Confessions of a Gaelic Learner

I spent a year enthusiastically studying Scottish Gaelic at Glasgow University, and then I returned to Oklahoma. Not surprisingly I knew of nobody nearby to share my interest with. And even worse,despite my best intentions, I neglected to keep up with my studies of Gaelic, and it slowly began evaporating from my memory, after only a few months. Then I spent a semester in Mexico, learning the ever-useful Spanish language, and towards the end of my time there, realized (with horror) that almost all my Gaelic was gone. I just arrived back in Glasgow on a work permit, where all my friends are finishing their second year of Gaelic. Naturally they've improved dramatically. I'm outrageously jealous.

But even worse, I suddenly became disillusioned about learning the language. What really would be the point of speaking Gaelic? The thing is, in contrast to languages like Spanish and Japanese, there really is no overtly practical point. Sure, my friends and I could talk about people in front of them, and they'd have no clue. The number of people who speak Gaelic as a native language is shrinking everyday, because of a simple reason: they are dying. Most of the native speakers are older, Western Isles residents. Nobody is positive about Gaelic's survival. One Gaelic professor told my friends that the language would die out in their lifetimes. What this means is that soon it will be a scholars' language, only spoken by learners, like Manx and Cornish. Like Latin.

Gut instinct makes me sad at this. I firmly believe that languages are one of the most important things in a culture's identity, so when it's suppressed or dies out naturally, people and their ancestors lose something. Often languages that "die out naturally" actually dissappear as a result of suppression in their own way. This is the internal suppression members of a society put on themselves in the name of modernization. Children of the last couple generations in the Western Isles grew up without Gaelic, because their parents believed English was the language of success. This is a phenomenon familiar to Americans, as it frequently occurs with immigrant populations. Often it is realized that this is a bad thing, as with the American Hispanic community. But in the case of Gaelic, it may just be too late. Now kids on the islands grow up learning Gaelic, but since their parents often don't speak it, it's not really a true native language anymore. They're learners as well.

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