Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Oral evidence: Minority languages, HC 178

Tuesday 14 May 2024, Glasgow

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 May 2024.

Watch the meeting

Members present: Dame Caroline Dinenage (Chair); Julie Elliott; John Nicolson; Jane Stevenson.

Questions 82 - 132

Witnesses

I: Dr Michael Dempster, Director, Scots Language Centre; Professor Joanna Kopaczyk, Professor of Scots and English Philology, University of Glasgow; Dr Dawn Leslie, Lecturer in Linguistics, University of Aberdeen.

II: Professor Rob Dunbar, Chair of Celtic Languages, Literature, History and Antiquities, University of Edinburgh; Mairi MacInnes, Chair, Bòrd na Gàidhlig; Dr Gillian Rothach, Principal, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

Written evidence from witnesses:

– [Add names of witnesses and hyperlink to submissions]

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Dr Michael Dempster, Professor Joanna Kopaczyk and Dr Dawn Leslie.

Q82            Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at the University of Glasgow. We are really grateful to the university for hosting this part of our inquiry into minority languages. We are looking at the current status of minority languages across the UK, at where more can be done, and at the role of the UK Government in supporting those languages.

For our first panel, on the Scots language, I am pleased to welcome Dr Michael Dempster, the director of the Scots Language Centre; Professor Joanna Kopaczyk, a professor of Scots and English philology at the University of Glasgow; and Dr Dawn Leslie, a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Aberdeen. You are all really welcome today—thank you so much for joining us.

I will kick off the questions. The census data shows that there are over 1.5 million people in Scotland who said that they could speak Scots. Michael, what does that mean in practice? To what extent is it used in day-to-day language in work, school, the home and people’s social lives? To what extent is it widely spread?

Dr Dempster: 1.5 million may be an underestimate of the extent of Scots use within Scotland; of course, Scots is used throughout the world. UNESCO does not recognise Scots as being endangered, but it recognises its domain as being largely in the home.

Scottish Standard English, which is how I will be speaking today, tends to be the professional standard of English that is spoken in Scotland, and it is used in education. At the moment, within education, there is no Scots programme from cradle through to tertiary education. However, it is integrated through the curriculum for excellence. There is also the SQA Scots language award, which is taught at an increasing number of schools: the uptake is going up every year. The Open University has just launched the first year of its teacher training in Scots, which is about integrating Scots in all its forms into the classroom.

Now, Scots has quite a number of dialects—I have about 7 or 8 here in my notes—but that goes right down to the location, and even the house, and it varies between individuals. On the domain of Scots, it is certainly the language of work in a lot of non-written work environments. It is used at home, it is used within communities—that is where it exists—but the domain being at home means that generally when Scots speakers are interacting with broadcasting and media it is Scottish Standard English that they speak.

Scots is very prevalent, day to day. If you go out around Scotland, even in Glasgow, there are quite broad Scots speakers. We tend to work on this continuum from broad—affy braid—Scots through to Scottish Standard English, which is used in formal situations.

In order to develop a Scots based on the UNESCO classifications, that domain needs to expand, so Scots is taken as appropriate within education, within work and within broadcasting, and promoted throughout the world. I think it is quite important that the UK Government promotes Scots, along with the other minoritised languages of the United Kingdom, throughout the world. Much of the work that needs to be done on Scots is about prestige raising. Hopefully that gives you an overview of where Scots is spoken.

Chair: Thank you very much. Joanna, do you have anything to add to that?

Professor Kopaczyk: First of all, I am also speaking on behalf of some of our grassroots organisations. I am the academic officer of Oor Vyce, an organisation that was lobbying for the Scottish Languages Bill, which is currently going through the Scottish Parliament, so I am here in a sort of double capacity, if that is okay.

I agree with what Michael has said. As someone who is not a Scots speaker, as you can tell from my name and from my accent, I think it is important to appreciate that Scots has a real presence in the cultural sphere, in history and in all these contexts that make Scottish identity. That is really important for many people across Scotland to understand, to appreciate and to foster. Those opportunities are perhaps not as ready as we would like them to be.

Chair: Dawn?

Dr Leslie: I completely agree with what has been said already. For me, it is all about the validation of Scots as a language, and about giving speakers confidence.

Michael was talking about the different domains of Scots use and how it has often been regarded as a language of the home. Obviously there is a balance to be struck around communication. Today we have been asked to come and speak to you in Scottish Standard English, but I have found in my own professional life that there are often occasions where there are Scots speakers together in a room, but, because it is a professional setting, everyone defaults to English.

It is about trying to get a culture shift about the way we think about Scots, and trying to give people the confidence. I have found that often it just takes somebody to start speaking in Scots, and the whole thing switches and everyone starts speaking in Scots. I think it is about trying to foster a culture that encourages that.

Q83            Chair: Michael said that the Scots language differs slightly, depending on which part of the country you are in. How does it differ? Are there any challenges arising from the fact that there are different forms of the Scots language?

Dr Leslie: Scots differs across the country, and in Ulster. There are different dialects of Scots that are being spoken, and they differ in linguistic aspects. The phonology of them—the way they sound—is sometimes different, with different pronunciations. I am from the north-east of Scotland, and rather than saying “whit” or “where”, we say “fit” and “far”. As well as phonological differences, there are lexical differences: different words may be used in different parts of the country.

In my experience, I think that Scots speakers have not been exposed to each other enough. When you actually sit down with Scots speakers and say, “Look, this is what somebody from Shetland sounds like; this is what somebody from Ayrshire sounds like,” the commonalities between those dialects become a lot more apparent. Because we have not been exposed to each other enough, I think there is a tendency to fall back into our own regional boxes and go, “Well, we speak this and it is completely different from what everyone else speaks.” But they are not completely different: we can see the similarities between them.

I think it is about giving people the exposure to Scots voices, which is not there at the moment, to help them make those connections. We don’t see that in the media; we don’t hear each other enough. The fact that everyone defaults to English in certain situations doesn’t help either. That exposure to each other would make a big difference.

Chair: Does either of the other witnesses have anything to add to that?

Dr Dempster: I would add that there is also a slight concern about dialect levelling within Scots, where, as Scots has developed—perhaps in the north-east or Shetland, or the south-west or the Borders of Scotland—there would be a dialect levelling to west central and east central Scots. As Dawn is saying, if there is a diversity of representation that allows people to see the commonalities across the Scots dialects, then the dialect levelling is less of a concern, but that is more coming out of Scots speakers not being exposed to one another’s languages. The commonality does seem to be what comes out. The Scots Language Centre has a responsibility for the whole of Scotland—we are the only organisation that looks at the whole of Scotland with respect to Scots—and these are issues that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. Exposure to other dialects of Scots seems to be the solution.

Dr Leslie: I think that dialect diversity is really important as well. The dialect identity that is associated with that is really important for people in different parts of Scotland. That is why it is really important that anything that happens from a planning or promotion point of view has to be done from the bottom up, involving those communities, because you don’t want to ostracise people. There needs to be that connection to anything that is happening. I think the dialect communities are really important in that regard.

Professor Kopaczyk: If I can add to that as a representative of the grassroots organisation that I talked about earlier, there is definitely a preparedness among different dialect communities to be part of that representation. People want to see each other; people want to talk to each other; people are interested. However, there is also this challenge where some people think, “My Scots is the authentic way of talking,” and that issue of authenticity sometimes comes in. As Dawn and Michael were suggesting, just increasing the exposure of different dialects and dialect speakers to each other will achieve that, so that is really important.

Dr Dempster: Could I add one thing in relation to media?

Chair: We are going to come on to media in more detail in a minute, Michael.

Dr Dempster: Okay. It was just about dialect diversity.

Q84            Chair: I do not want you to steal anybody else’s thunder. Otherwise, I am going to be in big trouble.

Can I talk to you a little bit about the intergenerational transmission of Scots? We have spoken to a number of people who said, “My granny and grandpa spoke Scots, but my parents didn’t.” John talks about how languages have died out within his own family because of an intergenerational difference. Is that an issue? Is it something that is improving, or is it getting worse? What are the main levers for increasing that intergenerational transmission of Scots?

Professor Kopaczyk: I think that transmission is the only way in which languages can be saved. This is really the most important thing we should be concentrating on. But in order to ensure that, families—parents and children—need to be ready to embrace that language. They need to know its validity and need to know that it is not just something that they cherish at home, but something that is accepted by wider society. This is really important. Normalisation, validity and all the things we said earlier, including increasing the value of the language in wider society and in the workplace—“I need my language, because I can do things with it”—are also very important.

Right now, I think Scots thrives in these cultural settings and at home, but there is a challenge around making it more normalised in other spheres. It all links up. The transmission will be enhanced if the language is validated in other contexts, because then parents and families will see it as worthwhile and will pass it on to the next generation.

Chair: So who is responsible for pulling those levers? Whose responsibility is it to give it that validation?

Professor Kopaczyk: I think the responsibility is on wider society. The institutions and the educational system are really important here. As Michael was saying, there are really important developments in Scotland at the moment. We’ll be talking about broadcasting later, so I will hold off on that topic, but these are all the main players that could pull these levers.

Dr Dempster: On intergenerational transmission, there are two ways of acquiring Scots. One is parents preventing it getting used, but they still model it, so we acquire it anyway in spite of the best efforts of parents to raise their children that way.

There are a number of ground-level activities going on. I know that there are some in the north-east, but in the Scots Language Centre, our education officer Laura Green specialises in early years and the curriculum for excellence, bringing Scots into the classroom, and later on the Scots language award. Part of that is encouraging pupils and pre-schoolers to draw from the language of their parents. That is a mechanism that—by validating it within that educational context with things such as the Scots language Bookbug, which is run by the Scottish Book Trust, and play and learning—allows adults to value their language and see it as something to pass on to their children. These are very important in allowing Scots at that very early age, in the early years in school and pre-school. That is one thing that is actually very valuable. I agree entirely with Joanna.

Dr Leslie: I agree with what has been said so far. From my point of view, it is all about status raising, which is what you have discussed. If we are talking about breaks in intergenerational transmission, a lot of that comes, from a parental point of view, from a perspective of care and from people having to operate within a culture where minority languages are not valued. Parents discouraging their children from speaking Scots has come from an ingrained mentality that to get on in life you cannot speak Scots. It is done from a point of view of parental care, but we need to try to shift that narrative so that parents do not have to feel like that about “correcting” the way that their child speaks. It needs to be something that is encouraged. There needs to be a culture shift there.

I think Joanna is right: it is the responsibility of society in general, in terms of institutional input. I completely agree with Michael that it needs to be about community-led opportunities for communities to come together, so that younger speakers are able to interact with older speakers.

My impression of the Scots landscape in Scotland, in terms of things that are going on at a community level, is that there is a lot of stuff going on and there is a lot of good will towards Scots, and there are lots of people who are really passionate about Scots, but there is just not enough funding to facilitate any of these projects.

Q85            Chair: Finally from me: Dawn, you said that when professional people get together, they tend to communicate in English rather than in Scots. To what extent is Scots used in your workplace, if at all?

Dr Leslie: I work at the University of Aberdeen. Personally, I have been quite vocal about trying to promote Scots within the university. I run an “Introduction to Scots” module at the university. With colleagues that I know are Scots speakers, we use Scots to exchange emails, Teams messages and so on, and in person as well. That has been a bit of a shift.

I have a very close colleague I have known for a long time who is a Scots speaker. I am a Scots speaker. We are from different parts of Scotland. I would say that it is only in the last couple of years that we have really started speaking Scots to each other, for some reason. It was just a switch when we realised, “Why are we talking English to each other, when we could be speaking Scots? We both understand each other, and there’s no one else here who is going to be confused by us.” I think it is about trying to encourage that culture shift in workplaces, but that is just my example from my workplace.

