THE WESTERN ISLES LANGUAGE PLAN:

Gaelic to English language-shift 1972-2001 

Paper to Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 3

University of Edinburgh 21-23 July 2004

Kenneth MacKinnon

The Western Isles Language Plan was established in 2003, following an initiative commencing in August 2002 under the aegis of the Western Isles Language and Culture Forum. The Language Plan is managed by Fosglan at Lews Castle College, Stornoway, with a steering group comprised of representatives of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (CNES, the Western Isles local government authority), Lews Castle College ( a constituent college of the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute), Comunn na Gàidhlig ( a Gaelic language development agency), and Western Isles Enterprise. The Plan receives funding from LEADER+ and Bòrd na Gàidhlig (the Scottish Executive's Gaelic Development Authority).

I was a consultant to the plan at early stages of its development. and participated in framing the questionnaire and sampling frame for a systematic survey of Western Isles residents in 2003-4. In preparation for this I also advised on demographic and linguistic processes affecting viability of the Gaelic-speaking community, much of which involved census analysis and empirical research which I had undertaken in the Western Isles since the early 1970s. This paper reports on some these bodies of data.

Language, Education and Social Processes in the Isle of Harris 1972-4

This study was funded by a Social Sciences Research Council senior research fellowship (reference number: 00 87812 ) and was based upon surveys of the island's then 286 primary and 181 secondary pupils, and a systematic sample of 91 adults. Amongst the problems which this study attempted to investigate was that of language-shift. Adult respondents were asked to report on their language use in some 55 everyday speech-situations in their upbringing and in present family usage. In 15 situations of reported low usage of Gaelic, 9 had shifted intergenerationally in favour of English, and 6 in favour of Gaelic. In the case of 27 situations reported with moderate use of Gaelic, 22 had shifted in favour of English, and only 2 in favour of Gaelic. Of 13 situations reported with high incidence of use of Gaelic, none were reported as stronger in present family compared with the past. The cases where Gaelic usage was reported as increasing comprised such instances of low reported use of Gaelic as: bank staff, local and regional telephone operators, policeman, inspector, and councillor, and such instances of moderate use of Gaelic as: public entertainments, and visiting workmen. (MacKinnon, 1977 pp 144 – 157,)

These latter situations may be viewed as instances where the old diglossia was breaking down. Over the vast majority of situations in everyday life, English had made considerable gains. Its ‘demesne', or the range of situations ‘occupied' by the language, had considerably extended. Yet at that time, Gaelic remained the principal language of home and community and was still in active transmission to the younger generation.

Transmission of Language and Culture in Harris and Barra 1976-8

This study was undertaken in 1976-8 with the support of a Social Science Research Council small project grant (reference number HR 4309), and the research funds of Hatfield Polytechnic which enabled Morag MacDonald (now MacNeil) to be employed as fulltime research associate. The study comprised a systematic questionnaire survey of over one hundred respondents in southern Harris and the Isle of Barra ( and with the assistance of research associates in Nova Scotia of two similar Gaelic communities in Cape Breton Island .) One of the principal purposes of this study was to examine more closely the maintenance of Gaelic and its associated linguistic culture in two strongly Gaelic Western Isles communities (and their maintenance by way of comparison in two migrant Gaelic communities in Canada .) Results of these studies have been published: MacDonald 1984, MacKinnon and MacDonald 1980, MacKinnon 1982, 1996.

Amongst the issues studied were language maintenance in the family and language use in the community. Gaelic usage in some of the more salient situations. It is apparent that intergeneration language-shift has been substantial in both Western Isles communities. The top three instances (grandparents in original family, parents in original family, and parents in present family) represent three generations, and language-shift from Gaelic to English is particularly noticeable. So to are the exchanges between father and child, mother and child, and children between each other. Gaelic may be marginally (but probably not significantly) stronger with fathers than mothers. Nevertheless the differences between original and present family usage indicate the substantial intergenerational weakening of the language in both communities. Children's use of Gaelic between each other shows this even more dramatically.

