Hi, can anyone tell me if the Outer Hebrides are what the Irish would call a Fíor-Ghaeltacht or a Breac-Ghaeltacht? Is Gaelic the predominant spoken language? Telling the census 61% speak Gaelic in Lewis - well much of the population of the Breac-Ghaeltacht in Ireland say that - and don't necessary speak it every day. Does anyone know what the real situation is on the ground?

I remember reading Barvas is a stronghold for Gaelic.

A majority of the people in the Outer Hebrides can still speak Gaelic fluently, and a large number use it in the home, but it is somewhat endangered among younger people. The percentage of fluent speakers is as high as 75%, I believe, on some islands south of Lewis, such as Barra and South Uist (the Catholic part of the islands). There are also still Gaelic-speaking communities on some of the Inner Hebrides (especially Skye) and still a few strong pockets on the mainland of the Highlands.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

There's a map about that in the article about Scots Gaelic in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scotl ... rs2001.gif

Now, does the map represent the percentage of people who are able to speak Gaelic, or that of the people who really use Gaelic in their everyday life?

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I don't believe there is a Gaedhaeltachd anywhere on the mainland - there may be areas where a few % say they are fluent - but it's not the community language in even one hamlet of the Highlands... I was talking about the Outer Hebrides. If 74% speak it in some areas - those who CAN speak it - maybe the amount really speaking it is lower. So definitely lower than 70% speak it as a community language even in the strongholds - so that means no Category A Gaeltacht - according to the Irish definition, even on Lewis. It seems the Gaelic-speaking areas would be equivalent to the B and C categories in Ireland???

It makes you realise that even though Ireland has gone about their revival in the wrong way, with made up standards, TV programmes fronted by non-native speakers and all that - there ARE Category A areas in Ireland, even some places where 95% speak Irish every day - and so Irish is incomparably stronger than Scottish Gaelic, albeit the form it survives in is impaired from the traditional speech. The fact that many politicians can speak Irish - well you don't get that in Glasgow.

It's sad and quite surprising, because normally islands keep the language much longer than the mainland (except when the islands are touristic, this is the case of most Brittany islands but not so much of the Hebrides, I think)... It's strange that Irish is stronger in Connemara than Gaelic in the Hebrides.
Another sad thing, is that native speakers are less interested in their language (using it, transmitting it), than other people (I mean, many people throughout the world are learning Irish or Scottish Gaelic).

I think I'll never understand why a people abandons its language and culture, that's beyond me.

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Well, I suppose the Irish language had a significant role in the independence movement. It was originally the idea that the whole of Ireland would speak Irish again. Whereas Scottish Gaelic operates in a non-independent country, and even those who want Scotland to be independent (quite a few) don't envisage the whole of Scotland becoming Gaelic-speaking, so it does not have the same political significance in Scotland. I am wondering *if* the Gaelic that survives is more likely to be traditional-style language, because they didn't make a caighdeán, but in reality the number of people being fully trained up to teach it will be so much less than in Ireland, so you can see why it is struggling more.

but the number of Irish speakers hasn't ceased to decrease since the independence...



because Scotland was never completely Gaelic-speaking... Even I wouldn't want Gaelic to replace Braid Scots where Braid Scots is the traditional language, because both languages deserve to survive.



in my opinion there's no need of a caighdeán in Scotland because there are much fewer differences between the Scottish dialects. And anyway, even with bigger dialects' differences, creating an artificial dialect to make it the official dialect instead of all other natural dialects is not a good idea (in my opinion).
By the way, I don't think the caighdeán has contributed in any way to increase the number of speakers of Irish! Quite the contrary. It gave the impression to native speakers that their native dialect was wrong, and when learners go to the Gaeltacht, quite often native speakers don't want to talk to them in Irish because they speak an artificial language whose vocabulary isn't always understandable...

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Yes, but the process of decline may have slowed from what it would otherwise have been. This includes a counterfactual, so we can't know what would have been.

Even if you consider the fact that people like Peig Sayers did speak English. Even 100 years ago, most Gaeltacht areas were at least bilingual - you could easily have seen a death of the language as a community language in the 1920s - and yet it has soldiered on, in a weaker and weaker form - but it has survived.

I'm not clear why some apparently strong Gaeltacht areas, like Mayo, did just go and collapse. What causes some areas to do better than others even under the current policy mix? Is it local enthusiasm or what? Not all areas are declining at the same rate.

Actually, I think the withdrawal of the deontas may have a large effect on the Gaeltacht. And then the political pressure will be on to scrub round the Gaeltacht concept - and bring in the fact that there are native speakers in all counties - e.g. Gaeltacht natives who moved there, children of Gaeltacht natives in Dublin, neo-natives (children of people who learned the CO), as well as fluent learners, including people who attended Gaelscoil and enthusiasts who have attained fluency, albeit not necesarily in a traditional dialect. So then the census will ask everyone in Ireland, "do you use Irish at least once a day outside the education system?" and you will have your new "figure" for "native speakers"...

In any case, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Official CO movement largely ignores the Gaeltacht - and some of them are overtly hostile to the Gaeltacht ("I will NOT be told by boggers what to speak" - is what some of them say) - and so we are moving into a new phase where the language movement, probably wrongly, thinks it doesn't need the Gaeltacht.

but it's not a safe way to have a real answer, because what is "using Irish once a day"? If you say "sláinte" or "slán" once a day, is it enough to say you spoke Irish?...



the most stupid attitude that can be imagined. It's as if I said "I don't need native English speakers to know how to talk proper English". Doesn't exist anywhere in the world except in Brittany and in Ireland. It's the highest degree of ignorance and stupidity.

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne