The cost of speaking Gaelic

[RagnarRocks]

I've just read an article on halting the decline of Gaelic speaking it claims a great success at having reduced the decline and there are now 58000 Gaelic speakers. Only problem I have with this is the price tag £400 mill I mean good grief if it was £40 mill it would be still too much in these times of fuel poverty for the elderly and various other social problems. How do these figures get justified and spent.

[sids]

Telegrams were cheaper than that!

[Mrs Bradey]

who spent this? was it Hollyrood or Westminster? 58,000 speakers, presumably in Scotland this amounts to about 0.01% of the population ! (maths not my strong point) they could have given every person in Scotland £80.00 & told them to buy a book on how to learn gaelic. probably 10% might have ! maybe I misunderstood.

[ducati]

If this is true we should line 'em up and shoot them. (The people that spent the money, not the ones that bought the books).

[Django]

What a waste of money. Couple of Gaelic speakers live near me, every time I hear them jabbering away I want to recite the Samuel Jackson "English" line from Pulp Fiction one inch from their face. Many thngs make me feel proud to be Scottish but Gaelic aint one of them.

[RagnarRocks]

The BBC alone has spent £17 million on Gaelic language programmes it would appear that since they've started airing football and rugby their viewing figures have increased,but suspicions have been aired how the majority watching those progs do so with the sound off until the interviews with players which are conducted in English

[Mrs Bradey]

The BBC alone has spent £17 million on Gaelic language programmes it would appear that since they've started airing football and rugby their viewing figures have increased,but suspicions have been aired how the majority watching those progs do so with the sound off until the interviews with players which are conducted in English

The BBC could have made learning gaelic easier by putting gaelic subtitles on when people are speaking English, then I might have an idea what their on about.

[sids]

The BBC could have made learning gaelic easier by putting gaelic subtitles on when people are speaking English, then I might have an idea what their on about.

The BBC should make all programmes in Gaelic, with English subtitles.

Then, over a couple of years, gradually make the subtitles smaller and smaller until we can't read them. That'll force everyone to learn Gaelic.

[Mrs Bradey]

The BBC should make all programmes in Gaelic, with English subtitles.Then, over a couple of years, gradually make the subtitles smaller and smaller until we can't read them. That'll force everyone to learn Gaelic.

smart idea, and as the subtitles would be reducing in size surely then so would the cost. I see it costing no more than £400 million by year four. making it good economic sense too.

[neilsermk1]

The BBC should make all programmes in Gaelic, with English subtitles.

Then, over a couple of years, gradually make the subtitles smaller and smaller until we can't read them. That'll force everyone to learn Gaelic.

much better idea if they sub titled in chinese, then it might be at least remotely useful

[PantsMAN]

I've just read an article on halting the decline of Gaelic speaking it claims a great success at having reduced the decline and there are now 58000 Gaelic speakers. Only problem I have with this is the price tag £400 mill I mean good grief if it was £40 mill it would be still too much in these times of fuel poverty for the elderly and various other social problems. How do these figures get justified and spent.

Quote from the Sunday Post's website - " In an article in last week’s Sunday Post, which also appeared on this website (www.sundaypost.com)— ‘£400m pumped into Gaelic despite fall in speakers’ — we stated that more than £400 million had been spent promoting the language since devolution.
This figure was wrong. The correct total spend on Gaelic is £265m, with £116m of that total coming between 1999 and 2007 under Labour and the Lib Dems, with the rest spent by the current SNP administration.
We sincerely apologise for this error."

Small price for a vital part of Scotland's heritage.

Or we could compare it to the £6bn for 2 useless aircraft carriers?

[macadamia]

The £6 bn for the 2 "useless" aircraft carriers was looked on by Scotland as very good news as it kept the shipyards in work for a good few years, thanks to Gordon Brown's piece of "stupidity". I don't recall thousands of shipyard workers complaining much about this lifeline at the time.....Scotland's heritage may only be retained if it is based on the building bricks of today and tomorrow, not on the ruins of yesterday......

[PantsMAN]

Surely the £6bn was therefore no more than the modern equivalent of digging holes and filling them in. It was only meant to be £3bn I believe. What else could have been achieved with a sum like that?
You seem to be suggesting that we should abandon any part of our heritage and history that is not of current or future commercial value? Interesting.

Anyway, I expect this is a trifle off-thread.

Glayva!

[macadamia]

No, heritage is fine, but it's cathedric. It requires constant present and planned maintenance and continued building for the future, not resting on historic antecedents as if there was some entitlement involved merely because something is old.

I mentioned aircraft carriers only because you did. But you're right - it was window dressing. Window dressing which gave good men good jobs for a longer time than they would have had them otherwise.

Is Gaelic window dressing? Surely, with Scotland's ability (but reluctance!) to raise revenue, more money should be going to alleviate the poverty continually laid at the doorstep of the "Wastemonster Torries", and not on some Brigadoonish language of no great interest to the increasingly small minority exposed to it.

And I am NOT being an iconoclast here: the language I (and a huge number in the world speak) is English. In its roots there is Old Norse, Old Celt, Sanskrit, Latin, Old Germanic, Greek, modern Indian, German, French, and a host of other influences. English has survived because it has evolved and adapted. It has heritage, and amongst its ancestors is Anglo-Saxon.

If I was following the Gaelic route, I would also be asking that all road signs in England should also be in Anglo Saxon, and that each government notice should be copied into Anglo-Saxon too.

After all, Anglo-Saxon was spoken and written by a significant number of the population only a few hundred years ago.

But - as those old Anglo-Saxons used to put it "Gaeth a wyrd swa heo scel" - fate always goes as it must - and that is why England's road signs and public documents are in English. (Yes I know local councils currently put them into every other tongue from Polish to Pashtu, but that will soon stop when we are governed by people who say "Our country - our language!")

Glayva, indeed!

[orkneycadian]

Hmmm, £80 per head of population makes Ywindy's 43p (or £1.14, depending what numbers you believe) as our share for making sure our electricity network gets upgraded look like exceptionally good value!

[sids]

£400m pumped into Gaelic despite fall in speakers’

They fell over?

They should put more lemonade in it.

[PantsMAN]

They fell over?

They should put more lemonade in it.

That's the Sunday Pist for you...

[Big Gaz]

Or we could compare it to the £6bn for 2 useless aircraft carriers?

Or compare it to the £10bn plus wasted, lost and misappropriated on the "new" welfare IT system.

By my reckoning, learning Gaelic is just a drop in the ocean compared to the scandalous waste of taxpayers money by the govt and IDS!!