Gaelic in the era of Fake News

I don't know who started this. Was it the Conservatives in Scotland, who seem to be capable of telling any kind of lie? (Scottish education is failing, the NHS is failing, the SNP doesn't have a majority, etc.) Or was it some anonymous group of anti-independence people? Whoever it was, the story is going round that Gaelic - language and culture - is part of the SNP's project to turn Scotland into some sort of Celtic nationalist Brigadoon.

In the past month or so I've read that Nicola Sturgeon (isn't it odd how she is always mentioned by name - almost as if she's a hate figure - while Theresa May is never singled out as the person responsible for the things the Tories do at Westminster, where she and her cabinet are just lumped together as 'the government'?). As I say, it seems Nicola Sturgeon is going to use Gaelic to turn Scotland into some sort of Celtic twilight zone. Gaelic will become Scotland's main language and we'll all be forced to learn the language.

Gaelic it seems being forced on the Scottish people, even in areas where Gaelic was never spoken. Hint: there are no places in Scotland where Gaelic was never spoken. You only have to study place names on the map to realise that at one time in our history - and in some cases, our quite recent history - Gaelic was the main language of the region. It may have had a different name - Brythonic - but it was Gaelic or Welsh or Cornish or Manx - and it was spoken in every area of Great Britain. (Can I digress again and point out that Great Britain doesn't refer to how great the British are but to the largest of a group of islands off the coast of Europe? In other words, it's just a description, not a comment.)

It seems public bodies like the police, fire service, EMS, Education Scotland, the Scottish Parliament, etc will all have to produce a plan that will allow Gaelic to take over the country. And it will cost a fortune. New road signs seem to get people very agitated, as do Gaelic names on the side of police cars and helicopters. The Scottish government - aka Nicola Sturgeon - is even forcing local authorities to adopt Gaelic language plans. There were - I think - 15 local authorities offering Gaelic education when I retired in 2008 - about half. We already had a plan. Worked on it together. The plan was always to take a gradual approach and keep costs to a minimum.

I'm sorry if you get the impression I think this whole issue is mince. But it is. Writing as a former languages teacher with experience of learning French, Russian, German, Spanish and Gaelic, I'd love to know how exactly 'Nicola' is going to make everyone speak Gaelic. We had 45 years in the EU and couldn't even agree that everyone in the UK should speak and understand at least one language in common use among our neighbours. How the hell we're going to get everybody working on a minority language I don't know.

But I digress. The SNP has never been keen to endorse Gaelic. I'm not too sure if I can say why: it has to do with religion and sometimes with sectarianism. Anyway, the SNP wasn't in a position to encourage the language till fairly recently (2011). Even then, they more or less had to be talked into it.

The people who got Gaelic registered as a lesser used language in the EU were the Labour Party.

That happened in 2009. Check on Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

There are responsibilities attached to having what's called 'co-official' status for a language. There has to be a national plan and public bodies have to buy into it. But there is EU funding available to encourage this. Scotland now has the Bòrd na Gàidhlig which drew up the plan. The national plan for Gaelic always - I promise you, always - understood that Gaelic plans for local authorities and public bodies would be phased in gradually and costs would be kept to a minimum.

The latest hoo-ha in Moray (where Gaelic was widely spoken till fairly recently) about the cost of a Gaelic plan suggested the plan would cost £40,000 and the Aberdeen P&J which reported this didn't bother to say that the cost was spread over 5 years and there were grants the council could apply for but went right ahead and quoted a couple of councillors who described Gaelic activists as the 'Gestapo.' I'm told the cost to the council tax payers of Moray is 0.004% of the budget.

The Moray fiasco isn't mischief-making. It is downright sinister. I hate the idea that the development of Gaelic education (from 25 kids in 1985 to almost 4,000 in 2015) could be hijacked by politicians with their own agenda. I don't care if this is being punted by Conservatives in Scotland or by some other anti-independence group. This is people's kids we're talking about.

The anti-Gaelic folk - and newspapers like the Herald and the Scotsman - just how do they sleep at night, knowing they have spent time trying to damage a very fragile group in our community? Or maybe my very question suggests they don't give a toss about our community. They're working on their own agenda.