New Gaelic Medium Primary Unit for the Glen Urquhart area

[Rab Gordon]

I'd like to share some good news.
My son, who is 5 has just started school in the new Gaelic Medium Primary Unit which is part of the main Glen Urquhart primary school in Drumnadrochit. This means that he will be taught through the medium of Gaelic !
We've been working to get this established as an option for those wishing it for a couple of years and after dealing with various obstacles can barely believe that it's happened.
The community group website is Gaelic in the Glen and has some links which anyone interested in Gaelic might find useful.
After 3 days at school he's now correcting my wife's Gaelic, she studied it at university

Rab

[celt72]

Congratulations! That is great news! Hopefully other schools in Scotland are offering the same thing. It would be a real shame for Gaelic to no longer be spoken. There is hope for Gaelic yet!

[Dale Seago]

That's wonderful news, Rab -- thanks for sharing it!!

[Oldhiker]

I'd like to share some good news.
My son, who is 5 has just started school in the new Gaelic Medium Primary
Rab

Gle Mhath !

[Livingston]

Rab, that is great news. So much more is lost when the old languages are lost. To see this effort to preserve and teach one makes this old man happy.

[McClef]

That's good news.

Here in Wales there is an official bilingual policy and the teaching of Welsh is compulsory in schools. Many schools even teach through the medium of Welsh.

I don't believe that there is actually a policy like that in Scotland. Much of that may be because Gallic was not universally spoken there whereas in Wales, Welsh once was.

[castledangerous]

That's good news.

Here in Wales there is an official bilingual policy and the teaching of Welsh is compulsory in schools. Many schools even teach through the medium of Welsh.

I don't believe that there is actually a policy like that in Scotland. Much of that may be because Gallic was not univerally spoken there whereas in Wales, Welsh once was.

Well, that depends on how far back you are considering. If you went back before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, then there certainly would have been a time when Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) was the chief language. For example, "Scottish Gaelic was spoken throughout Scotland (apart from small areas in the extreme south-east and north-east) between the 9th and 11th centuries...." from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gaelic.htm

[piperdbh]

Make sure to let the teachers know that you appreciate their willingness to adapt their methods and materials to Gaelic. Are they using English, too, or is the school Gaelic-only?

[McClef]

Well, that depends on how far back you are considering. If you went back before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, then there certainly would have been a time when Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) was the chief language. For example, "Scottish Gaelic was spoken throughout Scotland (apart from small areas in the extreme south-east and north-east) between the 9th and 11th centuries...." from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gaelic.htm

Well indeed. I guess I was thinking back only four or five centuries of where the Gallic was spoken in Scotland.

[Morris at Heathfield]

Well, that depends on how far back you are considering. If you went back before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, then there certainly would have been a time when Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) was the chief language. For example, "Scottish Gaelic was spoken throughout Scotland (apart from small areas in the extreme south-east and north-east) between the 9th and 11th centuries...." from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gaelic.htm

The Anglian kingdom of Bernicia was established in the southeast of what is now Scotland in the mid-6th century. At that time the kingdom of the Scots (Dalriada) was a pocket on the west coast. Scottish Gaelic became the chief language of what is now Scotland between the 9th and 11th centuries, when the kingdom of the Scots absorbed the Picts and then began to project its influence south of the Forth. Both English and Gaelic are relative newcomers that displaced the older languages of what is now Scotland: Pictish, north of the Forth, and Cumbric (related to Old Welsh) to the south.

Scottish Gaelic, along with Norman French (!), was the courtly language of Scotland during the High Middle Ages. At this same time the courtly language of England was Norman French. These courtly languages died out in England and the Scottish Lowlands simply because the nobility and their retinues were surrounded by large numbers of English-speaking commoners, including the increasingly influential townspeople and traders. This process took place centuries after the initial Anglo-Saxon invasions.