a fully adequate command. Had such
measures been
introduced with the inception of local government in the
Highlands a century
ago, they may very well have had some stabilising
effect in instituting
an official domain within which Gaelic was able to
survive. But
Highland administration was then in the hands of the local
landed proprietors,
by then a class either ethnically English or English-educated.
The factors
which have engendered some measure of language-regeneration
for Gaelic have been chiefly educational. In the late '50s
both Inverness-shire
and Ross-shire instituted policies for the use of
Gaelic as an
initial teaching medium up to about age 8 years in primary
schools in the
Gaelic areas. In the late '70s a more thorough-going
bilingual primary
project got under way in the Western Isles, which was
extended to all
schools in the early '80s, and similar provisions were
made in Skye
by Highland Region. In 1981 a voluntary Gaelic
playgroups'
organisation commenced, and by the late-'80s had established over 30
'cròileagain'or Gaelic-medium playgroups, about half in
Gaelic areas,
and half in urban centres elsewhere. The success of this
movement attracted
grant moneys and enabled full-time and part-time
paid staff to
be appointed. This in turn stimulated the inception in 1985
of the first
Gaelic-medium primary units in Inverness and Glasgow. By
1986/87, 68
pupils were being educated through Gaelic as a teaching
medium at four
schools: in Inverness, Glasgow, Skye and Lewis. In
1987/88 two further
such schools commenced in Skye, and in the
following session
two others in Edinburgh and South Uist.
Unfortunately,
in 1979 when Comhairle nan Eilean was contemplating an extension
of its bilingual policy to the secondary sector, which
would have been
supported by the then Labour-controlled Scottish
Education Department, its nerve failed. The
ensuing delay and a change
of government wrecked what might have been
the best chance for the
survival of Gaelic in the Western Isles.
The incoming Conservative
government insisted on a two-year feasibility
study, which eventually
reported in 1987, testifying to the effectiveness
of the bilingual primary
education policy. Meanwhile some minor advances
in bilingual education have occurred in Western Isles secondary
schools. A new six-year
secondary for the southern isles opened in
Benbecula in August 1988,
and was heralded as an opportunity for a new
start. A pilot bilingual
secondary scheme had commenced at Lionel
some two years earlier,
with some useful curriculurn development. In
1988 the pupils proceeding from the Glasgow Gaelic-Medium Unit were
to receive some form of
bilingual secondary education at the neighbourhood
comprehensive at
Hillpark. Prior to these developments the paradoxical
situation was that
the Scottish system had developed bilingual
education at primary and
tertiary levels - but had omitted a linking secondary
stage.
A final regenerative factor for Gaelic has
been commercial. In 1971 a
Highland entrepreneur and Gaelic learner,
Iain Noble, bought the
former MacDonald Estate in Sleat and commenced
to operate a series of
business enterprises through the medium
of Gaelic, attracting young
and able Gaelic speakers at all levels of
employment. These businesses
comprising Fearann Eilean Iarmain have prospered,
and their effect can
be seen in census returns both in the demographic
and linguistic revival
of the local community. The education authority
has even had to build a
new school and institute a new bilingual
policy as a result. The
promotion of co-chomainn(multipurpose
community producer co-operatives) by the Highlands and Islands
Development Board has gone
hand-in-hand with a much more liberal and
supportive social and
linguistic policies. These attempt policies
similar to Fearann Eilean
Iarmain - and promote some degree of local
enterprise culture in a
Gaelic context, to date with only one business
failure.
The sociolinguistic and historic interest
in the Gaelic speech-community today lies in its capacity to survive.
That it does is truly
remarkable, given the power of forces which
are operating against it.
The factors which are stabilising and regenerative
in effect are not
particularly powerful in comparison: the crofting
way-of-life, a modest
place in the media, pre-school and primary
education, and some local
business enterprise culture. Nevertheless, they
could form a platform for
new policies to enable Gaeldom to survive
and prosper even in these
unfavourable times.
One suggestion argued recently (MacKinnon,
1987a, p. 10) was the
acquisition of Highland estates by the HIDB
- Strath, North Harris and
Knoydart which were for sale in recent years
would have been ideal -
and their development for Gaelic homesteading
as Co-chomainn, under
Crofter's Commission powers (instead of sporting
interests controlled by
foreign syndicates.)