Language Maintenance and Viability in the Gaelic Speech Community 1986-8

This study attempted to apply a similar scope and methodology to the whole of the principal Gaelic speaking area, systematically surveying the Western Isles and the Isle of Skye some ten years later. It was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council major project grant (reference number G00 232328.) and the research funds of Hatfield Polytechnic. Cathlin Macaulay was appointed as fulltime research associate. Similarity of questions enabled some comparison with the situation in typical parts of this area studied ten years earlier. Fuller details can be found in reports and publications cited below: Macaulay 1999, MacKinnon, K. 1988, 1990, 1991, 1994.

Intergenerationally Gaelic was well maintained by these respondents between the grandparental and parental generations, but decline is successively rapid between subject and partner, subject to children, and between children themselves. Such decline will certainly be more advanced amongst younger respondents.

The Euromosaic National Gaelic Speaker Survey 1994-5

The European Commissions' Task Force Resources Humaines funded an international study of lesser-used languages across the European Union in 1994-5, which was organised by Equip Euromosaic, Barcelona , and in the UK by Research Centre Wales at Bangor . I was asked to undertake what was to be the first national language-use study of Gaelic speakers throughout Scotland . It was quota sampled by area, age, gender and occupation, and included a subsample of 130 respondents in the Western Isles. The similarity of questions with earlier samples enabled comparisons with earlier studies. This methodology gave the potential for comparisons with other language groups. ( See: EBLUL 1995, Nelde 1996.) Further results of the Gaelic survey have been published as: MacKinnon 1998, 2001.)

With the analysis of these results, language use of Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles between the 1986-8 and 1994-5 surveys could be compared. Although the methodology of the two surveys differed, the pace of language shift during this short period certainly overcame any effects of quota versus systematic sampling. The dominant pattern is of rapid sequential intergenerational decline in use of Gaelic.

The study also examined use of Gaelic and English across a range of 30 everyday community speech-situations. The situations are rank-ordered in terms of salience of Gaelic as compared with English. They range from such situations as retail purchases, asking the time, speaking to minister, priest or local councillor, where use of Gaelic predominates. The use of Gaelic declined further through such moderately Gaelic situations as car and machine repairs, drinking in pubs, and ordering meals, to situations of lower use of Gaelic such as dealings with bank manager, teacher, doctor, library staff, and social worker. Minimal use of Gaelic was reported with solicitors, paying bills, sports training and police. Negligible use of Gaelic was reported for business with tax and social security offices, buying electronic goods, telephone operators, to dentist, reporting leaks and power cuts, booking theatre tickets or holidays, and for eye tests.

Demographic analysis: population, education and economy

The Western Isles area today faces acute population and economic problems. In recent decades oil-related work has brought some intermittent employment opportunities, but the island economy lacks a reliable staple industry. Harris tweed has faced decline, and people go away to work in service industries and the merchant navy. The population is ageing and birth rates are declining more acutely than in Scotland as a whole.

Education may provide an effective means of reproducing the language in the younger generation even though its position in the home is weakening. This has proved a most effective strategy in Wales . However it is clearly apparent that school rolls have been falling over the past two decades, and although there was a growth of enrolments into Gaelic-medium schooling between 1986 and 1998, since then Gaelic medium education in the Western Isles has been in decline. If the Western Isles Language Plan is to have any prospects of success, this is clearly an issue for immediate attention. If Gaelic is to be realistically retained as a community language in the Western Isles, a priority aim for local education needs to be the effective acquisition and development of both the languages of the community during the period of childhood school attendance. This needs to involve all schools - both primary and secondary - and not just the present 25 out of 39 primary schools which in 2004 have Gaelic medium units.

Gaelic-medium education has achieved some success. The lack of development for the language in secondary education has meant that these gains are almost immediately lost in the successive 15-19 and 20-24 age-groups. These age-groups immediately precede marriage and family-formation, and are noticeable also for local population loss. The present extent of Gaelic-medium education is quite insufficient either to hold or to reverse the present incidence of Gaelic in the community. Its effects may be little more that to slow down the present rates of attrition of the language.

The development of economic and employment policies for the Western Isles might lie outwith the scope of the present paper, which is concerned essentially with language policy and planning. However, as the systematic sample was being selected, it became apparent that substantial numbers of incomers have settled in the Western Isles, and presumably have the economic means to do so. They are for the most part non-Gaelic-speaking, and any language plan for the community must take into account how this population sector may be accommodated without the concomitant of inducing even further local language-shift. The challenge of any future economic development of the islands will lie in its potential for the stimulation of Gaelic rather than its inexorable promotion of English.

