So there I am enjoying a dreich Scottish afternoon when my eye happens to fall on a letter in the Herald today that claims Gaelic education in East Ayrshire is down to 'the nationalistic fervour' of the SNP-led council. This is tosh, of course.
The push for Gaelic provision predated East Ayrshire by over a decade, and the parents and learners of the 1980s and 90s deserve the kudos (or the blame, according to the guy in the paper) for persuading the new council to do the right thing and turn what had been evening classes for adults and a parent and toddler group into full provision by adding nursery, primary and secondary provision.
Which brings me to a serious question: what is it about Gaelic that brings out the very worst in Lowland Scots? I know we're insular: you can watch and listen to Scottish news and current affairs on TV and radio - and in most papers - and think nobody lives outside the Central Belt, rather than half the population of Scotland! Like many Lowland Scots, I was 'persuaded' not to use the Scots language when I was at school and maybe it's time we remembered respect for our own language should go hand in hand with respect for other peoples'.
Naturally, critics say they want children to be learning Arabic and Chinese instead of Gaelic so they can hold their own in the world trading markets, but they don't like being reminded that about 20% of our whisky exports go to Germany and we can't even persuade school students to learn German!
It's not about the markets - it's about education, stupid! So, for the last time (I hope), here's what wee kids get out of Gaelic education from an early age:
- access to 2 cultures (music, books, nursery rhymes)
- an understanding of and respect for other folks' languages and ways of life
- a view of the world that goes beyond their ain midden heid
- metacognition (sorry!) of how languages works which will stand them in good stead in their future education.
Oh, and the writer of the letter that started this rant is from Kilwinning. I'll say no more than that.....
well said ! people didn't stop painting when we got cameras. Language is a vehicle for culture, no more so than gaelic. When we look at lowland scots where did it's culture and accent come from if not from Gaelic and the earlier britonic.People are so ignorant if they think that gaelic did not inform our local culture. To imagine that ayrshire was some how by passed by the pan celtic high way that runs the length of the western sea board of scotland is naive at the least.being bilingual gives you the ability to view the world from the point of others. you only have to look at the work of Antonella Sorace to see the proof of that. I can say all this as a lowlander with no highland ties who now works, lives and breathes the gaelic that i learned here in East Ayrshire 's math tha rinn thu x
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