Professor Kopaczyk: At the University of Glasgow, in terms of academic provision, we delve into Scots from many different perspectives. My own perspective is historical, but we also have colleagues who do present-day language variation in Scotland and various aspects of linguistic analysis, language minorities and that kind of thing. There is a Scottish literature department that I should mention, where colleagues look at literature written in Scots.

Chair: Michael, please tell me that at the Scots Language Centre you spend all day every day communicating in Scots.

Dr Dempster: Absolutely. At the Scots Language Centre, we are majority, if not entirely, first-language Scots speakers. We conduct all our business internally, including writing, in Scots. A lot of our work is working with external partner organisations and individuals, which we do on the requirements of the communicative activity, rather than assuming that someone speaks Scots.

If I am communicating with my colleagues here, I would tend to communicate in Scots, but there are a lot of people, particularly those who have come to Scotland, who refugee organisations and others have identified cannot integrate with the community because they do not have Scots. We communicate in Scottish Standard English and then gradually develop Scots as the communication language.

It is very important to make the point that people with English as a second or other language who come to Scotland and encounter the Scots spoken in communities often find themselves socially excluded because they cannot understand what is being said generally. This is an issue for accessing services as well. We kind of provide a translation for people who come to us with that need as well, so we are multilingual, actually.

Professor Kopaczyk: Can I add two things? On the back of the point about people who come to Scotland without knowledge of Scots, there is work being done by the Dictionaries of the Scots Language to encourage exposure to Scots for Polish speakers, for example, which is my own community. That has been very valuable. Having various tools and learning Scots as a foreign language is something that people are happy to embrace.

My other point is about the provision for Scots at tertiary level. There is an opportunity for our students to write their coursework in Scots. Very few people do it; there is not enough systemic encouragement for that kind of thing to happen on a regular basis. We would like students to produce more work in Scots. We would like there to be a degree at university level to provide recognition for that kind of ability.

This is nothing strange, new or unique to Scotland. There are countries in Europe where language minorities are given that kind of recognition, and there is an academic value to it. Catalan, Galician or other minority languages can be studied at university level with a degree and with that label. Scots does not have that yet, but we are working on it, to answer your question about the context in which Scots can be enhanced.

Q86            Jane Stevenson: Thank you very much for your evidence so far. I want to ask about your view of how Scots is currently represented in the media—on television and radio—in Scotland. Shall we start with Michael?

Dr Dempster: In terms of Scots representation in the media, I think there is a confusion about what is Scots. It is quite often that Scottish Standard English is considered Scots, in terms of representation. Broad Scots is very rare. I think Billy Kay mentioned that it is about once a decade that you get an actual programme that is self-consciously in Scots. Occasionally it pops up in live contexts: if you have, for example, somebody who is maybe towards a monolingual Scots-speaking area of the continuum, that will come up.

Dramatic production is not produced in Scots. That relates back a bit to the varieties of Scots. For example, two of the big flagship programmes are “Shetland” and “Granite Harbour” in the north-east. I know that the scripts are produced in standard English, with standard English grammar required. That is even the case for something like “River City”: that is produced in standard English, and the speakers tend to be from central Scotland or have a Scottish Standard English that is representative of central Scotland. So even when there is local original drama, it can alienate the local speakers. It is a complaint that variously happens: “Nobody speaks like that in Shetland,” or what have you. If you are looking at ticking a box for the inclusion of Scots, often just a Scottish accent would satisfy that from the perspective of producers. We need to be cognisant of that in our media, and to develop that.

There are a number of local radio stations—for example Scots Radio, which is a Scottish-Government funded project—that do have a higher content of Scots, and that is maybe thought of as local voices. But in my experience of training people in Scots, as people become more professional, their local voice travels towards Scottish Standard English. It is quite a battle saying, “Right, you’re experienced in radio or filmmaking now—go back to your broadest.”

It should be noted that among the people involved in the production of media, there are a lot of people who are Scots speakers, but who in the professional context would never speak Scots or even identify themselves as being Scots speakers, for fear of the impact that that would have on their career. In terms of a culture change in how media deals with the minoritised indigenous languages of the United Kingdom, that is something—particularly with Scots and other varieties—that maybe needs to be challenged. It is important that the people making the media as well as the people in front of the camera and the microphone are representing Scots.

Professor Kopaczyk: I agree with Michael. I would add that there is a certain tokenisation of Scots. It is put into those cultural silos, if you like. For example, on Burns night—fine, we have the whole day of Scots being celebrated and spoken and whatnot. The next day, if the same people wanted to speak their home language in those more formal contexts, they would be laughed at, would not be encouraged to do it or would not be treated seriously.

Of course, I am not taking away from the amazing comedy shows and everything that is associated with the use of Scots and the characters that everybody loves. That is obviously a big part of the appeal of Scots as well, but these can be described as cultural silos. I think it would be beneficial for the community to understand and to find ways of disrupting those silos—those categories—and to try to bring Scots in broadcasting to different topics.

There are programmes where Scots is becoming more normalised—for example, when we are looking at the representation of different sectors of society, mostly working-class people. There is a brilliant documentary about street gangs by Graeme Armstrong on the BBC. It is a brilliant programme. Everybody speaks Scots in that programme. But, again, it is one type of production and it presents a certain aspect of society.

If we want to take a broader picture, we should be encouraging the use of Scots in other contexts. The expertise and the readiness are there. It is not like we would suddenly need to spend 20 years bringing up people who would be able to produce that kind of content. No—there is expertise. There is readiness. There are people who could make these programmes and broaden the range of topics.

Dr Leslie: I completely agree with what has been said. As Michael said, most content that we see is more towards the Scottish Standard English end of the spectrum. There needs to be a braver approach to this. If I think of Scots content that I have seen on television or radio, a lot of that has been speaking about Scots. As Joanna said, we need more normalisation, where it is just everyday content that happens to be in Scots. That needs a bit of a braver approach.

There is this concern, I feel, from media outlets: “Oh, nobody’s going to understand it.” Well, if they’re never exposed, then yeah, they’re never going to understand it. Scots is learnable, just like any other language, especially for English speakers, because of the closeness of the languages. I have international students who have come to the University of Aberdeen and done our Scots courses, and then gone on to be involved in the Scots cultural sphere, doing things like spoken-word poetry events. I think that exposure is really needed.

It is also about the media career pathways for people. That can be a real status raiser for a language. We see how it has worked really well for Gaelic, with people going into Gaelic broadcasting and young people having those opportunities. Currently, there are not those opportunities for young Scots speakers.

Q87            Jane Stevenson: It might be me not having thought this through for a long time, but I am hearing slight contradictions in the importance of dialect diversity within Scots and the need for more broadcasting and for making Scots more mainstream and more used. At some point, will there not have to be a sort of standardised Scots—a formal version of Scots—for that to happen? In the media—I know John is passionate about hearing the news read in Scots—would there have to be a standardised version of Scots? How does that balance with the dialects? I am just wondering where in your ideal world that would go in future. What version of Scots should be used for it?

Dr Leslie: That is a huge hot topic for the Scots language. Personally, my point of view is that I would rather have the dialect diversity being represented, with people just living with that, understanding each other and being exposed to each other.

Jane Stevenson: But which sort of Scots speaker should be reading the news? Do you know what I mean?

Dr Leslie: Any of them.

Professor Kopaczyk: Can I jump in? There is a very useful parallel with standard English. Standard English is also a dialect; it is also an accent. The only difference is that it has been given prestige. Throughout its history, it has been given prestige and recognition. We are used to thinking that there is this one way of talking on the news, but that is really just a product of how we have been brought up to think about it. I absolutely agree with Dawn that variation does not prevent us from being understood, and having different speakers of Scots reading the news is not going to make the news any less comprehensible.

I would say that we don’t necessarily need a single spoken standard. Writing is a slightly different thing, but here we can also look at other countries and how they have dealt with dialect diversity in formal contexts. That is where we need some more time simply to think about how that would work, but I don’t think that we need to zoom in on a single Scots speaker who will be the model for everybody else. I think that is a dangerous proposition.

Dr Dempster: I agree with that. As you say, Joanna, a written standard is slightly different from a spoken standard. In much of my academic work and creative work, I try to work with singers and actors. It is pretty easy to get a common, pan-dialectical Scots. With a number of performers, where I work with them on dialect, I would say, “Well, you can use this in your own north-east dialect, or your Shetland dialect—read it and produce it in that.”

What I have noticed through managing communities over the past decade and more is that when you get people from different dialects together, they see the connections between them. One of the paths that led me here to working in Scots was seeing how simple it is, across Scots dialects, to map them on to one another cognitively. Mapping Scots on to standard English and the variety of other Englishes is actually quite difficult, because words do not behave as expected in a regular way, but across dialects of Scots there is a regular connection. As Dawn said, if it is led by the dialect of the speaker—what they feel comfortable with—that is the first step that we need. I think it will be generations before there is a spoken standard within media, but I don’t think it is necessary, because the comprehension across dialects is absolutely there.

Q88            Jane Stevenson: What potential does digital media have to help the cause of hearing more Scots? Has there been any research into audience demand and satisfaction with the current Scots content that people can get on broadcast media on the BBC? Where is that demand? Is there any call for more?

Dr Dempster: Yes, there is an incredible demand and the demand is constantly increasing. The Scots Language Centre produces broadcast-quality educational resources—video, cartoons and things like that—that also acknowledge dialect diversity. As teachers are becoming more confident introducing Scots and as parents are becoming more interested in intergenerational transmission of their language, we are constantly being contacted at the Scots Language Centre.

One thing I will say is that the topic of localisation in media is quite important to our approach. A good example of localisation is the “Shrek” films. All the supporting characters for the release that was issued in the United Kingdom spoke southern English standard English—you had Jonathan Ross and a variety of people coming in—whereas in America they had Larry King and other people speaking in American accents. In “Paw Patrol”, which my younger family are mad about, they have American accents—

Jane Stevenson: I didn’t think we’d end up in “Paw Patrol” today, but anyway.

Dr Dempster: I could have went “Peppa Pig”, but these are similar. We have these media that, particularly through digital services, have an enormous potential to be localised, especially cartoons, comics and other things where you don’t have a physical actor on camera. These are things that I think the UK Government could absolutely develop. Even when I lived in the north of England—there is a northern English standard English that can emerge. There is a desire there for the southern English standard English to have northern voices in it.

This is something that could be done quite easily with small numbers of actors. You have got Scottish Standard English, and there is a great desire for that. As children’s toys become interactive and they speak with children, the voices are southern English voices. That is great for mutual understanding—I think all these standard Englishes should be greater represented in more media, to facilitate mutual understanding—but for parents who are trying to positively engage with intergenerational transmission of their language and language acquisition, this localisation for toys and media is in great demand, and the demand is increasing.

On top of that, I should also say that we do get requests for these things for people with additional support needs and people with dementia who are unable to understand other standard Englishes and, indeed, Scottish Standard English.

With the development of digital media, the demand for localisation is immense, in our experience at the Scots Language Centre. I think that localisation of these things is very much the key. That is something that could be supported—indeed, for every minoritised language in the United Kingdom. We could have bank sharing across the languages: “Right, we’ve got this media. This can be rolled out to everybody.” That is an area that could be massively developed.

Jane Stevenson: Thank you. Joanna?

Professor Kopaczyk: You asked about social media—

Jane Stevenson: Digital media and the potential to promote Scots.

Professor Kopaczyk: Yes. We have seen recent successes on social media with people like Len Pennie—a poet and someone who celebrates the Scots language—breaking through to the mainstream consciousness, so as Michael was saying, there is definitely demand. There is also the potential to bring those success stories to broadcasting, give more of a platform to people who have been the voice of the community and link that up. That can also build careers and so on. It is interesting to observe how different voices from the community rise through social media platforms and then can be given more exposure.