Demographic analysis: prospects for reversing language shift

On the whole, Gaelic in the Western Isles has been officially regarded in a pretty laisser-faire manner. When the authority was created in 1975 a bilingual primary schools project was initiated, and this was supposed to have resulted in its measures being spread to all primary schools when it had run its course. A bilingual secondary project was deferred in 1979, the government changed and the new incoming government did not support it. Gaelic preschool provision has often entailed corresponding English-language provision – without the reverse having necessarily received similar priority. In 1975 a bilingual administrative policy was initiated. This was a permissive measure, and has probably not really achieved any significant breakthrough of encouraging Gaelic-speakers to use their language in new domains and situations. The time is ripe for a fresh start with a new language plan, informed with new thinking, such as the possibility of reversing language shift.

Despite the long history of neglect and insufficient provisions, Gaelic has survived and still has some residual strengths. Over the decades the numbers of local areas where the incidence of Gaelic amongst younger people is stronger than amongst older has steadily diminished. However in 2001 there were still a remaining few. Whether it is possible to initiate policies which can build upon these instances of survival against all the odds remains to be seen. It is however instructive to examine these cases more closely. The Western Isles today certainly comprise a case of advanced language-shift, but can the prospect of reversing language shift be a realistic possibility (Fishman 1990, 1991, 2001 ) – or even in places actually occurring?

This analysis has used two measures of assessing community strength for Gaelic by means of demographic analysis of census results. Where the incidence of Gaelic speakers is greater than amongst older speakers, there can be said to be an ‘intergenerational gain'. This however is subject to population movements strengthening or diluting the proportions. A more absolute measure is the comparison of the numbers of Gaelic-speaking children as a ratio of the Gaelic-speaking parental generation. This ‘intergenerational ratio' is the more valid measure. These values have been calculated for the Western Isles and its wards.

There were only two cases of intergenerational gain where the proportion of Gaelic speakers amongst the children were equal or greater than in the parental generation: Uig/Carloway, and Eochar/North Benbecula. There were only six cases of positive intergenerational ratio where the parental generation was successfully reproducing itself in the age-group of childhood: Harris, Barra/Vatersay, Uig/Carloway, Coll/Gress, Lochmaddy/Paible, and Daliburgh/Eriskay. Whether these last residual areas of successful language transmission will persist without strong positive supportive public policies is of course doubtful.

This, then is the situation which the Western Isles Language Plan has to face, and a measure of the problems it is to tackle.

Some considerations for the future :

•  A future for Gaelic as a community language urgently implies new policies in education, and in public life.

•  Schooling - both primary and secondary - should enable ALL children to acquire, and to be educated in BOTH their community languages.

•  Today's social and economic pressures mean that Gaelic cannot be successfully maintained as a community language without effective proactive policies, strong positive encouragement, and the creations of institutions which use the language..

•  Such strategies need to promote Gaelic in home, workplace and media as well as in the school.

•  Strategies need to be developed to enable Gaelic to be effectively used in communities where incomers have brought a strong anglicising presence.

•  There are however still residual strengths which still exist and can be utilised.

Bibliography

European Bureau for Lesser-used Languages (1995) Feeling at Home in Your Language, Brussels : EBLUL. ISBN 90-74851-23-1

Fishman, J. A (1990) What is reversing Language Shift – and How Can it Succeed? Pp. 5- 36 in: Gorter, D., Hoekstra, J. F., Lammert, G., and Ytsma, J. (eds.) Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages, Vol 1. General Papers , ( Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Vol 11, Nos. 1 & 2 1909) Clevedon: Multilingual Matters ISSN 0143-4632

Fishman, J. A. (1991) Reversing Language Shift (RLS) : Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters ISBN 1-85359-121-1 pbk

Fishman, J. A. (2001) Can Threatened Languages be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: a 21 st century perspective, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters ISBN 1-85359-492-X

Nelde, P., et al. ( Equip Euromosaic) (1996) Euromosaic: the production and reproduction of the minority language groups in the European Union. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities ISBN 92-827-5512-6

Macaulay, C. (1999) Gaelic: a study of language-maintenance and shift in the Scottish Gaidhealtachd. (Ph. D thesis, Hatfield Polytechnic.)'

