Linguistics

Gaels in Scotland and Nova Scotia don’t tend to know a lot about each other. When they actually visit each other’s home turf, they find many similarities, but also a few surprises. So in a spirit of education and understanding, I’ve created a list of the top ten differences between Gaelic in Nova Scotia and Scotland, from a Nova Scotian perspective. Here is the first half of the list, Part One.

What is Gaelic? My regular blog readers already know, but it doesn’t hurt to keep putting the basic facts out there. Increasing positive awareness of Gaelic is an important part of language revitalization. This post provides four different basic answers to the question, “What is Gaelic?”

A few years ago, someone criticized my work, saying that Gaelic language revitalization wasn’t rocket science. Indeed, language revitalization isn’t rocket science — it’s far more difficult! Rocket science formulates and solves math problems. Something goes wrong? Find the mistake and fix it. Human error is a factor, but the math is reliable. Language revitalization, on the other hand, is not so simple…

A satirical look at anti-Gaelic prejudice and stereotypes in the Scottish and British media — why won’t these tired old lies about Gaelic just die already? In the meantime, download the free gamecards and let’s play bingo with them!

My chapter on Nova Scotia Gaelic, published in the book Celts in the Americas, describes and analyzes the current state of the Gaelic language and the Gaelic community in Nova Scotia, and makes recommendations about revitalization priorities for the near future.