On the back of what Michael was suggesting about dubbing and producing different versions of children’s cartoons, we had a project at the University of Glasgow, which I led, called “The Future of Scots”—many people in this room were involved in it. We identified several main themes from the bottom up, from talking to communities and stakeholders. One of the main things that people said in the room—they were very enthused about this—was, “Gie’s a cartoon for children in Scots.” I think it would be a huge game changer if something like that were produced, because that would link up to everything we said about validation, normalisation and showing children that their favourite characters use this language. It would be a massive game changer.

Dr Leslie: I never saw a Scots cartoon as a kid. I used to watch Gaelic cartoons—I don’t speak Gaelic, and I enjoyed them—but I never saw a Scots cartoon.

I think we need to be careful about couching this in terms of demand. There definitely is demand, but obviously minority languages are never going to fare particularly well in a consumer-driven media, because they are minority languages. We need to be very careful about that. That doesn’t mean that the provision is not valuable, though. It is still incredibly valuable to those speakers, who deserve to see themselves being represented in the media.

Q89            Jane Stevenson: Finally, because lots of other people want to come in, are you aware of any support, finance or training for people who want to get into Scots media? Where would you intervene? Who should be doing it? What should it be?

Dr Leslie: Personally, no—

Professor Kopaczyk: Creative Scotland, maybe?

Dr Leslie: Creative Scotland, yeah. There are some localised funds.

Professor Kopaczyk: There isn’t a direct route.

Dr Leslie: I’m not aware of something centralised. I know that things like the Doric Board in the north-east offer small grants for people who want to do projects, but again it is all quite small-scale. I am not aware of anything operating within the BBC.

Jane Stevenson: Michael?

Dr Dempster: No, I don’t think there is. Creative Scotland has a Scots language policy, which encourages people to apply for Scots projects, but there is a bit of an issue because people feel that they will be refused funding because of the stigma around Scots, so it is quite difficult to get people to do that. Part of what I do is sending funding opportunities out to people. The Doric Board, which gives small grants, is a good example, and there are small grants available through Creative Scotland.

The training structure isn’t there. That is a role that I do in my research and my theatre and music production, and I have tried to offer it to universities. I have taught the occasional class at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and I have offered an entire training course, which is something I do with my actors and singers, but it is very, very piecemeal.

We have run a few projects in the Scots Language Centre, where I have provided this training, but what tends to happen is that I am unable to get funding for that, for various reasons. A very, very high number of people who have been through that training have gone on to produce work in Scots and have got funding because it is Scots, but the training itself isn’t there. There is a real bias towards culturally valuable Scots production, rather than actual training and getting people to a professional standard. If it is available, I could do it.

Q90            Jane Stevenson: Where would you like to see the funding? Where is the best place to provide that funding and take that seriously? What is the ideal?

Dr Dempster: As Joanna says, we need Scots in tertiary education, colleges and universities where there is a performance aspect. We absolutely need a language stream and a literature stream, but we really, really need a performance stream to work on confidence building, drawn out of people’s own Scots and dialects, and how to engage with that. That could even go into drama at school and performative subjects. I think a stream is needed for that, because there are a lot of Scots speakers who are highly qualified and reach high levels in their professional media production, and their production of performances and things like that, but the language aspect is completely absent from that. It is something that could be integrated or offered as its own stream, in my opinion.

Professor Kopaczyk: Internships are something that businesses would be encouraged to give, so there could be a funding stream to fund internships in broadcasting companies.

Dr Leslie: We have lots of people who are keen to produce content, or who are producing content, but there needs to be that pathway and infrastructure to allow them to reach their audience. Before we move on from media, we have not mentioned that—as far as I am aware—Scots is not included in the BBC charter. In the list of regional minority languages, it is Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish and Ulster-Scots, but not Scots.

Q91            Jane Stevenson: I think there is a proposed change on the way. I have a final question on what you have just said, Michael. If I attend the Edinburgh festival—one of the most amazing things that happens in the UK—how much Scots would I hear across the thousands of performances?

Dr Dempster: Not a great deal. I have been involved in conversations about having a “fringe Fringe” event that would include Scots. People quite a lot of the time raise the fact that the Edinburgh festival has people coming in, which is great—and I am not saying that that is not a great thing—but the endogenous Edinburgh Scots-speaking population have been marginalised.

This function of marginalisation that minority languages experience tends to happen with any cultural event that is successful. There is the Celtic Connections festival, which makes a very good point of having Scots in there, but that is in response to feeling their Scots song has been marginalised and things like that. There are opportunities for things like tax breaks to encourage having local minoritised languages within these things, and Scots would absolutely benefit from that.

Q92            Julie Elliott: Good morning, everybody. Michael, I want to probe something that you said in response to a previous question. As you can tell from my accent, I am from the north of England, specifically the north-east, which I am very proud of. You said that the north of England has different standard English from the south, which I do not agree with. Why do you think that?

Dr Dempster: It comes from the research of—his name has just entirely gone.

Julie Elliott: But why? That would assume that the words we use are different from standard English.

Dr Dempster: No. It’s more to do with the sounds.

Julie Elliott: The accent?

Dr Dempster: Yeah, so it comes to accent versus language. There is a concern about the traditional dialects of the north of England merging into a single professional one.

Julie Elliott: So you are talking about the north of England’s standard English being accented, as opposed to being a different language.

Dr Dempster: Yeah, but English in the south of England is accented as well. It is about the sounds that are used.

Julie Elliott: Yes, but it is not a different language. It is not different words.

Dr Dempster: No. Northumbrian is the only one where there would be a slight question, because that comes from the same language origins as Scots. It is the north-east of the north-east—that tiny Doric part comes in there.

Q93            Julie Elliott: Thank you. I am very proud of my accent, but I would not say that my standard English is any different from Caroline’s, who comes from as far south as you can get in England.

Moving on to what I was going to ask about, what are your views on the Scottish Languages Bill and its proposals to create a Scots language strategy?

Dr Leslie: I think it is a very welcome acknowledgment of Scots. It is a good validation of Scots to be getting this more official status than it had before, hopefully. I think we need to wait and see what definitely comes of it, because at the moment it feels quite vague.

Q94            Julie Elliott: What would be the essential elements of a Scots language strategy?

Dr Leslie: I think the most important part of the strategy needs to be community involvement. There needs to be a regional input into a policy for Scots. The danger is that if it is seen as a top-down, centralised thing being imposed upon Scots-speaking communities, that could compromise the success of it. I would like to see more funding, because that is what is holding back Scots activism and the people who are keen to promote Scots. The funding is really holding things back at the moment, especially in the education sector. There needs to be regional input to make sure that whatever happens is representative of Scots as a whole.

Professor Kopaczyk: With my Oor Vyce hat on, the strategy should definitely consult regional stakeholders. I absolutely support what Dawn has just said. There is also scope for more accountability with a body that oversees the strategy and is accountable. That body could comprise regional representatives as well. Again, avoiding the top-down structure is really important for the community. Another thing is a budget that would allow the creation of ambitious aims and create a sense of real support, rather than just something stamped on paper.

Having the official status written down, stamped and approved is important. The question is: what does it change for the actual speakers and for the regular society? But it is an important move forward. An accountable body and consultation strategy with the regional stakeholders is the most important thing.

Dr Dempster: I absolutely agree with what Joanna and Dawn are saying. The strategy is very welcome. At the moment, and for the past 30 years, the Scots Language Centre has performed most of the functions that are thought of for Scots as a Scots language body. In terms of the strategy, what has been laid out in the guidance notes is that there would be a bringing together of stakeholders to determine what the strategy is.

At the Scots Language Centre we have submitted amendments to the Bill that would be useful, particularly if the dialect organisations are included in everything. We would absolutely advocate that everybody is brought to the table in developing the strategy and going forward and seeing about how we organise ourselves. Much of what the Scots Language Centre does is the facilitation of groups across dialects and different professions coming together. We can already do that.

We would welcome recognition and the attendant funding in the Bill for the Scots Language Centre and other organisations, because it seems there is a lot more work coming towards the Scots Language Centre as a consequence of the Bill, which we absolutely welcome. We think it needs to be facilitated from the ground up, from the dialects of the speakers, because first-language speakers approach any language—in this case Scots—through their dialects. That has got to be the foundation on which we build. But we very much welcome the Bill.

Q95            Julie Elliott: Which public bodies already produce plans for the Scots language? Does any? How effective have they been?

Dr Dempster: The public bodies that produce Scots language policies are Creative Scotland, Education Scotland, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Language Centre. Education Scotland and the SQA have fed into the Scots language policy. The evidence that we have got, to the point where we are exploring a Bill, speaks to the general success and demand that people have of Scots. The general success of this kind of soft, local and targeted promotion of Scots is working. The strategy is possibly an opportunity where we can look Scotland-wide and determine how to improve upon the strategies.

Something I would advocate for with the UK Government and the Scottish Government is monitoring. It is really difficult to answer these questions because there is an inconsistency or an absence in monitoring. Most of our insight is about demand for services, rather than feedback on monitoring. Even down to equal opportunities, inclusion and things like that, there is mention of Gaelic on things as standard, but Scots is completely absent.

Projects can be carried out which are Scots—we can objectively say, “That’s completely Scots”—but they might not be presented as Scots, or if it is the people working behind the camera, backstage, there is no way to identify if that is a Scots-language working environment producing works that have been produced by Creative Scotland.

The numbers that we do have are on the uptake of the Scots language award through the SQA, which are increasing every year—they are very, very high.

Julie Elliott: How many?

Dr Dempster: Well, aye, comparatively high: towards the order of 1,000 each year. It is increasing in terms of who is being presented with the award, but it is difficult to ascertain how much Scots through the curriculum for excellence is reaching people because it is permitted and we do not know who is using it in the classrooms.

The other feedback—I think this is great—coming from the Open University course is that they have maxed out 120 teachers this year doing the professional course, and next year we expect it will be the same or more. So that is somewhere where we are actually getting to see feedback and data. Largely, a lot of it is anecdotal, and anecdotally everything is saying the demand is incredible.

Q96            Julie Elliott: Dawn and Joanna, do you have any comments on that? No.

I would be interested in all your answers to this: how do you respond to the view that Scots is a dialect and not a language?

Dr Leslie: From a linguistic point of view, what is a language? That is a question that I would ask you. What is your interpretation of what a language is?

Julie Elliott: Different words.

Dr Leslie: Different words—okay. We have that. Linguistically, the difference between a language and a dialect is not something that is easily definable, and it changes around the world depending on context. A lot of it is to do with power politics and the historical context that language finds itself in. As people involved with Scots language, we spend a lot of time having to justify whether Scots is a language. If you do not think it is a language, I am not bothered, but people speak it.

Julie Elliott: I am not saying that—I am posing a question.

Dr Leslie: Not you personally, but in general. I once did a Radio 4 interview, and the interview was basically me being asked in five different ways, “But is Scots really a language?” It does not matter what you classify it as; what matters is that people speak it, and those people deserve to have linguistic rights. Yes, official status is important, but it is not going to deny that those speakers exist and they deserve to see themselves represented in media. They deserve to have access to education in their language. They deserve to have all the opportunities that speakers of English currently have.

Professor Kopaczyk: There is a famous saying that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy—you may have heard it in different contexts. It is a very good encapsulation of what we are really talking about here. We give the label of a language very often to a standard variety, which has prestige and has power. Then there is a very difficult line to draw between that and regional variation, because it really is a product of history, political events and all that kind of thing, which have promoted a particular version of a language to the position of being a standard and being called a language.

