Kirstie said:
Just wondering...I bought a big book of Scots Gaelic songs to learn. I absolutely love the tunes, but haven't a clue how to pronounce any of it properly. Now I've decided Scots Gaelic might be an interesting thing to learn. Finding a course in England will be like looking for a needle in a haystack...so other than buying a book and teaching myself, I'm kind of stuck. I prefer face to face language courses cos they're more fun...so are you a Gaelic speaker - if so did you learn it or are you a native speaker. How do you keep up your knowledge?
My mother comes from a little village near Oban. She's in her mid-80s now. I was visiting her a couple of months ago and I found a Gaelic song-book on her bookshelf so I asked her about it. Apparently it was a prize from her local high school. We chatted about Gaelic, and I told her that I was surprised to find out that she used to speak it, having never heard it spoken by her or any other member of the Scottish side of the family. She told me that they all spoke it in her village back in the 1920s/30s when she was growing up. She studied English as a foreign language at school, as did everyone else up there! The older Gaelic-speaking generation are slowly dying out now but some of their grandchildren are trying to learn the language so hopefully it won't die with them.
My mum can't remember much of the Gaelic language, but I managed to get her to recite a few lines of a poem that she learned at school. It sounded very haunting but I've no idea what it meant!
As a matter of principle, I'd like to learn Gaelic, but in practice, Spanish would be much more useful! I've a feeling there was a Teach-yourself Gaelic book on the same bookshelf as the song-book. I'm visiting again next week and will check it out.
Kirstie - why not treat yourself to a holiday in Scotland on a
residential Gaelic course? One example -
5-day course on Skye. Take your bike or a decent pair of walking boots with you if you go!
