Hansard

Oifigeir-riaghlaidh, tha mi a’ cur fàilte air Aonghas Dòmhnallach airson an deasbad seo a chur air dòigh agus tha mi fìor thoilichte pàirt a ghabhail ann, agus gus an deicheamh ceann-bliadhna aig Achd na Gàidhlig (Alba) 2005 a chomharrachadh. ’S e ceum cudthromach air adhart a bh’ anns an achd ach cha bu chòir dhuinn a bhith dìreach a’ coimhead air ais an-diugh, ach a bhith a’ coimhead air adhart cuideachd.

Tha cor nas fheàrr air a’ Ghàidhlig an-diugh na bha oirre mus robh an achd ann, ach feumar barrachd a dhèanamh ma tha Gàidhlig gu bhith seasmhach airson nan ginealach ri tighinn agus gus an tèid againn air ràdh gu fìrinneach gur e dùthaich trì-ghuthach a tha seo, mar a chaidh a chur an cèill ann an dàn le Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn aig fosgladh Pàrlamaid na h-Alba.

Following is the simultaneous interpretation:

I congratulate Angus MacDonald on securing the debate, and I warmly welcome the chance to contribute and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005. That act was a good step forward, but we should not only look back today but look ahead as well.

Gaelic is in a better condition today than it was before the act but more must be done if we are to secure Gaelic for future generations and assert with truth that this is a three-voiced country, as the poem by Iain Crichton Smith asserted at the opening of this Scottish Parliament.

The member continued in English.

Of course, that is just three voices. English, Gaelic and Scots may be uniquely ours—and I include English because TS Eliot once contended that English was only spoken properly in Richmond, Virginia, and in Edinburgh—but there are now other voices to be heard in our land.

Our first obligation is to the languages that belong to us. It will be our fault and nobody else’s if Gaelic does not survive. It is possible to countenance such an outcome—languages die every year in our world. The present Scottish Government has halted the precipitate decline of Gaelic over the last century, but we are still perilously close to the cliff edge. It is a cliff edge of an increasingly elderly population for whom Gaelic is their first language and a younger population that sometimes does not value what it has inherited.

Although we should be glad of, celebrate and support all the work that has gone on to get us to this stage, there is much more to do. We need to create a new generation of Gaelic speakers and our educational system will not yet do that. We certainly need more Gaelic-medium schools, but we also need a substantial expansion in opportunities for adult learners and we need to create some places and spaces where Gaelic is not optional or desirable but essential. There have been ideas about how that might be done over the years, but those proposals now need urgent attention and action.

I know that the minister is more than sympathetic to this cause. He is an example to us all—a Gaelic learner who is fluent and a Scots speaker who wrote his thesis in the language. He is truly three voiced. However, he also knows that he is the exception and that, if we are to grow languages, as the Government, to its credit, is trying to do, we need resources and commitment for the long term and for those—the rest of us—who are not exceptions.

We also need to move on in legislative terms. My own Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill—the first Gaelic language bill—was introduced as a member’s bill in 2002 out of desperation at the failure of the first Scottish Government to honour its promises. The bill was voted down by that coalition Government so that it could introduce its own legislation, which, to its credit, it did in the second session.

The 2005 act was always seen as a start, not a conclusion. We now need to consider a wider piece of language legislation that encompasses the many-voiced nation we have become and that also strengthens our commitment to our two indigenous languages and focuses our resources where they are needed most to make Gaelic survive. That is a challenge that we should all rise to, perhaps in the next session of the Parliament, because there is still much to be done.