If you look at other contexts around Europe and around the world, you have related languages in different sociopolitical contexts. For example, what is the language of Czechoslovakia? When it is split into two different countries, it becomes apparent that we can talk about Czech and we can talk about Slovak. When you look at labels on food products and compare the words used for ingredients, they look pretty much the same. Maybe there is a little bit of different spelling here and there, but we do not deny people of the Czech Republic and Slovakia having a label of their own language put on the variety of that continuum that they use and have enshrined as their standard. I am not saying that the definition of language has to go hand in hand with the political boundaries—this is the simplistic way of thinking about it—but it really illustrates that we put that label of a language on something that is equipped with these powerful tools and prestige.

I always tell my students that we are looking at Scots and English coming from the same linguistic roots with a huge history. Scots is a language that has 1,000 years of literature, great poetry and amazing literary works. It was used as the language of administration and the law. It was used as the language of communication in medieval and early modern Scotland and later.

We then come to the 18th century, when David Hume and people like that suddenly think, “We can’t really use our Scots, our language, any more, because we are in this bigger organism and the language of prestige is the language of the south.” David Hume famously said that he was jealous of his pen, because his tongue would never be as ideal and perfect as his pen. I can write in standard English—that is what you were saying—and my standard English is fine, but David Hume was very unhappy about his Scots as his spoken language.

It is a slightly long-winded answer, but I think that is the point: the hierarchy between a language and a dialect is something that we create artificially, on the basis of who has the power to decide that.

Dr Dempster: I absolutely agree with what colleagues have said. I will not say what you have already said, but I will speak a wee bit about myself. I learned linguistics and computational linguistics at the University of St Andrews and Manchester University, and my teaching was entirely in southern English standard English and general American. My comprehension of how English worked was on that. I came at my own language trying to tie it into how this works, and I found that I had to go back further and further and further, basically to the Anglian language of Northumbria, in order to comprehend how my personal language—my home language—and the tens of thousands of unique words that I use at home fit in with the rest of the concept of what English is.

I came at it from a falsifiable point of view, and I reached the inescapable conclusion that in order to understand how Scots and Scottish Standard English work, you need to treat them as completely separate. It cannot be a rule of exceptions to a central norm: it needs to be comprehended as something in its own entirety. It was quite a revelation for me to discover that, because I was trying to comprehend it in terms of English and how it works as a computational language, and the linguistics of that.

I have no doubt from an analytical perspective that Scots is a language and should be treated and analysed as such. On top of that, my colleagues have spoken about the prestige of using it. It exists and is in millions of mouths and brains throughout Scotland and the world, so it deserves to be taken out of the house and into the public, which is one aspect of defining a language.

Dr Leslie: I know that this Committee is about minority languages in general, but I think a lot of it boils down to celebrating multilingualism and not characterising linguistic knowledge as a problem, which is something that we see in this country. “You can speak French: that’s wonderful,” or “You can speak German,” or Boris Johnson with his Latin phrases—all these things are celebrated as signs of intellectual capacity. A child who speaks Scots knows that “ken” means to know and that “hoast” is a cough, in the same way that it is “kennen” and “Husten” in German. Why are we not celebrating that kind of linguistic knowledge? It is all knowledge. It all deserves to be celebrated, and it deserves to be recognised.

Julie Elliott: It’s like whether you say “bath” as /bæθ/ or /bɑːθ/. I say /bæθ/. Thank you very much—it is very interesting.

Chair: Thank you, Julie. And for the home team, John.

Q97            John Nicolson: Thank you all. It has been a really interesting set of observations. As the Chair mentioned, my two grandmothers both spoke our indigenous languages. My faither’s mother was from Harris and spoke Gaelic, and my mither’s mother was from Scotstoun and spoke Scots.

It is worth pointing out, is it not, that these languages did not enter into a period of decline by accident? There was a very deliberate, systematic, determined effort to stamp them out. I think that sometimes my colleagues here do not realise the full extent of that. For my granny in Harris, that meant belting her in the playground if she spoke her native language, even though she could not speak English. In my generation’s case—I was born in the 1960s—it was just my teacher putting a red line through all Scots-language words at school. I was not allowed to call my wee brother my wee brother; I had to call him my younger brother. You are right, Dawn: it is all about status.

Dr Dempster, is one of the problems that we are all just a wee bit too polite about this? Shouldn’t we make more of a fuss and just stop being so nice all the time? Should we be a bit more insistent about our linguistic rights?

Dr Dempster: Absolutely. That is one of the amendments that I have suggested for the Scottish Languages Bill. We need a segment acknowledging the linguistic rights. We have a lot through international treaties and in the law already, but we need to demand them. We need to demand them of the education system and of our media.

One of the things about politeness, as you say, is that we need to acknowledge that, as a side effect, our education system within Scotland has functionally existed to remove Scots and Gaelic. I do not find much evidence of anybody who is involved in education who wants to persist with that, but there is a cultural inertia there. People do it anyway.

Q98            John Nicolson: They are exhausted, aren’t they? They are exhausted with being patronised all the time, and they are exhausted that generations and generations of children have been taught the cultural cringe.

Dr Dempster: Yes, I think that is fair. Certainly in your experience of broadcasting, John, I think even Scottish Standard English has that issue. And northern English receives that within our culture.

Q99            John Nicolson: We were at the BBC yesterday—lovely people, but we got a very half-hearted presentation about the Scots language with some slideshows. We went to studios where they were speaking Gaelic for children’s programmes, and then we saw some slideshows about the Scots language, many of which were years out of date. We were shown extracts where people were not talking Scots; they were using Scottish accents to talk English. But there was no status for the language, which I think was your point earlier on, Dr Leslie. I think I disagree with you about whether it matters whether it is called a dialect or a language.

Dr Leslie: It definitely matters from an official point of view.

John Nicolson: Exactly.

Dr Leslie: What I am saying is that calling it a dialect does not negate the fact that there are speakers. That is the point I was trying to get at.

Q100       John Nicolson: I take that point. I think we should be insistent and assert that of course it is a language. Anybody who knows the history of it knows that it was the language of the king and the court. It has different origins—it is related to English, but it is a separate language. It is all about status. I had a much-loved uncle by marriage who was English and spoke like Prince Philip. He would say, “I have absolutely no accent whatsoever.” It was just the self-confidence with which he would assert something absolutely ludicrous. He just could not understand that actually he did. He had a very strong, very posh southern English accent, but he thought that that was the standard and the rest of us were deviating from the norm. That is still quite prevalent, isn’t it, especially in broadcasting?

Dr Leslie: Absolutely. I think it is very prevalent. I totally agree with what you were saying earlier about your grandmother. My granny has got similar stories of being belted at school. I think that just gets passed down from generation to generation to generation—this idea of insecurity about your language.

If we are going to get anywhere with this, maybe we do need to start being a bit less polite and assert our rights as Scots speakers. But that is very difficult to do within a culture like the one you are speaking about, where any deviation from the norm, whatever normal is, is characterised as a problem rather than a cultural resource.

Q101       John Nicolson: Professor Kopaczyk, may I ask you about the international comparisons? As a Polish person you will know that Polish was suppressed within the Russian empire, historically. You mentioned Czechoslovakia. When I was growing up, people talked about a language called Serbo-Croatian. Who would talk about that now? Nobody. That is a little historical footnote. What has been the experience of Croatians, for example, or Slovenians, in having their language acknowledged as separate languages, not just a part of an amorphous blob of related languages? What has that done for the languages in those countries in terms of self-confidence, with leadership figures embracing the language, and in terms of the language’s future?

Professor Kopaczyk: I think you have answered your question there.

John Nicolson: I often do that.

Professor Kopaczyk: I can’t speak for the Serbs and the Croats, but I am sure they have experienced exactly what you have said—more empowerment, the ability to embrace their language as the language of officialdom and in formal situations and things like that.

I would like to develop one of the points that you have asked me about here, about the experience of someone who comes from the outside and looks at the situation. I learned my English in a very artificial environment. I was taught to speak like Prince Philip, but wherever I went with my accent, people thought, “What is wrong with you? Why are you speaking like an 80-year-old?” So I had to tone it down. I had to find my own way of speaking, which is this, and people may put labels on me for that reason as well, because we all put labels on each other when we listen to ourselves. We all place ourselves on the social ladder, or regionally, because of the way we speak and because of the way we sound. That goes back to this notion of validation of minority languages, and accents, and the way people speak.

There is a general point to be made here, I think. Sometimes we still have certain 19th-century concepts hanging around about the way we think about the world. For instance, there is the idea that a country has a language. There is French in France; there is German in Germany. What is there in the UK? English, right? That is the kind of idea that is projected to the outside world as well. But of course it is not true, because English, really, doesn’t belong to anyone. There is American English. There is Australian English. There are all kinds of English. Plus, there are minority languages in the UK as well. Scots is a very good example of a language that has been marginalised—dialectalised, if you like—because it doesn’t have the political power or those tools of prestige.

Q102       John Nicolson: As an outsider, you must be astonished when you see people getting their knickers in a twist about people putting Gaelic on road signs.

Professor Kopaczyk: Absolutely.

John Nicolson: People get excited about people putting grammatically correct Gaelic on signs to name the villages, instead of the ungrammatically correct cartographer’s version of Gaelic from 100 years ago. It is a kind of madness, isn’t it, that people can get so excited about this stuff?

Professor Kopaczyk: I agree, but it goes back to the notion of identity and how people see themselves in that landscape, and it is disrupted.

It goes back to my earlier point about those 19th-century ideas that the white man, the privileged person, is the most important person in the room, who will dictate the way the world should work. Of course, today we live in a society that we want to make more equitable and fairer. That is why we have had the suffragettes, the decolonisation agenda and so on.

With languages, it is the same. That linguistic imperialism that was the case, as you have pointed out, throughout the history of these islands has to stop. It is very welcome that this Committee comes here to ask about minority languages and is truly interested, I would imagine, in supporting them. That is disrupting those 19th-century categories, which some people still accept.

Q103       John Nicolson: That is a very good way of putting it. I will ask what your recommendations are for the Committee in a second.

Dr Leslie, is there an extent to which we are still culpable in some of this? For example, we are all very happy for there to be Scots in comedy programmes—it is okay to laugh. As a gay man, I remember that when I was growing up, the figures on TV who were gay were always comical figures. There was “Are You Being Served?” or whatever. That was fine—you could laugh along—but you did not have authority figures who were gay, ever.

It is the same in linguistic terms, with Scots for example. You go to the King’s Theatre and everybody laughs along with Elaine C. Smith when she speaks Scots very proudly, and that is wonderful. In fact, we had hoped that she would be a witness today, but sadly she had other commitments; of course, she wrote “The Gruffalo” in the Glaswegian dialect of Scots.

But we still do not have authority figures speaking Scots on television. I asked the BBC about that: “Why do we not have the news read in Scots? Why is Scots always relegated to the area of comedy—a noble and important area—or drama, with people in communities speaking Scots?” If you are a child watching television and listening to the news about the world—the big stuff—it always used to be somebody speaking to you in a Kelvinside accent, a pretendy English accent. Now it is in Scottish Standard English, but it is still not Scots, ever.

Dr Leslie: You said at the start that we are all culpable.

John Nicolson: By putting up with it.

Dr Leslie: Yes, by putting up with it. I think that if Scots speakers were given the chance, they would like to laugh in reaction to Scots-generated comedy, but they would like to cry in reaction to Scots-generated drama. In the past two weeks, I have been to see two Scots theatre productions: “James V: Katherine” by Rona Munro, and Morna Young’s adaptation of “Sunset Song” at His Majesty’s in Aberdeen.

