Is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste  na Gàidhlig anns a’ chiste!

Is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste na Gàidhlig anns a’ chiste!
“Broken Gaelic is better than Gaelic in a coffin!”

When people hear I speak Scottish Gàidhlig, they usually want to listen to how it sounds; its throaty ch sound found in the word loch that English mostly steers clear of, like clearing a whisper from your throat rather than a cough. Or its soft rr, almost like a flutter of the rolling rr in Spanish found in words like “an urrainn dhomh?” (can I?).

My name is another good conversation starter, Eilidh (/ˈeɪ.li/), an extremely common Gàidhlig name in the Highlands, with my nickname being Eilidh D. (surname Douglas)… in school along with Eilidh O’, Eilidh M. and Eilidh C., having to use the first letter of our second names to help identify each other to save confusion. Outside of the Highlands however, it appears to be much less common, with people calling me Elly, Edith and Alid. I of course, don’t mind however, it is difficult to know unless you have seen the name before.

In our alphabet, we don’t use the English letters; J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y or Z, meaning that to make these sounds, variations such as idh, aidh, igh are used for the sound ‘Y’, bh or mh are used in place of ‘V’- such as in Eilidh or dhachaigh (home).

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, tha moncaidh anns an sù!

Gàidhlig sits in the back of my mind like a quiet hum, having shaped the way I hear, speak and think for the whole of my life. I learned Gàidhlig in cròileagan when I was about three years old, a pre-nursery a five-minute walk from my childhood home in Inverness, the capital of the Highlands.  Mo mhàthair (my mother) always likes to remind me that I never missed a single day, as I loved it so much, although I can’t say the same for my later years of school! I still remember the name of the two ladies who ran the cròileagan- Mirree and Marriann- obviously a core memory that started to shape me into the bòirreanach (woman) that I am today.

 Mo mhammaidh agam (my mum) knew she wanted my sister and I to grow up bilingual, although not being too fussed about the language at hand. She tried to find a Spanish or French public school but, with living in the Highlands, a school like that is very near impossible to come by. Mo sheanmhair (my granny) and mo sheanmhair mhòr (my great granny) both spoke Gàidhlig, mo sheanmhair having grown up living between the Isle of Tìree and Glasgow, with the Hebridean Islands being a hotspot for Gàidhlig.

I identify as a Gàidhlig Highlander, I feel as though it was a very special community to have grown up in, a passionate, strong and vibrant group, all of us interconnected through this whimsical-sounding language. We often celebrated occasions through ceilidhs, Fèisean, Blas, Drama festivals, Highland Games, Highland Dancing- every extra-curricular activity had Gàidhlig central to it. We connected through music, a very important aspect of our heritage, the fiddle, accordion, drums, guitar, bagpipes, clàrsach and singing, beautiful harmonies filling community halls, churches and theatres, keeping alive enchanting hymns and puirtean created by our ancestors centuries before.

Some of my best memories from childhood are from the drama group (fair to say I wasn’t very good at acting or singing but we had a lot of fun throughout it!). We were a group of about ten girls having grown up together, keeping in touch through Gàidhlig theatre, mostly messing around and unintentionally keeping the language fresh and alive in our minds.

After cròileagan I moved to a sgoil-àraich across town where I then continued until primary 3. Its name was ‘Central Primary School’ however as there wasn’t a school yet fully dedicated to Gàidhlig in Inverness, it was a half-English and half-Gàidhlig school. It was a strange concept looking back- as surely every Highlander should be learning it? I vividly remember an intense rivalry between the Gàidhlig and the English-speaking children. Daily football matches were held, English vs Gàidhlig, almost as if Culloden battlefield was being re-lived through the eyes of five and six-year-olds, an inherent instinct being played out ;D. It’s funny how kids as young as five can pertain to division as well, I guess it’s just innately human of all of us.

In 2007, a Gàidhlig school was built right nearby to my childhood home, a place where only my native tongue is spoken between the adults and the children with the name of ‘Bun-Sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis’ (Inverness Gàidhlig Primary School). It was new and modern and held about 100 pupils, a relatively small number for a school. I made lovely childhood memories there that I’ll cherish forever, a really fond time of my life to look back on. We weren’t allowed to speak English whatsoever though, a phrase that rang out throughout my whole childhood being “Bruidhinn Gàidhlig nigheanan!” (“Speak Gàidhlig girls!”), although gossiping in Gàidhlig never quite hit the same as in English for some reason.