MacDonald, M. B. (1984) Gaelic Langauge and Cultural maintenance in the Scottish Hebridean Islands of Barra and Harris (Ph.D. thesis, Hatfield Polytechnic)

MacKinnon, K. (1977) Language, Education and Social Processes in a Gaelic Community. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul ISBN 0 7100 8466 8

MacKinnon. K., and MacDonald, M. (1980) Ethnic Communites: the Transmission of Language and Culture in Harris and Barra. Report to Social Science Research Council. March 1980 (with Morag MacDonald) Hatfield Polytechnic Social Sciences Reports Series No. SSR 12. Hatfield: Hertis Publications ISBN 90045818 6.

MacKinnon, K. (1982) ‘Cape Breton Gaeldom in cross-cultural context: the transmission of ethnic language and culture', paper to Sixth World Congress of International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Aberdeen University 19–23 July 1982. Published in Polyglot Vol 6, Fiche 1, Oct 1985 Birkbeck College, University of London. (Fiche publication: no ISSN or page numbers.)

MacKinnon, K. (1996) ‘Cape Breton – Western Isles: transatlantic resonance of language and culture', Ch. 19 in: Ureland, P.S., and Clarkson, I., (eds.) 1996 Language Contact across the North Atlantic. Tübingen: Niemeyer. ISBN 3-484-30359-X pp. 363 – 386.

MacKinnon, K. (1988) Gaelic Language-Maintenance and Viability in the Isle of Skye, report to Economic and Social Research Council. Published Hatfield Polytechnic Business and Social Sciences Reports Series No BSSR 17, Hatfield: Hertis Publications ISBN 0 90045836 4.

MacKinnon, K. (1990) ‘Language-Maintenance and Viability in the Contemporary Scottish Speech-Community: Some Social and demographic Factors', paper to Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages, Frisian Academy, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 20 – 24 June 1989. Published in: Görter, D. et al, (eds.) 1990 Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages, Proceedings Vol. II Ch. 6, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. ISBN 1-85359-111-4. pp. 69 – 90.

MacKinnon, K. 1991 ‘Language-maintenance and viability in contemporary Gaelic-speaking communities: Skye and the Western Isles Today (from survey and census data)', paper to Eighth International Symposium on Language Contact in Europe 18 –24 Sept 1988, Douglas, Isle of Man. Published in: Ureland, P. S., & Broderick, G. (eds.) 1991 Language Contact in the British Isles, Tübingen: Niemeyer. ISBN 3-484-30238-0 pp. 495–534.

MacKinnon, 1994 ‘Gaelic Language-Use in the Western Isles', in Fenton, A. and MacDonald, D.A. (eds.) 1994 Studies in Scots and Gaelic: proceedings of Third International Conference on the Languages of Scotland, Edinburgh 25 – 27 Jul 1991, Edinburgh: Canongate. ISBN 1 898410 11 9 pp.123 – 137.

MacKinnon, K. (1998) ‘Gaelic in Family, Work and Community Domains: Euromosaic Project 1994/95' in: McClure, J. D. (ed.) 1998 Scottish Language, No 17 1998, a selection of papers presented at the Fifth International Conference on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, Aberdeen 1 – 5 August 1997, Aberdeen: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, ISSN 0264 0198 pp. 55 – 69.

MacKinnon, K. (2001) ‘Identity, Attitudes, and Support for Gaelic policies: Gaelic speakers in the Euromosaic Survey 1994/95', in Kirk, J. M. and Ó Baoill, D. P. (eds.) Language Links: the Languages of Scotland and Ireland. Belfast: Queen's University Press ISBN 0 85389 795 6 pp.177 – 186.

Affiliation

Kenneth MacKinnon currently holds academic appointments as: Visiting Professor and Reader Emeritus in the Sociology of Language at the University of Hertfordshire; Honorary Fellow in Celtic at the University of Edinburgh; Honorary Professor in Celtic and Language Planning at the University of Aberdeen; and Associate Lecturer in Social Sciences, Education and Language Studies at the Open University.

Contact details

Ivy Cottage, Ferintosh, The Black Isle, by Dingwall, Ross-shire IV7 8HX

Tel: 01349-863460 Email: kenmackinnon@enterprise.net Website: www.sgrud.org.uk