It is about giving Scots speakers the opportunities to access that. That is all institutional, isn’t it? It is to do with the funding for those opportunities. In media, it is to do with placing expectations on our broadcasters that they have to include this kind of thing. Yes, we do put up with it to an extent. I know that Michael and I both asked if today we could speak in Scots to the Committee, and we were asked to speak in English.

John Nicolson: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Dr Leslie: That is completely understandable, because there are people here who do not speak Scots, but in terms of visibility—

John Nicolson: But I’m sure they would understand if you just started speaking Scots now. They would get it, wouldn’t they?

Dr Leslie: D’ye think they wid ken fit A wis sayin?

John Nicolson: I think they wid ken weel.

Dr Leslie: They wid ken fine weel! But it’s things like that: it’s these sort of microaggressions, perhaps, towards Scots spikkers that mak them feel like they canna be themselves in the public sphere.

Q104       John Nicolson: In terms of asserting, I think I am the first MP to have all my notepaper in three languages. It is a wee tiny thing, but I thought it would be symbolic to do it. When I hold my office meetings, because my Westminster manager is a native Scots speaker, he holds the meetings in Scots and all of us join in to the best of our ability. I have fluent comprehension; I don’t speak it very naturally, but I do my best. That has been helpful in terms of our office engagement with Scots.

What more do you think we could do, Professor Kopaczyk, as individuals to assert our rights? For instance, should we be demanding that road signs are in Scots? Why, when everyone calls a street Toonheid, do we have road signs that say “Townhead”? Nobody uses that.

Professor Kopaczyk: I think there are some road signs that historically were in Scots. There is an example that comes to mind from St Andrews.

I am not sure. I think road signs are one aspect of public life. We have Scots in the linguistic landscape everywhere, when you go around Scottish towns and cities. Yes, perhaps this would be some kind of an acknowledgment: “Welcome tae Glesca”, alongside “Welcome to Glasgow” and “Fàilte gu Glaschu”. That is something to consider. I think there would be a great opposition to that as a radical movement: “Why should we do that? We all understand English.” But that goes back to what Dawn was saying about the right of people to have their own language recognised in the public sphere.

Q105       John Nicolson: In Switzerland they have road signs in four languages, and as far as I know there are not more road accidents in Switzerland as a result of people getting confused than there are anywhere else.

Can I finish by asking you guys what the Governments can do? Obviously we are coming from Westminster, so can you give us an idea of what you would like to see the UK Government do, and—if it’s not too cheeky of us to suggest as Westminster politicians—what the Scottish Government should be doing to be a bit more proactive on the issue of how to advance and save Scots than they have been hitherto?

Dr Dempster: I think this is slightly touching on your previous question. I think you are asking what we, as Scots speakers coming forward, demand now. Scottish Standard English was partly imposed and was partly a response to a Union, so it’s something that came about by ourselves and by the community of nations that we joined.

I think the UK Government could work very hard to acknowledge Scots right across all cultural activity. There are some things that we face in terms of public speech and production—I have my notes here. Scots speakers aren’t a genre. It’s our language; it’s our day-to-day language. We’re not a genre. Because somebody speaks Scots, it shouldn’t be used to characterise that person in dramatic production.

There are these prejudices that we face. The incomprehensible Scots speaker is a trope within UK culture but also internationally. To go back to cartoons, Pixar produced two films that included Scots speakers, and there were scenes that revolved around incomprehensible people. I think, in terms of representation, trying to work with the other nations and international contacts to work against these stereotypes that we face—

John Nicolson: That seems a bit nebulous. I think we need practical suggestions. Sorry—maybe that was overly blunt, but we are writing a report.

Dr Dempster: I think the promotion of Scots alongside English and all other languages is something that can help to get rid of these challenges that we face. The necessary inclusion of Scots in all activities is a practical thing that can be done by the UK Government.

Professor Kopaczyk: On practical solutions, I think that there should be tapping into the funds that are used, for example, to promote minority languages in general. That should also be directed towards Scots.

There is much to be gained, I think, from involving the British-Irish partnerships in this. I understand that there is a Scots broadcast fund in Ulster. Why isn’t there a Scots broadcast fund in Scotland? That is one practical thing we could do: we could look at these existing partnerships and build on that. Broadcasting is obviously a reserved matter, and we should focus on that in Westminster. The rest of those areas are obviously devolved, and as communities and as organisations we are working with the Scottish Government and Parliament on that.

There are also overlapping things—research, for instance. I would like to see more ringfenced research around minority languages through the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council and various other funding bodies, which could enable us to answer more specifically some of your questions today. For Scots, sometimes we have to be nebulous because we don’t have the data—as much as there is, and as readily available as it is, for some other minority languages.

John Nicolson: Dr Leslie, a final word?

Dr Leslie: Like Joanna, I would like to see a push for better media funding and accountability towards our major broadcasters for that. Perhaps there should be some sort of awareness training or awareness-raising campaign about linguistic diversity in the UK. It is really exhausting as representatives of a minority language to always have to justify your existence, first of all, before you can actually get to discussing the proper stuff. That is a huge hurdle that Scots has definitely faced. It’s like, “Right, we’ve established this, so now let’s kick on and actually do things that are going to help.”

I agree with Joanna that research funding is really important. I was recently involved with some AHRC research on the future of languages as a research assistant with my colleague Professor Michelle Macleod in Aberdeen. We found that there are challenges faced by minority language communities across the UK where there are lots of commonalities. If there were some sort of research funding that was targeted at helping knowledge transfer and pooling resources between those communities, that might be really helpful.

John Nicolson: And it matters, doesn’t it? If you lose that knowledge, whether it is Gaelic or Scots, you are losing 1,000 years of history, literature and cultural riches. We worry about buildings being demolished, but if a language is demolished you lose everything that has gone with it, don’t you?

Dr Leslie: Yes.

Professor Kopaczyk: Can I have one final word? We didn’t talk about the radio. We talked about social media and TV, but all the points we made earlier also apply to the radio. A weekly programme on BBC Radio Scotland in Scots would make a real difference.

John Nicolson: Thank you all.

Chair: Can I thank all our witnesses today for coming in and answering our many questions? We are really grateful.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Rob Dunbar, Mairi MacInnes and Dr Gillian Rothach.

Q106       Chair: For our next panel, on Gaelic, we are joined by Professor Rob Dunbar, the chair of Celtic languages, literature, history and antiquities at the University of Edinburgh; Mairi MacInnes, the chair of Bòrd na Gàidhlig; and Dr Gillian Rothach, the principal of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the national centre for Gaelic language and culture. You are all very welcome today. Thank you so much for joining us and sorry to have kept you waiting.

Mairi, can I start with you? We have heard evidence on the concerns about the sustainable funding of MG Alba. What are the solutions for that? What is at stake, and what are the implications for Gaelic-speaking communities of not getting this right?

Mairi MacInnes: Madainn mhath agus taing. I would like to say thank you for this opportunity. I welcome you to Glasgow, and to a very nice building in the University of Glasgow. It was interesting when Mr Nicolson came in towards the end of the last panel and talked about the history and so on. It is important to remember that. We are working very hard to overturn at least 300 years of history. The Gaelic Language Act came in 2005, and the Gaelic Board was established as part of that legislation. That is still in its youth: the Gaelic Board is 20 years old.

What we are doing now has been ramped up over the last 20 years. That is not a long time when you are overturning so much. What we have to acknowledge is the huge progress that has been made through the legislation and through the work of MG, which has been christened and rechristened many times over its life. As we move forward with impetus towards the next Bill, and there is so much interest in the Gaelic language across the world, it is hugely important that the Committee is engaged in what that means—as you are, from what I can see.

So what does it mean? Gaelic belongs to everybody, we would say. There are many different communities, such as rural communities, traditional Gaelic-speaking communities, and new and growing communities in the cities. Those are in Scotland, but there is a huge online community that is increasing. There has been quite a shift since lockdown and covid times, where many people went on to do different things online and Gaelic benefited hugely from that. I am at the heart of that because I teach Gaelic online. I teach people from London, Spain and all over the world. Gillian can talk more about that as well.

Gaelic brings much. It is the language itself, but it is also the economy around it. We work towards preserving and developing the language through education and different things, but underpinning that is a need for a strengthening within the economy and the infrastructure that surrounds it. I am the chair of the Gaelic Board, and I am aware of the situation across the country, but I live in the Western Isles of Scotland, in Uist. The infrastructure, the depopulation, and the huge prices around housing are of really grave concern to the Scottish Government, the local authority, and to us as a community. Within that we see the dangers around Gaelic, but we also see the value. For instance, two or three Gaelic jobs in Barra—you will all have heard of Barra—equals 160 jobs in Inverness and maybe 5,000 jobs in London. It is the scale that is important.

What the Gaelic media has put into our economy, and into valuing and raising the status of the language, is really hard to quantify. It has been so much in such a short time. That is why it is critical that consideration is given to how it can be further developed through statute and funding, and how that can happen across both Governments, we would hope.

Q107       Chair: Thank you. Professor Dunbar, what in your view is the best way to solve the funding issue that MG Alba is facing?

Professor Dunbar: Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today. It is a real pleasure.

I think the issue is funding, but it is also regulatory and statutory. Much of the problem is that unlike Welsh television, or Irish television in the Republic of Ireland, Gaelic television has grown in a piecemeal and unplanned fashion. In the early 1980s, S4C was created as a standalone channel with funding suitably statutorily guaranteed and protected from the ravages of inflation. There was the concept of a channel—a standalone television service. For Gaelic, that has never really been the case. In the late 1980s, a campaign was launched to create such a service. The solution in the Broadcasting Act 1990 was to create a fund and a body to oversee the fund, to create additional hours of Gaelic television programmes that would be broadcast on ITV, STV and Grampian, which were the Channel 3 providers here in Scotland. Some were broadcast on the BBC as well.

By the late 1990s, problems with this model became apparent. Television shows were being broadcast at different hours of the day and in an unpredictable fashion. At that point, the UK Government commissioned two reports, the second of which was by Alasdair Milne, a former director-general of the BBC, who recommended the creation of a channel that would have a statutory basis. He recommended core funding of about £40 million to provide the sort of service that a minority language would need in terms of the number of original programme hours per day, a proper news service and a diversity of genres, so he took a really functional look at things. However, those recommendations were never implemented.

In the system we have today, we do have a channel, thankfully. Mairi has talked about the many benefits that come from it—economic, cultural and in so many other ways—and I would be happy to go into that. In direct answer to the question, we now have a channel, but it is run as a partnership between a funding body, MG Alba and the BBC. It is regulated by Ofcom. It is paid for partly by the BBC, and partly through the Scottish Government payments to Ofcom. There is no guaranteed core funding, and there is no protection from inflation, so we need to take a look at it.

The argument has been made very well by MG Alba, so I will not repeat it. I endorse what they have to say, but we have to take a look at what we want in terms of a service and work backwards from that. I think it does require a proper statutory basis, a proper regulatory framework, guaranteed core funding that will allow it to do what it needs to do as a broadcaster for a diverse community, and inflation protection. Inflation has eaten away at almost all Gaelic budgets, because they simply have not been increased in line with inflation. I could talk more about many economic, social and cultural benefits that come from it. I think it is now indisputable that for a minority language to continue to survive, there is not just one thing that needs to be done. There is not a silver bullet that will save a minority language, but a presence in modern media, including television, is absolutely essential.

Q108       Chair: On that theme, Dr Rothach, we have heard from Mairi that she has done a lot of teaching via digital means, which have been a huge benefit in being able to share the Gaelic language. MG Alba told us about the difficulties they are having in investing in the shift to digital media, and about the challenges that that is posing to them. What do you see as the risks if MG Alba are unable to invest in this transition? How important is digital media for teaching the language?

