Gaelic Medium Education (GME) - Foghlam tro Mheadhan na Gàidhlig (FTMG) - has been very successful in Scotland, with GME schools facing growing demand for places and the most recent census returns suggesting the decline in the language may have been halted as the reduction in the number of older speakers is finally being balanced by an increase in the number of younger speakers supported by GME.
However, as a keen advocate of support for the language, I personally find myself utterly demoralised when I go into shops and places of work, especially in areas which are considered to be among its heartlands, to find myself addressed in English as a first resort rather than Gaelic. What motivation can a school pupil find to pursue studies in a language when they will not use it to conduct business once they complete their education?
The answer is GMW - the Gaelic Medium Workplace. The natural extension of GME is the Gaelic Medium Workplace, or Obair tro Mheadhan na Gàidhlig (OTMG). This is required as a continuation of the support provided by GME.
A scheme should be set up to support businesses who choose to undertake their daily activities using the Gaelic language.
Boardroom, back-office and shop-floor work would be conducted in Gaelic. Client-facing interactions would use Gaelic as a first resort unless the nature of the business required otherwise. Business-to-business interactions between participants in the scheme would be conducted in Gaelic. School leavers from Gaelic Medium Education would be able to use the language of their studies in the workplace, contributing to its vitality and relevance. A business could be accredited as a GMW.
This scheme, of course, would have to be arranged so as not to confer any commercial advantage to a business making the choice to participate. However, the scheme is necessary to prevent such businesses from suffering a commercial disadvantage as a result of this choice. It is not a matter of providing incentives but of removing disincentives. The scheme would face insurmountable opposition if it was perceived to be giving preferential treatment. It would have to be clearly a voluntary option, elective rather than unavoidable. However, the "equality of respect" required for the Gaelic language in law, and the implementation of Gaelic Language Action Plans by local authorities as a result, could easily be enhanced by the inclusion of support for GMWs.
So, for example, provision could be made to support lessons for existing staff and new hires without the Gaelic, and other areas where the operation of a GMW would incur additional costs relative to current practice could be addressed. Public procurement of products and services that included Gaelic content could including operation of a GMW scheme among the criteria on which bidders are scored. It is not about offering Gaelic a bigger slice of the pie. It is about making sure businesses where Gaelic could be spoken - in the Western Isles for example - don't have to ask in English for the snaois they are already entitled to.
When I walk into a shop in Stornoway I want to be addressed in Gaelic whether I speak it or not, and GMW is the only way I can see of achieving this.
Surely your apologetic attitude to incentives is simply another aspect of the 'Scottish Cringe'. How are you going to break the 'English first/English with anyone you haven't known since childhood' etc. attitude without providing incentives, agus carson a bhiodh sin cearr?
ReplyDeleteHi Marconatrix
DeleteI think we have to distinguish between costs and revenues quite clearly when devising a support scheme like this.
The decision to conform to the requirements of the scheme must be cost-neutral. Currently it would be cost-negative, which would be a deterrent. This deterrent is what government could and should remove.
Measures that impact the revenues of a private enterprise should be matters of consumer choice. With respect to revenues, all enterprises want to see a level playing field. GMW may drive up revenues by making a company more attractive to a consumer, but the impact of government intervention on private business must be revenue-neutral.
That is why the scheme should focus on removing disincentives with respect to cost rather than introducing incentives with respect to revenues.
It's is nothing to do with cringe (I am vigorously "anti-cringe" and my cringe detector is set to 11 most of the time). Rather, a practicable scheme - any government scheme, whether it was related to GMW or anything else - would be doomed from the start if it was seen to reward one business over another in a way that disrupted open competition.
That is why the scheme should be about ensuring the same neutrality applies to costs as to revenues with regard to GMW - this is demonstrably fair, rather than running the risk of being perceived as unfair. GMW is about costs, not competitiveness - that is down to how they run the busness irrespective of which language they speak.