The Scottish Gaelic Society of Victoria

ar CÀNAIN

our language

Scottish Gaelic belongs to the Celtic family of languages and is closely related to Irish Gaelic and Manx. Welsh, Breton and Cornish, the other Celtic languages, are more distant cousins.

No other modern language has been spoken in Scotland for so long as Gaelic. It is at the very heart of Scotland’s history and culture and its imprint is almost everywhere in the nation.

Settlers brought Gaelic to Scotland from Antrim in Ireland over 1500 years ago and it quickly spread from its initial base in what is now known as Argyllshire. At one time Gaelic was the language of the Scottish court and of the majority of the country’s population. But Gaelic began to lose ground in the early Middle Ages as the Scots language made progress in south-east Scotland. Gaelic continued to flourish in the Highlands and Islands, particularly during the heyday of the Lordship of the Isles in the 14 and 15th centuries. But as the power and influence of the Lords of the Isles declined, Gaelic’s status also weakened.

Economic hardship in the late 18th and 19th centuries resulted in both forced and voluntary emigration from the north of Scotland which meant that many thousands of Gaelic speakers left for the industrialising Lowlands or for the New World mainly in Canada but also Australia. This, together with factors such as the failure to give Gaelic its proper place when universal education was established in the late 19th century, caused the number of Gaelic speakers to decline.

Remarkably after centuries of repression, it is still spoken by around 65,000 people in Scotland. Gaelic is strongest in the Western Isles but there are substantial Gaelic communities elsewhere in the Highlands and Islands and in the nation’s cities.

Gaelic is currently enjoying a revival in its fortunes with more interest being shown in the language and its health that at any other time. Crucial to supporting this revival have been developments in education and in promoting Gaelic culture. Gaelic playgroups and Gaelic-medium education at both primary and secondary levels have undergone unprecedented growth in many areas of Scotland. Gaelic is increasingly used on road signs notices and in advertisements, and with the setting up of a fund to provide a Gaelic television service in 1992, more Gaelic television and radio programmes are now available than in the past. At the same time there has been a healthy and growing interest in Gaelic music and arts.

2007 classes commenced on Wednesday the 7th of February

When:         Classes are held every Wednesday evening from 6.30 - 8.00 pm

Beginners: 6.30 - 7.00         Advanced:   7.00 -  8.00

Where:       The Celtic Club

Corner of LaTrobe and Queens Streets, Melbourne

(Check signage next to lifts for classroom allocation)

Costs:       Fees for our language classes are $30.00 per year.

Non members are required to pay an additional $20.00 for annual membership to the Scottish Gaelic Society of Victoria.

For further information about our classes, please e-mail us by clicking here.

Did you know that you don't 'have' a car in Gaelic, but that the car is 'at you'

e.g.
   "An car ùr agam."
   "My new car."

Similarly some things can be 'on you' - air e.g.,

   Tha deoch air
   Is drink on him - he is drunk

   Tha deoch mòr oirre
   Is drink big on her - she is very drunk

Notice that you change the pronoun he/she in English by changing whether it's on him/on her in Gaelic and similarly:

   Tha cnatan orm
   Is cold on me - I have a cold

   Tha eagal oirrn
   Is fear on us - we are afraid

   Tha mi eolach air
   Is me knowledge on him - I know him

   Tha an t-acras/pathadh orm
   Is hunger/thirst on me - I am hungry/thirsty

   Tha an dèideadh orra
   They have toothache.

   Tha iongantas ort
   You are surprised.

I need (something)

Tha feum agam air (deoch)
Is need at me on (a drink)
I need a drink!

Beginners of the language classes usually find the range of reference books particularly useful.

The library is located on the 2nd floor of the Celtic Club, corner of LaTrobe and Queen Streets, Melbourne.  Contact our librarian (and Treasurer), Ms Sine Graham, if you would like to access the collection.

www.ltscotland.org.uk
- suitable for Gaelic intermediate and includes speaking and writing packs
www.gaelicvillage.co.uk
- presents the culture and heritage of the Gaeltachd and offers the opportunity of switching between Gaelic and English at will
www.tiriodh.ed.uk/indexe.html
 - project Tiree contains clips of 40 years of recordings of speech on the isle of Tiree - a very useful resource to practice listening!
www.taic.btinternet.co.uk
   - 55 grammar related lessons - each one clearly explained (I'm starting to think that my own students need something like this in English!)
www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam.shtml 
  - for a reasonably advanced student of Gaelic, but a vast resource because it's the BBC's portal for learning and education.  If you find it over whelming, beag air bheag (link on the page) might be a bit more user friendly
www.an-gaidheal-ur.co.uk 
  - the website for the world's only Gaelic newspaper. Distributed once a month
www.gms.org.co.uk 
  -   website for a Gaelic language magazine - Cothrom
 

Invisible Islands by Angus Peter Campbell (OTAGO £8.99, ISBN 0955228301)

This is Scottish author Campbell's first book in English, his previous work being written in Gaelic. It was a wise decision, enabling a wider audience to revel in his extraordinary imaginative writing.

Although reality is frequently distorted in these 21 stories, each based on a different mythical island created by Campbell, it would be wrong to call them surreal. There's always a political consciousness at work, right down to the islands' Gaelic names that never allow a reader to forget the author's background. That isn't to say Campbell is loath to entertain his readers; some of the stories have great moments of humour. On Colathaigh, for example, the eccentric population take their rituals and superstitions to extremes. "Not only did they observe the Sabbath completely... but they did so sun-wise... In other words, what they did on Sunday, and, for that matter, every day of the week, was always done moving from left to right on the meridian, or from east to west on the compass." Having behaved like this for centuries, the Colathaighich had developed internal compasses so finely tuned that they instinctively realised if they were moving an inch in the wrong direction.

There are a few quirks in Campbell's style that might have been better pruned away by a hard-nosed editor (dashes, parentheses and commas flow rather too liberally), but this really is a very special little book.

Order on-line at www.invisibleislands.com or e-mail us to organise purchasing by clicking here.