Dr Rothach: It is absolutely crucial. Having read the evidence presented by MG, I think they demonstrated the drop-off in viewing figures, particularly among young people, so it is absolutely critical that we invest in digital transformation.

Chair: Does anyone have anything to add on digital media provision?

Mairi MacInnes: I think it may be worth pointing out how important online learning has been, with the figures from Duolingo—Gillian, you may have more detail about that—showing that close to 2 million people have dabbled with Gaelic over the last couple of years. That has been a real success, but it now needs investment as well. Digital is the way to go, but it needs an infrastructure behind it to make it work, and to make the communities that run it work. MG is one of these communities.  

Professor Dunbar: Just to add to that, very quickly, I think that the television service—the media service—is very important, because it provides material that is used in social media as well. Social media is notoriously difficult to regulate, and it is difficult for a minority language to find a footing in social media. However, some of the investment made by MG Alba has been for an annual competition for sort of self-generated projects—much of the projects are done by young people—and those are the sorts of things that are picked up on and shared in social media, and really contribute to a greater presence of the language in social media.

I also would say that the employment effects, which Mairi has already mentioned, are very important. One of the challenges for minority languages is employment through the medium of the language, where the language is used, and the investment in the media is absolutely crucial in this regard. MG Alba has done some research and I think that, through its funding alone, about 340 full-time equivalent jobs have been created in Scotland. Almost half of those are in the linguistically vulnerable places—the so-called heartlands—in the Western Isles and Skye, and that plays a huge role economically in terms of raising the status and the visibility. And, of course, the output is important to users as well—to be able to see the world through their own language, to tell their own stories, and to celebrate their own culture, is very important for any minority language, and media is absolutely essential to that.

Q109       Chair: On that basis, what do you think are the implications of the Media Bill in its current form? Are there any ways in which you think it should or could be improved?

Professor Dunbar: In its current form, there really is not enough on Gaelic. I do not want to take up too much time; simply put, I would support what MG Alba has already been advocating, which is the sorts of things I was discussing earlier. I believe that there has been some support for this, particularly in the Lords, and I would hope to see that replicated in the Commons when it has a chance to reconsider the Bill.

Q110       Chair: Thank you. Does either of the other witnesses have anything to add on this whole issue of the Media Bill, its current proposals, and whether and how it should be strengthened?

Mairi MacInnes: I would just reinforce what Rob has said around something comparable to what Welsh TV and Irish TV get. That is required. Also, we must not forget radio, like our Scots colleagues said, and we must not forget literature as well. These things are important.

Q111       John Nicolson: Dr Rothach, I was very interested to read that your first language is Scots, but you are the principal of the Gaelic college in Skye. From a historical perspective, looking at how the languages have fared in the past and are faring now, it must be quite interesting for you, because, once upon a time, in numbers, they roughly had parity, didn’t they? The north was Gaelic-speaking and the south and east was more Scots-speaking. Are you jealous of Scots now, because it has got a lot more speakers than Gaelic, hasn’t it? But I suppose that a counter-argument can be put that you have a lot more of an official status than Scots, so both face advantages and disadvantages.

Dr Rothach: You are right: I am a native Scots speaker from the north-east of Scotland, and I think I didn’t grow up knowing that I was bilingual. I just thought I spoke bad English and that I had to retrain myself once I went to university in Edinburgh—the posh city. I am so proud that we have come some distance, both in Scots and in Scottish Gaelic, in my lifetime.

There is no jealousy whatsoever. I think both languages are very vulnerable. We can see that there are more Scots speakers, but there is less provision, as you rightly pointed out, and, comparatively speaking, very little financial support or framework for policy and development. Similarly, for Gaelic, we have worked very hard, particularly over the last 50 years—since the 1970s—to develop policy, a framework and Government support, but we are looking at a critical situation of only one point something per cent of the population having ability in the language. So both languages have their different problems, but they also share the same one of being minoritised languages still fighting for national recognition and support.

Q112       John Nicolson: Why does that matter? Why does it matter if both languages just die off and we all just speak standardised American English or English English?

Dr Rothach: I believe in diversity; I also believe in human rights. We have a historical bill to pay, I think. We need to provide for the current generation and for future generations. I think it is healthy to recognise a plurality in society and to provide for that plurality. It is a very challenging time financially in the country and across the many other areas of national life.

Q113       John Nicolson: It is always a challenging time. Politicians have been saying it is a challenging time since Victorian times.

Dr Rothach: Yes, and I am very pleased that you as this Committee are looking at these issues and looking to do something positive for minority languages in the UK and, in our area, in Scots and Gaelic. I am also very proud that the Scottish Parliament is similarly interested, with the Scottish Languages Bill currently going through Parliament.

Last week, on Thursday, we had a 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which is a Gaelic immersion institution. It is the only one we have in the world at the moment. That may change, I hope, in the future. I am delighted to say that John Swinney, our new First Minister, came along and said that he and his Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, are passionately committed to Gaelic.

Q114       John Nicolson: Because, of course, she is a Gaelic speaker.

On that point, Ms NicAonghais, what do you think, specifically, the UK or the Scottish Government can do and that we can recommend as a Committee that would strengthen Gaelic and help it survive, going forward? How can we get parity with S4C, for example?

Mairi MacInnes: To strengthen Gaelic going forward, it could be valuable to reassess the criteria around the levelling-up fund and ensure that that goes to areas where Gaelic needs to be developed, where communities are very fragile. We have lost a lot of European money in lots of the rural communities, and that is what enabled us to have causeways and ferries.

John Nicolson: Because of Brexit.

Mairi MacInnes: Well, and the levelling—

John Nicolson: Well, yes, it is because of Brexit.

Mairi MacInnes: Yes, because of Brexit.

John Nicolson: There are signs all over the highlands saying, “Supported by the European Community”, and all that money has been lost.

Mairi MacInnes: The levelling-up fund has brought big expectations for us, but unfortunately in the Western Isles it has not yet delivered much. But we are still hopeful and we know our local authority is actively talking around that. So that is certainly one thing.

Also, we talked about the comparative funding and MG will have made that case, but there are also other UK Departments. For instance, you cannot get your driving licence in Gaelic whereas you can in Welsh. With things like BCMS, although a lot of that has been devolved to Scotland now, you cannot register your cattle in Gaelic, whereas you can in Welsh.

Q115       John Nicolson: And there is a case, isn’t there—I think I am right that it was in Mull—where they had been looking for a Gaelic-speaking teacher for a long time and couldn’t get one? Somebody applied from Canada and the UK Government—the Home Office—refused to allow this Gaelic speaker a visa to come. Sadly, we do not control visas in Scotland as it is a UK function, and she was refused a visa even though there was no other applicant.

Mairi MacInnes: Okay. I don’t recall that, but I accept what you are saying. We want Gaelic to be recognised as an asset to the UK. It contributes hugely to tourism. Gillian has talked about heritage and people’s rights. The upsurge in music and what Gaelic has brought to traditional music, has encouraged many other nations and brought connections between European friends all over the continent. There is the cultural heritage, folklore and practices. In terms of what it contributes to education, children now have the right to ask for education, but they do not have the right to it—it depends on numbers. But work on that is going on.

Q116       John Nicolson: Okay. Can I move on to you, Professor Dunbar? You talked about S4C and Wales. To go back to the point I made earlier about being assertive, those of us with a longer memory will know that the reason S4C came into being was that Gwynfor Evans was assertive about it. The UK Government had promised a Welsh TV station. Then they broke their promise. He threatened to go on hunger strike, and then the UK Government retreated, and it was set up. I think everybody accepts how important S4C is for Welsh.

A predecessor Committee to ours recommended parity of funding in broadcasting in percentage terms between S4C and Gaelic television. Would that be something you would like to see this Committee’s report do? If so, what effect do you think that parity would have on Gaelic and its survival?

Professor Dunbar: It depends on what you mean by parity. If it is just a percentage based on the number of speakers, I do not think that that would be very viable, because there are about 10 times as many Welsh speakers as Gaelic speakers, and that would imply one tenth, which would be much less than Gaelic already receives.

John Nicolson: So what would you like to see? That was not what I was suggesting.

Professor Dunbar: No, no. To argue for precisely the same amount of funding for a smaller linguistic community would be problematic as well, though from my point of view it would certainly be a good solution for Gaelic. I would like to see a functional approach, as I described before. As a starting place, Alasdair Milne said over 20 years ago that for the sort of service that Gaelic speakers have aspired to through the campaigning that had been done by Comunn na Gàidhlig and other bodies, something in the range of £40 million would be required. Obviously that amount would be greater today. I do not have a particular figure in mind, but I think we would take a functional approach to make sure that there are a range of genres. Certain genres are almost completely absent in Gaelic, including dramas. They are expensive to make, and we simply do not have the funding for them.

John Nicolson: Maybe parity of status would help.

Professor Dunbar: As a principle, we would aim for the same sort of diversity of programming and the same number of new programmes per day or week. That would be a reasonable starting place.

Q117       John Nicolson: A channel, perhaps, that was Scots and Gaelic—BBC Alba, BBC Scots?

Professor Dunbar: I am not sure that I would recommend a single channel for the two languages. I do not have any proposals for what to do with regard to Scots broadcasting. I think it is very important to maintain a Gaelic channel. There is a danger that when any channel becomes effectively a bilingual channel, the smaller, linguistic minority suffers in comparison. I do not think we want to go back to the old days, which the Gaelic channel has helped to address, where because of the demands of commercial broadcasting, Gaelic speakers had to turn on their VCRs in the old days or digitally record programmes at 2 in the morning and so on. The service we have now is a strong one, with seven hours per day, mostly in prime time.

One of the challenges is simply that there are not enough new programmes being made. I think it is about 1.7 hours or thereabouts, and a good part of that is the half-hour news programme. There is a huge number of repeats, which is very discouraging for viewers. I do not think you would expect on any other channel to see the number of repeats that we do. Again, the principle of parity that you expressed is a very valuable one.

Q118       Julie Elliott: Welcome. It is fascinating listening to all of this. What is the level of demand for Gaelic medium education in Scotland? Is it growing?

Dr Rothach: I can say some general things. Demand for Gaelic medium education at primary level is growing, but not nearly as fast as we need and would like. With Gaelic medium education in secondary school, there is a major blockage. The numbers of Gaelic learners undertaking qualifications in secondary school are tailing off. We are seeing a very modest increase in the numbers of native speakers undertaking qualifications in Gaelic medium education. I know that because I am at the other end of that pipeline, and we are seeing just a little drip of qualified students interested in tertiary education in Gaelic coming through the system, so it is very much in our interest to encourage growth in the numbers of primary and secondary Gaelic medium educated pupils.

Q119       Julie Elliott: What are the limiting factors to that expanding?

Dr Rothach: We need parents and children to have the right to Gaelic medium education, regardless of where you are in Scotland, and we do not have that at the moment. It can be a terrible fight for parents to push the argument that they would like Gaelic medium provision locally, and it is something that we would very, very much welcome. It would be a step change for Gaelic nationally if we were to have that right.

We need to step up to be a lot more inventive about training teachers to teach through the medium of Gaelic. We need a big input of funding to allow teachers who are in English medium at the moment and are interested in teaching in Gaelic medium. We need funding to allow them, for example, to go out on full salary and be immersed in the language and the pedagogies of how you teach pupils in Gaelic medium education. We could look to places like the Basque region for a model of how we do that. We need a huge input of funding and much more flexible thinking around teacher education.

Q120       Julie Elliott: We visited a really lovely secondary—it was a right-through school, but I toured the secondary bit in Finnieston yesterday. The headteacher had not come from a Gaelic-speaking school, but had developed it and it was fascinating. What are the challenges for Gaelic medium education at further and higher education level?

