Gaelic Language Foothold Strengthens in Scotland’s Largest City – Gaelic Medium Education Flourishes

Soaring demand for spots at Glasgow’s two Gaelic Medium primary schools is just another sign of the Celtic Tongue’s resurgence in Scotland’s largest city.  Glasgow City Council have announced plans to open a third primary school to cope with overcrowding at the existing two Gaelic primary schools. The new school is being termed as a temporary “Annexe” to accommodate the overflow.  However, the Glasgow City Councils “Gaelic Language Plan 2018 – 2022” calls for the establishment of a third fully functioning Gaelic primary school.

Glasgow’s first Gaelic primary school was opened in 1985 with just 9 students. By 2009 the number of Glasgow students enrolled in Gaelic education had risen to 400 and in 2017 that number had increased to over a thousand pupils. The change in number from 2009 to 2017 is an astounding 250% increase in 8 years!  If this rate of increase continues then it may very well be English which is threatened in Scotland’s metropolis.

The dramatic increase in the number of students in Gaelic schools in Glasgow reflects strong growth in Gaelic medium education throughout Scotland. Currently there are in excess of 6000 Scottish students enrolled in Gaelic medium education.

Glasgow is the largest provider of Gaelic Medium Education outside of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Recent Scottish Government statistics show that pupils in Gaelic primary schools are performing better at reading, writing, listening and talking at nearly every stage of primary education.

A critical mass of Gaelic speakers in Glasgow has been reached to the point that a distinctive “Glasgow Gaelic Dialect” has taken hold. In 2015 the Herald Scotland in an article entitled "Research Claims New Gaelic Speakers Are Developing a Glasgow Accent", reported on the findings of the linguist Dr. Claire Nance.  Nance holds a Doctorate in Gaelic and is a lecturer at Lancaster University. The findings of the four-year study documented shifts in vowel usage and intonation between Gaelic speakers in the Hebrides and Glasgow. Nance observed: " I interpreted my findings in a positive way in that Gaelic is being adapted and used for different purposes and for different reasons and in different places. And the world has changed - the future of Scotland is multilingual rather than monolingual so Gaelic is changing and adapting to reflect this.”

Quoting from Glasgow City Councils’ “Gaelic language Plan 2018 – 2022”, in the 2011 Census, 1.7% of the population identified themselves as having “some Gaelic language skill”. While that census showed a small reduction in the overall number of speakers from 2001, the number of young Gaelic speakers was shown to have increased especially in the 16-24 age group. The total number of people in Glasgow with some Gaelic language ability – speaking, reading, writing or understanding – was under 10,000 at the 2011 census but with 11% of the Scottish total, the largest number out with the Western Isles and the Highlands, Glasgow can be seen as the Centre of Gaelic culture in urban Scotland.

In the mid 1700’s 25 to 30 per cent of the Scottish population of 900,000 spoke Gaelic. By the start of the 19th Century, the proportion was around one-fifth of the population. By 1881, it had dropped to 6.2 per cent. By 1921, the number of Gaelic speakers had fallen to 158,779 (3.3 per cent of the national population). In the late 2oth century the decline stabalized.

The 2011 census shows a slight drop in the number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland over the 10-year period from 2001.  However, as the number of students enrolled in Gaelic medium education continues its explosive growth it is not unreasonable to assume that the long decline of Scots Gaelic is at its end.

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/arts/Documents/GLP_English18-22.pdf

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/16042887.Glasgow__39_s_Gaelic_School_...