This is the successful model of the Jewish
Kibbutzim,
which restored Hebrew as a vernacular, first in Europe
in
the late 19th
century through the leadership of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda -
and then in
the 20th laid the foundation for David Ben-Gurion's vision
of a Hebrew-speaking
working-class in Israel. The administrative
structures
and powers for such a policy in Scotland already exist.
A Second Century of the Census?
With the
1991 Census the Gaelic question will have truly entered
its
second century.
This will be a point of especial interest for the fortunes of
the Gaelic
community. Will it have started to slide over a precipice of
return, or
will the stabilisation of 1961-81 have laid the foundations
for
some true
measure of regeneration? My theoretical paper at the British
Sociological
Association 1983 Cardiff Annual Conference on the societal
incorporation
of speech-communities in general and the Gaelic speech-community
in particular (MacKinnon, 1984a) attempted to outline
various processes
and models. Four ideal-typical 'trajectories' upon a
Gaelic-English
'catastrophe surface' were posited, and Gaeldom was
seen as occupying
the third position as proceeding from an original 'folk
society' through
the stages of 'internal colony', 'incorporated satellite'
into membership
of a 'developed class society'. Whether the United
Kingdom itself
takes the pathway into becoming a 'multi-ethnic state'
rather than
a 'developed class society' in the problematic economic
and
political
future may be an external determinant of the possibilities
open
to Gaeldom.
What of the internal determinants?
Previous
studies have indicated a number of demographic processes
and social
correlates which associate with Gaelic, language-maintenance
and shift.
A previous study of Baffa and Harris (1976-78) indicated
that,
inter alia,
younger women tended to be extruded from the community
and those
remaining evidenced the lowest levels of language and cultural
loyalty, Gaelic
usage in the family and community, and Gaelic language
abilities.
There was likewise also an association of lesser levels of Gaelic
loyalty,
usage and ability with commercial, junior managerial and
skilled non-manual
occupational categories, technical and vocational
educational
experience, adherence to the established church, and non-voting and
alliance political tendencies. The highest levels of Gaelic
loyalty, usage
and ability associated with semi-skilled manual occupations (which
included crofting), elementary or junior secondary educational levels,
adherence to the free churches (or, in Barra, Roman
Catholicism)
and Labour or Nationalist voting tendencies. (MacKinnon, 1985a,
1986) Analysis of a current study undertaken on a wider
remit in
Skye (MacKinnon, 1988) and the Western Isles is beginning
to
confirm some
of these findings as wider features of Gaeldom more
generally.
There are
implications of such findings for the 'new wave' of Gaelic
organisations which have come into being in recent
years. Some of the
more important of these include COGA (Comhairle
Oileanaich Gàidhealach Alba - Highland Students' Council of
Scotland) which was
established in the mid-'70s to link together the highly
dispersed students
from the Gaelic areas in Scotland's universities
and colleges. It
organised demonstrations which prompted improvements
in Gaelic
broadcasting. Strì (Strive) and Ceartas(Justice)
in the late '70s
stemmed from this initiative and engaged in direct
action, chiefly over
roadsigns. Their chief activists subsequently
became practically involved in stimulating the Gaelic playschools'
movement, which in turn
led to demands for Gaelic-medium primary education.
This had to be
conceded under the Conservatives' 'Parents'
Charter'. Over the
previous century, the leading Gaelic organisations,
such as the Gaelic
Society of Inverness and An Comunn Gàidhealach
had done nothing
like it. (Although An Comunn under its first; professional
director and
education director had begun to articulate and achieve
new advances for
Gaelic from the late '60s.)
Since then, a new 'semi-official' organisation
CNAG (Comunn na
Gàidhlig - the Gaelic Association) has been
established, CLI (Comunn
Luchd-Ionnsachaidh - the Learners' Association,
CNSA (Comhairle
nan Sgoiltean Àraich - the Nursery Schools'
Council), and a Gaelic
Arts' Officer, all with various forms of official
funding. These new bodies
all seem to be having much more effect in promoting
a place for the
language in public and cultural life, education -
and even the media.
The prospects for intergenerational transmission
of the language
crucially lies with the young women. There
is no Gaelic women's
movement such as Merched y Wawr in Wales,
but Pàrant is Pàisde
(Parent and Toddler), groups have been formed.