Dr Rothach:  I think I have already covered one, which is the pipeline. There are so many obstacles to actually getting students on our doorstep to undertake our courses.

Funding is a huge issue for the organisation that I represent—the only Gaelic medium, full-immersion, tertiary education in the world. We receive funding through the National Heritage Act; we are extremely grateful for that funding from the Scottish Government. It means that we can be in business, but we are chronically underfunded. The sum of money was cut over 10 years ago. Similarly to the problems that MG is facing at the moment, that sum of money has not gone up in 10 years. I am seeing staff doing a lot more than one job—a lot more than two jobs in some instances. Morale can be difficult to bolster at times, because people are overworked trying to provide something that they passionately believe in on very limited funds.

A point was made earlier about recognising that different solutions, particularly a different funding model, are needed for minority languages. For example, we at Sabhal Mòr have been funded per student on the lowest price bracket in higher education. What we offer at Sabhal Mòr is immersion education from 9 to half-past 4 every day. In another university, you may get three hours a week, but we are funded on the same model as other Celtic departments. I would love to see much more acuity around the proper funding for Gaelic medium education at HE and FE level.

Q121       Julie Elliott: Moving to the home: what are the best ways of supporting intergenerational transmission of the language? Mairi, perhaps you can come in.

Mairi MacInnes: Yes, I can talk about that. That is something that we at Bòrd na Gàidhlig are very aware of. We spend a lot of our development money on Gaelic activities around the school. It is critical that Gaelic is not just a classroom language, and that people live a Gaelic life. That is becoming increasingly challenging even in rural communities, because there is serious depopulation: families are not as big as they were. There are many fewer people there, and there are lots of forces and influences from the outside.

It is hugely important that there is activity beyond the school, supporting families themselves in learning the language. Parents are busy, and that is where online activity is helpful: lessons in the language, homework and all that sort of thing. Gaelic schools, teachers and so on work very, very hard at doing what they can. MG is very active in youth film. FilmG, which is for schools, is very successful and has a big uptake: it is a big showcase event, and everyone just loves it. There are sports and music activities and activities through the churches—all aspects of life.

Through the better working of Gaelic plans, as Gaelic becomes more normalised across the country, it would be heard more, with more visibility and more promotion of the language, right across Scottish life. That would help young people to realise how valuable it is and how important they are, and raise their esteem. There is a lot of work going on, but we need more.

When the numbers are relatively small, as we are talking about for Gaelic, small amounts of money make a huge difference. There is a big load of work being undertaken voluntarily, and there is a lot of burnout. We operate through delivery bodies, which work in the various communities but depend on some volunteers as well. We have about 45 Gaelic officers working in the various communities. These numbers are relatively small, but the impact is huge. A regular small increase would make a difference.

We are at the point where Bòrd na Gàidhlig is very aware of all its obligations as an organisation and the huge impact it is having as a development agency, but there is a need for more resources.

Q122       Julie Elliott: That is fascinating. I am interested in all your views on the Scottish Languages Bill, and on what giving Gaelic official status would mean in practice.

Professor Dunbar: I might come back to a couple of the other points. First, on that question, I think it is symbolically important for Gaelic to be recognised as an official language. I am both a Celtic or Gaelic scholar and a lawyer by training. I am from Canada, where we have long experience with language legislation and bilingualism, and where French has official status. What is more important is what “official status” means. Symbolically, to say that a language has official status is certainly important, but what does that imply in terms of Government policy? What does it imply with regard to accessing Gaelic medium education and public services? What does that imply about the use of Gaelic as a language in local councils or in debates in Parliament and so on? Those are the sorts of things that official status is often associated with.

By itself, simply saying that a language has official status is certainly a recognition of the value, but more important is what comes with it, what it implies about the Government that has declared the language an official language, and what it means in practical terms for people wanting to use the language. That would be my starting place.

If I may jump back to a couple of the other points: on your question about demand, I do not think that we know precisely what the demand for Gaelic medium education is, but we have quite clear indications that there is plenty of demand that is not being met.

Here in the city of Glasgow, when I first came to Scotland in 1995, there was a Gaelic class at a school on the south side of the river, but no Gaelic schools. I remember going out on Saturday mornings on Byres Road with other parents to hand out leaflets to encourage and develop a Gaelic pre-school, which eventually we succeeded in doing. There are now four Gaelic schools in Glasgow. When the first one was established, demand exceeded supply. I live in Edinburgh, and we have the same problem in Edinburgh: it took a long time to get a Gaelic medium school; now, it is bursting at the seams. It is quite clear that we need more Gaelic medium schools in Edinburgh. This has been the experience wherever Gaelic medium education has been developed.

We have talked about Duolingo, which gives a very good idea of the desire that people have to learn Gaelic. I would echo Gillian’s point about a right to Gaelic medium education. Such a right was first proposed by the main Gaelic development organisation at the time in 1997: Comunn na Gàidhlig, which had put together proposals for a language Act. One of the core proposals was a right—more or less based on the constitutional right in Canada—to Gaelic medium education. There is a lot to be discussed about the modalities of how such a right would work, but that would empower parents.

The main problem has been that, right now, the expansion of Gaelic medium at both primary and secondary depends on the willingness of the local council, which has control over education in Scotland, to respond to parental demand. There have been some very useful initiatives, including the Education (Scotland) Act 2016, which created a process for parents to ask councils to deliver, but the council level is usually where the roadblock takes place. Sometimes that reluctance is understandable, because costs are involved—staffing, premises and so forth. None the less, a right would put power in parents’ hands, which I think is generally a good thing with regard to education.

Part of the problem at the tertiary level, as Gillian was describing, is the flow-through. When we have demand being satisfied, we will see greater numbers of students. One of the big problems is at the secondary level. By the age of 12 or so, students have completed primary education, where they have been educated primarily through the medium of the language. In most cases at the secondary level, continuing to learn through the medium of Gaelic is available, but even in those cases the number of classes available is strictly limited. Glasgow is the only city with a Gaelic medium secondary school in all of Scotland. Even there, because of teacher shortage, it has been difficult to get teachers in place to provide the breadth of subjects. We will see increases at tertiary level when we see the flow-through.

I would say one thing about practical advantage. One of the difficulties we have, not so much at Sabhal Mòr, where they teach through the medium of Gaelic, but at the other universities in Scotland, is that unlike in other modern language departments, our students cannot go abroad for a year to immerse themselves in education. As well as having native speakers and students who have been through Gaelic medium education, we have a large number of very good ab initio learners at secondary level. They make great progress up to the end of the second year. It would be great for them to have an opportunity to study in an immersion setting before continuing at honours. In our department and in the other Celtic departments, we attempt to teach the honours level through the medium of Gaelic to the greatest extent possible.

Again, we do not have parity with other modern languages. That is partly because the linguistic situation is different, of course, but there are other ways of resolving that and of creating an immersion experience for a year. Finding funding for that has been a problem, that is something I would really like to see resolved.

The other thing about students who are learning at the tertiary level is that the numbers are not huge, but so many of our former students have gone on into broadcasting or into Gaelic development work or into teaching. The impact of the tertiary level on the infrastructure for Gaelic really is outsized, given the number of students that we are talking about, so I think there are things that can be done at the tertiary level as well.

Julie Elliott: Thank you. Mairi, what will giving official status mean in practice?

Mairi MacInnes: Just before I go on to that, I would like to pick up on Rob’s last point. That is an example of something that would make a huge difference to traditional communities—if students of the language were to come. Transmission is really important and good in any language. There are few communities where students who are learning a language can be immersed, but in the Western Isles there are. Being able to be there for periods of time would make a big difference, certainly, and I would applaud that. Sorry for interrupting your question.

Julie Elliott: No, no. What difference in practical terms would giving Gaelic that status mean?

Mairi MacInnes: We welcome the Bill. We are 15 or 20 years on since the last one, so we are very happy that a Bill has come forward. We would like to see more regulation coming out of it, in terms of who does what. Like Rob has said, local authorities have ownership of so much. Other public bodies have ownership of lots as well. There are 60-odd Gaelic plans across Scotland, with all the big national bodies. We would want to see that making a real difference to Gaelic in Scottish life. The strategy that will be developed will, hopefully, contribute towards regulating that. We see it as a strength that the Government are going to be developing the strategy and rolling that out across the country.

Q123       Julie Elliott: I suppose the next part is what the Bill does not address, and what needs to happen beyond it.

Mairi MacInnes: The need for extra resources. It will be difficult to do much without extra resources—that is the main point.

Q124       Julie Elliott: Gillian, what do you think giving Gaelic official status will mean practically, and what does the Bill not address?

Dr Rothach: I think it is well overdue, and it is absolutely critical to have official status, perhaps not just in Scotland but in the UK. It would be lovely to see both Parliaments working on that.

First and foremost, status gives you self-respect. I feel that very much, as a Scots speaker from birth. You don’t have the same self-respect; you think you are less than acceptable in many respects. Self-respect is critical to confidence, for the children, young people and adults who speak the language, but it is also crucial for attracting new speakers. We really need new speakers, both in Scots and in Scottish Gaelic. That is the very first thing that I would see the status giving: increased self-respect. You are finally recognised as being a part of the UK—Scotland—so it is important at a symbolic level.

It is also very important in leading on to the question of rights. You should expect to be able to use your language in a number of different fora in general life. I would hope it would lead to the development of rights. It would also therefore lead to a framework of policy development to support all those rights.

Professor Dunbar: If I may make one more comment about what the Bill lacks, one thing that we are quite out of step on, by comparison with Wales, Ireland and now Northern Ireland, is a language commissioner.

One of the weaknesses of our present legislation—the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005—is that there is a mechanism for creating additional obligations on public authorities through the Gaelic language plans, but no mechanism for complaints to be taken from members of the public who feel that the Gaelic language plans are too weak or are not being implemented with sufficient rigour.

There is no process by which failures in delivering on commitments in language plans can be resolved, either through the courts or through a complaints process. In Ireland, under the Official Languages Act 2003, and in Wales, under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, a language commissioner was created to play precisely that role. Those offices have done very important work, in my view. In fact, there is now a network of language commissioners. Language commissioners have a long standing in Canada and play an incredibly important role in giving people a sense of what their rights or opportunities are under the framework.

There is a very low level of knowledge among Gaelic speakers about what sort of services they might expect from, say, the Western Isles Council or other public bodies, particularly in Gaelic-speaking areas. There is no sense of how effectively any commitments are being implemented, and a language commissioner can play a very important watchdog role. I know there is concern right now in Scotland—I think there is a parliamentary inquiry—about the variety of ombuds roles and commissioner roles, but I think we are really out of step here, and it is something that needs to be dealt with.

I do not think it is an appropriate role for Bòrd na Gàidhlig to play. Bòrd na Gàidhlig is involved in the development of policies, working closely with public bodies, so it would be unusual to ask Bòrd na Gàidhlig to then look at possible failures to deliver. Under the present framework, the board does have a bit of that role, but I think that that could be done much more effectively by separating the policy creation and implementation from the oversight.

Q125       Julie Elliott: Finally, could the UK Government do more to give recognition to the Gaelic language? If so, what could it do?

Professor Dunbar: I have prepared a list; I would be happy to write to you with it.

We have already talked about broadcasting. We have a Gaelic language Act, but because it is an Act of the Scottish Parliament, it can only regulate Scottish Government Departments, public bodies and public authorities. There are a number of Westminster bodies that are obviously important on the ground in Gaelic communities, including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the DVLA, which has already been mentioned, the Ministry of Defence—there is a Ministry of Defence presence in the Gaelic heartlands, in Benbecula, so its impact on language could be very significant—and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. His Majesty’s Coastguard is very important in island communities. There is also Ofcom and the British Council.

