Gaelic and Scots

[Motheranddaughter]

Just read on the BBC website about the Scottish government’s plans to strengthen Gaelic medium education ,and make Gaelic and Scots (?) official languages
Off the top of my head I can think of many things they could focus improving before this

One or two families might be motivated by catchment-dodging, but from my experience this is the minority. Plenty of kids at the Edinburgh Gaelic Primary school live in nearby Trinity, for example, which has an excellent secondary Academy.

That is so judgemental as to be breathtaking actually.

Some of the children we ‘choose to spend less on’ have additional support needs AND - surprise! - parents who like to spend time in nature. Give your head a wobble pal. My own child was utterly, utterly failed by education, all put down to ‘lack of resources’ but yeah, that was probably my fault because I’m not creative enough??

Jesus.

I don't remember the Welsh Government saying that they wanted all schools to be Welsh-medium.
However, they have decided all schools will have some amount of instruction in Welsh, at least 10% and this has passed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y2dg97j14o

Around 30% of schools in Wales are already Welsh medium.

As I said there will be exceptions, I was clear on that.

But I stand by it, most people I have encountered who argue passionately against Gaelic are some of the most culturally bankrupt people I’ve met.

The kind of people who have their house decorated in grey, live up to the ‘Beat the Jones’’ stereotype, drive an Evoque and have kids glued to an iPad.

It seems to really threaten some who see it as a threat to their worldview/culture.

It’s one thing to not want to take part in a culture that means a lot to people, but to argue passionately to take that away from others is the sign of a misplaced superiority complex and entitlement that is off the charts.

In Glasgow on Friday, we had a Kylie Concert and The Reeling.

The attendees were very different, but strangely the two events were able to take place in the same city without really affecting each other, almost like GME, if it doesn’t affect you then why would you care.

The country’s big enough for both cultures, and many others.

Would you care to share why? Or are you a Daily record rattling narrow minded individual who can see no benefit in anything positive?

Most language tuition in schools in the UK is wasted in that hardly anyone becomes fluent. The level of fluency anyone will get from school lessons will be pretty low. I studied French, German and Italian at uni and can barely hold a conversation in any of them.

@AgnesX can you explain the correlation , please ?

@HelloMyNameIsElderSmurf To clarify, you believe that the fact there is GME stopped your daughter getting extra support?

You’ve picked up on a couple of things I’ve written, and, for some reason, taken them vastly out of context.

My observations of the type of people I observed who choose Gaelic schools have nothing to do with kids who need additional support, but you know that.

In most of Wales there is a choice between Welsh or English medium education. Believe it or not where I live university and health staff from all over the world send their kids to the Welsh school- they do not see it as a disadvantage having another language, how could it be? Where there is limited English medium education Welsh is truly the language of the community so why shouldn't they learn it?

There is much more Welsh TV and music being made now than when I was young. Lots of opportunities to learn. I think that's a great thing.

You're more likely to hear about diapers and sweaters than hippins and gansies.

Is gansie Doric too @RaraRachael?
A similar sounding word for sweater is in Gaelic (geansaidh) and Irish (geansaí).
Just googled and it said it originated with sweaters from Guernsey.

Gaelic hasnt been spoken in my part of Scotland for centuries- it’s not my heritage.

I’d rather they spent money on maths or science or support for SEN kids or cut the waiting lists for ADHD diagnosis from the current 2+ years.

but no - let’s do fecking gaelic 🥲

The one that blew my mind being a Glasgow child was that ‘Cheerio’ actually came from the Gaelic ‘Tioraidh’.

So much of our language is borrowed from Gaelic, it’s like a less dangerous Da Vinci Code.

You've not explained your own rationale yet?

No, I sat in Headteachers’ and guidance teams’ offices for 12 years and was told lack of resources stopped my child getting actual (not ‘extra’) support. Yet there are resources for politically driven language movements.

Your observation that creatives love the Gaelic and money-grubbing business types are agin it IS offensive. And wrong, given I am very firmly in the first category. And I don’t believe I’m quoting you out of context either, but the quote is copied and people can make their own mind up about that.

Edited to say, having seen your other reply: am also wandering around my house searching for grey walls, nope, can’t find any.

@HelloMyNameIsElderSmurf You must get offended fairly easily, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out there are cultural differences between people who are involved in traditional arts/languages and people who are against them.

It’s fairly obvious.

You’re more likely to meet Gaelic speakers at Celtic Connections than the Ballet or share a pint with them at The Park Bar than All Bar One.

Why anyone would be offended by that would puzzle me, especially since I said clearly that there would be exceptions.

You have illogically blamed GME for receiving funding that you believe your child was more entitled to, these are completely separate issues though.

It isn’t an ‘Or’ situation, ideally it should be an ‘And’ situation.

There have been loads of opportunities for the government to increase spending on ASN kids, why pick on a minority language when there are many more obvious opportunities to get extra funding?

Ok so far on this thread I’ve been accused of
a) not having a reasonable command of the English language
b) not understanding cultural differences
c) conflating issues around funding (I’m not, by the way)
d) probably painting my house grey (the worst insult of all)

And the funniest thing of all is, I’m not against traditional arts and language at all. Far from it. I’m simply against separatism in education (all of it, private, language, religion, whatever), alive to the issues so far with GME and with first-hand experience of how parents in my city use it to self-select a better catchment for their children.

You can tell yourself I’m some sort of anti-culture language imperialist if you want. But MOST parents just want to fix a crumbling education system that’s been driven into the ground by the SNP for ALL children, rather than diverting time, energy and resources to some language-based bread and circus.

In Norwegian it's genser for sweater

@justasking111
The jumpers from Guernsey seem to have been popular! 😀

I wonder if some of them came from Jersey.

Could be my great great great grandfather was a Scottish smuggler popping across to France regularly. He snuggled out a french girl who he married in Scotland when he got home Smugglers maybe called in at Jersey and brought sweaters back.

GME can be an excellent choice if Gaelic is spoken in the home. Unfortunately it can be a complete disaster when it is not, and the parents of those children tend to be the last to know. Quality of teaching also varies wildly, not that some parents realise as they are completely unfamiliar with the language themselves.
Children tend to only speak Gaelic in the classroom, not in the playground, and few in primary school are able to actually converse as their Gaelic simply is not developed enough. Which rather begs the question, how is the language being saved?
Teaching conversational Gaelic to all kids is what's needed to keep the language alive imo. Not total immersion for a tiny minority.

I daresay they did 😁

Total immersion is what works for teaching a language though.

Irish is taught in Irish schools from ages 5 -18 and fluency is still very poor, except in the Gaelscoileanna as they follow a total immersion programme.

Lots of the children’s parents don’t speak Irish btw.

These are valid points, I think.

They would be, if there was any evidence at all to back that up.

Total immersion is the best way to acquire languages.

There is no way children can spend 7 years at a primary school and not acquire the language.

Look at the amount of kids over the years who came to Glasgow not knowing a word of English, it certainly didn’t take them long to function in it.

The fact the Gaelscoil in Glasgow outperforms every (I think) other state school shows that they have a good grasp of language.

Anecdotally I only know a few kids who go the the Gaelic school as they are in my Stepson’s cub group, they are P4 and talk away in Gaelic all the time.