The years passed by and I eventually went to high school, where our small class of nine students were split into two different high schools across town. My Gàidhlig exposure was reduced to a few periods a day instead of constant immersion. I had classes of Gàidhlig, History, Modern Studies and Geography all in the Highland language throughout my high school career. We had some French lessons in high school and although I got good grades in French, I retained absolutely none of the language whatsoever.

It felt a bit of a shock to go from a very community-based primary school, where every parent and teacher were friends and spending time at each other’s houses or at a ceilidh, to then going to a larger school where our Gàidhlig class consisted of only four people; less socialising and feeling more isolated. I’m not sure if others felt this way mind you.

Gàidhlig is much more than just a language that “needs” to be spoken to be kept alive, it’s a sense of community and belonging filled with traditions such as Oidhche Rabbie Burns (Robert Burns’ Supper) and resonance that I feel is deeply important for the human spirit.

I felt a hit as a teenager losing this sense of community a bit, almost like losing a part of yourself. Once I left school, I used my Gàidhlig less and less, not really making a conscious effort to use it either, with each year it was fading further and further from my daily life.

During my travels around Europe interrailing, I met a man at Munich Oktoberfest from Steòrnabhagh, Eilean Leòdhais (The Isle of Lewis). We started to chat, the weighty Maßkrüge glasses sloshing warmly against our palms. Before we knew it, we were just naturally speaking in Gàidhlig. It felt so strange to be far from home yet to be speaking my language, it’s as if at that moment the fire was re-ignited inside of me and I realised that I must keep this part of me alive.

From that point forward, I made a conscious effort to keep up my Gàidhlig, I joined my Steòrnabhagh friend’s Gàidhlig classes online every week and spoke with wee cailleachan about different selected topics. Through this I met an Argentinian man who taught Spanish in Gàidhlig. I began lessons with him online weekly, letting both languages grow side by side.

I say this now as an adult of twenty-five years, that Gàidhlig was and will be forever a part of my soul. In each country I visit I am reminded of an aspect of my own culture, in every language I hear I can hear the sounds and rhythms of Gàidhlig flowing throughout, even if just a quiet utterance of the notes, in every song I hear a hum of the tones and in every person I meet they hold a flicker of Gàidhlig, like a soft, warm ember taking me back to being in cròileagan again.

I felt called to speak about my experience through Gàidhlig medium as after being away from home for eight months now, I feel more and more called to my roots as each day passes. My spirit is warmed by letting myself sink into new cultures, seeing things from others’ perspectives, almost as if reading life re-written back to you in a way that you hadn’t considered before. Learning Spanish has also been a rich challenge, often pushing me out of my comfort zone, but in the best way possible.

I’m seeing this same feeling that I had with Gàidhlig, again and again in different places and as this resonance is making me reflect and yearn. Culture is key and it is so important to be loud and proud, sharing a part of you with others. It’s a place of home, an external entity that’s also rooted deeply within all of us.

I guess I am also feeling a slight detachment from Gàidhlig whilst travelling, the edges of my accent worn smooth and settling into a neutrality, my name being pronounced as Elly and often being mistaken as being from England or America. And whilst there’s obviously nothing wrong or personal with any of this, it still feels as if an undercurrent is trying to slip the Gàidhlig part of me away from myself.

So with this, I just wanted to share my life through the lens of a Gàidhlig Highlander. I realised that even though we may feel a disconnect from our home at times, no undercurrent can wash away what is a concrete part of you, it may flow through or by you, but it cannot remove what is embedded within us.

Gàidhlig lingers within me, the way that culture rests within everyone, and sharing these parts of ourselves only strengthens our identities.

Even just writing this, I can feel the embers of Gàidhlig glowing, the current of culture flowing through me, like both fire and water, elements forever intertwined within the essence of my soul.

“Cleachd e neo caill e!”

“Use it or lose it!”