All of these organisations have Welsh language schemes under the Welsh Language Act 1993, which is Westminster legislation. Important public services are provided by Westminster Departments. For parity, and to ensure that Gaelic speakers and Gaelic communities have wraparound provision in their language, I think there should be some obligation there.

There are a number of ways of doing it. One would be on a voluntary basis, with the Government simply saying, “We’re going to develop schemes in important Departments that impact on Gaelic speakers and Gaelic communities in Scotland.” One other option would be to devolve powers, through a section 30 order, to the Scottish Parliament to legislate on the obligations of Westminster Departments in respect of the Gaelic language alone, and perhaps to give power to the board to thereby play a role.

Another area that is very important relates to foreign affairs. I am from Canada; I am part of the diaspora. My family were all Gaelic speakers. The first one came to Canada in 1784, and the language was spoken right down to my father’s generation, so I feel very close to the language. There are many thousands of Canadians—millions, perhaps—who fit into that category. That is true of the United States as well.

Take a look at the Duolingo figures. I do not have the most recent ones, but I asked colleagues at SMO for the figures a couple of years ago: I think about 1.8 million people had signed up to the Duolingo Gaelic programme and 520,000 were active users. About 43% or 44% came from North America. Large numbers came from Australia and New Zealand—part of this Scottish highland diaspora.

Much more could be done by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, perhaps in collaboration with the Scottish Government. There are very interesting educational programmes that the Irish Government have been very successful in doing at the tertiary level. Through the Fulbright schemes in the United States, in partnership with the Fulbright Trust, the Irish Government have put in money for a scheme whereby young Irish speakers are hired to teach Irish at American universities. I was at Notre Dame University about five years ago, and I met a young fellow from County Kerry who was teaching Irish to American students. I went to the first-year class. There were about 20 students—all the way from California to New Jersey—all learning Irish.

There is a similar programme here in the UK that has been funded by the Irish Government as well. We have benefited from that. There is also a similar programme in Canada, where the Irish Government, in collaboration with Canadian authorities, have offered teaching positions at university for Irish speakers. My eldest son did his first degree at the University of Toronto and took Irish, which was taught by a young guy from the Waterford Gaeltacht who was funded partly by the Irish Government.

The UK Government, perhaps in collaboration with the Scottish Government, could benefit from setting up similar programmes. I was at the University of North Carolina in 2019. They were looking to establish a chair of Gaelic studies, but the funding was a problem. I will leave it at that.

Julie Elliott: You have a very extensive list. If you want to get any more on the record, please do write to us with any other examples.

Professor Dunbar: I will send it to you.

Julie Elliott: Mairi and Gillian, have you anything to add?

Mairi MacInnes: By the time you have done all that, there will be no time to do anything I’m wanting!

I would raise the importance of the levelling-up fund. It is critical for our areas, and we watch anxiously for that all the time.

Q126       Julie Elliott: Have you had any money from the levelling-up fund?

Mairi MacInnes: Not yet, but I am waiting for it. I know our community is waiting for capital projects. I also know that Levelling Up officials and maybe MPs are visiting Scotland at the moment and are going to be in the Western Isles towards the end of the week. That is all good and interesting. It is important to encourage them that that be attached to the importance of the language and the culture. It all needs a strong economy and good, strong infrastructure.

I have got one over on you, Rob: there is the European charter for regional or minority languages. I don’t think he mentioned that! That is a UK reserved matter, and you are involved in that. That is something where we could feature as well.

Q127       Julie Elliott: Gillian, have you anything to add?

Dr Rothach: I won’t repeat them, but I totally support all the suggestions that have been made so far. Another one that stands out for me is to continue the work to develop the relationship between the British and the Scottish Governments in terms of support for the language. It is really heartening that you are here and that you are very open and listening. It would be great to see more of that.

It would also be wonderful to see special treatment being given to minority languages through the national research funders: the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council. It would not take a lot, as we keep saying. It would be great to see a bit more funding, and for that to be set aside to support minority languages and cultures.

From Sabhal Mòr’s perspective, we are very interested in putting forward the case for Sabhal Mòr, as a Gaelic institution at a tertiary level, to seek small specialist institute status, which would make us similar to small specialists in England and to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which is a small specialist with higher education institute status. For us to do that, one part of the process would be to apply to the Quality Assurance Agency for taught degree awarding powers and, possibly, research degree awarding powers beyond that. But the criteria for an application make it very difficult—in fact, pretty much impossible—for us to do that, because the criteria aim for institutions with much bigger numbers. That is an impossibility for us as a minority language and culture, so we would like to see some flexibility.

Julie Elliott: If you would write to us with some more detailed information, that would be useful.

Dr Rothach: I would be delighted to do so.

Q128       Chair: Do you know how many levelling-up bids have gone in? You say that you have not had any levelling-up funding, but you have to bid for it, so I wondered how many bids have gone in. Perhaps you could find out.

Mairi MacInnes: Yes, I could find out. It is a very hot topic in the Western Isles, I would have to say.

Q129       Jane Stevenson: Professor Dunbar, I want to move on to the Council of Europe minority languages charter. I am one of the delegates to the Council of Europe and I serve on the culture committee, just for clarity.

There are three parts to the charter. Scots comes under part II, which has certain designation, but Gaelic is in part III. Several of the agreements—I am coming back to cow licences and driving licences—are intended to promote, facilitate and encourage the use of a minority language in several areas of public life, including education, courts, administration, media, culture, and economic and social life. I was quite surprised that you could not get your driving licence or a cattle licence in Gaelic, which seems slightly at odds with that.

What is the value of being a signatory? It is more than 20 years since it has been ratified for the UK now. What has that done for Gaelic?

Professor Dunbar: Thank you for the question, and thank you, Mairi, for mentioning the charter. I should mention that I am the UK member of the committee of experts that oversees the implementation of the European charter.

One thing I wanted to mention relates to the question whether Scots is a language. From a purely legal but important perspective: yes, it is a language, and that is because the UK Government have said it is a language. Under the European charter for regional or minority languages, a regional or minority language cannot be a dialect of an official language of the state. If Scots were a mere dialect of English, it would not have been possible for the UK to name Scots as a protected language. As soon as the UK recognised Scots as a protected language, the UK Government recognised Scots as a language. My point of view—a lawyer’s point of view, I suppose—on the question of language versus dialect is that all the arguments earlier were excellent ones, but I think the question is answered in the UK: it is a language.

The charter has had a number of benefits. One of the main ones is the commitment to broadcasting in Gaelic. There was a commitment to facilitate the creation of a Gaelic television channel. At the time that negotiations were taking place in 2006 and 2007 between MG Alba, the BBC and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, this international commitment was on the table. It was a reminder that something had to be done to get us to the point where we had a proper station, rather than the service that we had before. That would be one immediate example where the charter has had an impact.

I think it has also had an impact on oversight, monitoring and implementation, because the committee of experts comes to the country on a regular basis and makes a formal report every five years on implementation and failure to implement the charter. This is an important aspect of monitoring obligations, and I think it has been hugely valuable.

It is also a source of good practice and ideas. Because the charter has been ratified by 25 countries, you get a range of practices with regard to things like minority language education. Many of the problems that we face with regard to all our minority languages here in the UK are not unique to us, and we see solutions in other jurisdictions; the Basque country was mentioned earlier with regard to teacher training, for example. It is a really good repository of practices.

With regard to the more detailed provisions of part III of the charter, I would say two things. First, the UK could always ratify further obligations. It has ratified 36 different provisions in the detailed part III. In relation to some of the provisions that have been ratified, stronger options could have been ratified and would have created an even higher level of obligation with regard to things like education, public administration and the legal system. One area that we are very weak on is the presence of Gaelic in the legal system. There is no right to use Gaelic in any court except the Scottish land court. Thanks to the charter, there is now again an opportunity to use Gaelic in three sheriff courts in civil matters—in Portree, Lochmaddy and Stornoway. Of course, most cases before the sheriffs are not civil but criminal matters, so the uptake has been very poor, but these are all areas where strengthening obligations could be important.

The final point about the charter is that it talks about obligations in respect of areas where there are speakers of the language. This goes back to the question of legislative responsibilities of Westminster versus those of the Scottish Government. Many of the areas in the charter are clearly areas in which the Scottish Government has obligations; broadcasting is not one of them. But there are important arms of public administration that are provided by Westminster bodies, so there is a real argument under the charter that Westminster Departments and public bodies that are working in Gaelic communities in Scotland need to be cognisant of how they will provide similar levels of services to those that they provide to Welsh speakers in Wales.

Q130       Jane Stevenson: Thank you. We are short on time, but could you give us a bit of detail about any recommendations from the last five-year review of the charter? Are there any good international examples, where other countries are doing an exemplary job of being a signatory to the charter?

Professor Dunbar: One of the common themes continually coming through is Gaelic medium education—teacher shortages, teacher training and so on. Broadcasting gets a mention on a regular basis as well. There are themes that have come up repeatedly in the monitoring cycle, and education is certainly one of the priority areas.

I would say that in many respects Wales provides us with a good model. There is also the Basque country. There is Catalonia, but it is a completely different situation: Catalan is a minority language spoken by 7 million people. The majority of the population of Catalonia speak the language, and there are very significant numbers in Valencia and the Balearics as well, so it is a somewhat different context.

What I would say about the charter is that even in other, smaller linguistic communities there are examples of good practice that could be followed. The other important Council of Europe treaty for languages is the framework convention for the protection of national minorities, and we are in the fortunate position in Scotland that the member of the advisory committee for that treaty is Professor David Smith, here at Glasgow University. We had an event in Glasgow just before Christmas to which we invited a variety of organisations and people, including Scots colleagues. We had a sort of public information session, which is something we could think about doing with Members of the Westminster Parliament, perhaps including your Committee and other Committees. Knowledge of the existence of these treaties and what they say is at a fairly low level, and I would really like to see a much greater understanding of them.

Q131       Jane Stevenson: For anyone listening, under the charter Scots, Ulster-Scots and Cornish are covered only by part II, whereas Irish, Welsh and Gaelic are covered by parts II and III. Oor Vyce wants an upgrade. Do you think that all the languages should be included in the part III list?

Professor Dunbar: I would think that there is a strong argument. Manx, of course, is the seventh language. It was a part II language, but now it is a part III language as well, with 2,000 speakers. It depends on political will, and much more can be done.

One of the questions in ratifying part III is that states have to sign up to at least 35 of the detailed 65 provisions in part III. For a language like Cornish, that might be a challenge in some areas, although it is certainly worth looking at. For Scots, with 1.7 million speakers, the problem is the will to identify what 35 areas or more could be undertaken. It is certainly possible for Scots to be included in part III, if the will is there.

Q132       Jane Stevenson: Does either of the other witnesses want to say anything about how they view the Council of Europe’s charter?

Mairi MacInnes: I just want to echo a point that Rob made about the land courts. That is really important in traditional Gaelic-speaking areas, because generally it is old people whose land is under threat, or something like that, that are there. The ability to do that in Gaelic is hugely valued. It is not one size fits all: small things make a difference in these smaller communities.

I was also going to raise the point that Rob made about the Ministry of Defence. We have huge employment in our areas through the Ministry of Defence. An awareness of Gaelic, or even some visibility, signage or promotion, would make a huge difference to the language locally, to the prestige and value that people feel and to the pride that they take in working there.

Jane Stevenson: I will take that back to Grant Shapps.

Chair: Can I thank every single one of our witnesses today? It has been fabulous to listen to you, and we are really grateful for your time and all your answers. I also want to put on the record our grateful thanks to our hosts here in Glasgow. Thank you to everyone who has taken part in this evidence session away from home: it has been really valuable for us all.