Comment on Fears for future of Gaelic language as community workers’ jobs under threat

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Dendrologist@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Pòg mò thòn. Tha Gàidhlig sgoinneil!

What’s “the point” of any language? What’s the point in Dutch? Every Dutch person seems to know English fluently, so why do they continue to speak in Dutch if there’s only Dutch speakers around? Could it be because they’re free to speak in whatever fucking language they like and they prefer that one?

Gaelic has been destroyed over a long period of time, from romanticised Red Coat colonial oppression at the end of a musket to more recent “you must speak properly or you get the cane” oppression in 1960/70s children’s classrooms. That’s why it’s required government intervention to get back on its feet again. It’s our language whether we know it anymore or not. But it’s still alive (just), and it’s ours to take care of.

You may not speak it, you may not understand it, but Gaelic has as much right to be written and spoken in this country as English does.

Oh and that tax money you’re complaining about is also paid by Gaelic speakers, so if they want to see the name of their town or village in it’s original form on road signs as opposed to an anglicised butchering then that seems fair enough to me.

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