CNAG has founded a
number of Gaelic youth clubs in Skye and the Western
Isles, with a full-time education officer and three field workers serving
these areas. There
seems scope too for demonstrating - especially
to the instrumentally-oriented technical, vocational, commercial and managerial
identities in
Gaeldom the significance of language in the restoration
of business and
community enterprise. The Faroes experience has
been something of an
example for Gaeldom, but Gaeldom has its
own examples now in
Fearann Eilean larmain, Sabhal Mór Ostaig,
and the Co-chomainn
movement, now with its ,own co-ordinating body
B> ACE-HI (Association
of Community Enterprises - Highlands and Islands.)
If anything, the churches which led Gaeldom
a century ago (whilst
politically the Highland Land League enabled
the people to resist
eviction and secure protective legislation) seem
a much muted voice in
the land today. Sabbath schools are often a strongly
anglicising factor -
even in the Free Church, whilst the Free Presbyterians
almost seem to be
preaching that Gaelic is- frustrating God's purpose
and the propagation
of the Gospel. There seems to be a general
lack of vision that the
language, its
culture and way-of-life having historically been much
bound up with
the Christian witness and message in the Highlands and
Islands might
yet be a bulwark against the materialist values of wider
society that
the churches of Gaeldom still so eloquently excoriate.
Perhaps the
implications for the new Gaelic initiatives lie in enabling
the Gaelic people
to appreciate the relevance of their language and
culture to their
social and economic survivability in the present and
future. The
significance of language in spiritual life is not appreciated
by
the Highland
churches (as it is in Wales), and the political significance
of language is
only beginning to be realised by the political parties in
Scotland. (It
has long been recognised abroad, more recently in Wales,
and in England
today it is being realised by working-class groups in the
Isle of Dogs,
where Cockney forms an integral part of anti-Yuppy
activism!)
The Gaelic
experience is but one facet of contemporary multi-cultural
Britain - a state
which has yet to formulate any policy worth the term of
multiculturalism.
The Gaelic experience - past and present - may be
valuable not
only in its own Scottish context, but more widely amongst
the hundred-plus
recognisable ethno-cultural and minority-language
groups in Modern
Britain. British Sociology has in the past ignored in
the grand imperial
British manner the fact that British society has
always been both
multilingual and multicultural. Carter drew attention
to the 'assumption
of British homogeneity' at the 1972 BSA Annual
Conference (Carter,
1974). British sociologists have so long been
obsessed with
problems of class, they have only just woken up to the
sociology of
culture. As members of an historically multicultural society,
they should have
been first to realise that it may be because we have
failed adequately
to provide for the social needs of our indigenous
minorities, that
we have failed so far adequately to create policies
appropriate to
our immigrant communities.
A recent
study of mother-tongue in our society quoted an Urdu
speaker: 'There
isn't another language which is part of the experience of
the English native
speaker, and that's where the problem lies.' (Wells,
1987) At least
in Gaelic Scotland that is not the case - and perhaps from
our 'peripheries'
the solution may start to be found.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The substance
of this paper has arisen out of findings of an earlier Social
Science Research
Council-assisted project 'Ethnic Communities: the
Transmission
of Language and Culture' (Small project grant, ref HR
4039/1), and
on current work on the project 'Language-Maintenance
and Viability
in the Scottish Gaelic Speech-Community', funded by the
Economic and
Social Research Council (Personal research grant ref.
GOO 23 23 28),
which assistance and that of the Hatfield Polytechnic
for secondment,
media services and research support is gratefully
acknowledged.
Permission to use Census Small Area Statistics (SAS
1981 and RSAS
1971) is acknowledged with thanks, in that material
from Crown
Copyright Records made available through the General
Register Office
(Scotland) and the ESRC Data Archive has been used
by permission of
the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. The assistance
of An Comunn
Gàidhealach, Inverness and the Research and Consultancy
Committee
of the School of Business and Social Sciences, Hatfield
Polytechnic, in
the purchase of census material is also gratefully acknowledged.
The assistance in making available census small
area statistical
material of ESRC Data Archive (per Dr. N.
Walford), Highland
Regional Council Department of Planning (per M.
Baldwin), Comhairle
nan Eilean Department of Planning and Development
(per R. MacKay
and D. McKim) and the Highlands and Islands
Development Board
Library (per R. Ardern) are all gratefully acknowledged,
as is the
assistance of the Crofters' Commission for making
available crofting
registration statistics (per Mrs D. M. Urquhart.)
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