Gaelic

Languages do not “die”, they are persecuted: A Scottish Gael’s perspective on language “loss” (by Dr Paul Meighan-Chiblow)

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This blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text.

Pòl air a’ mhachair ann an Uibhist a Deas (Paul on the machair in South Uist)

Two-thirds of the world’s 7000-7500 languages are Indigenous languages. One-third of Indigenous languages are experiencing language loss and “as many as 90% are predicted to fall silent by the end of the century” (McCarty, 2018, p. 23). However, languages do not simply “die”, nor do they magically disappear. All languages change over time, but language shift, endangerment, or “death” is not natural nor is it unavoidable.

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Romancing with the Romance languages: Col amor de un multi-, pluri-lingual o translanguaging éducateur (by Paul Meighan-Chiblow)

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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

This week’s blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text.

https://soundcloud.com/bild_lida/romancing-with-the-romance-languages-col-amor-de-un-multi-pluri-lingual-translanguaging-educateur

I’m going to tell you a few wee stories about my journeys learning Spanish, French, Italian and a little bit of Catalan. Growing up in an impoverished neighbourhood of Glasgow, I found my escape in dreaming, in reading and in languages. They all, in some ways, opened my world and reality to something new and different. My first communicative exposure to another language, on a regular basis, other than the Gaelic spoken by my grandmother and English all around, was in Primary Five (around 8-9 years old) at St. Augustine’s Primary, Milton in 1992.

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“The more you know, the more you need to know”: Learning Gaelic and Ojibwe online during the pandemic (by Paul Meighan-Chiblow)

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Aaniin, Boozhoo. Paul ndizhnikaaz. Alba indoonjibaa. Tkaronto ndidaa. N’gichinendam. Nimiigwechiwendam.

Hello, my name is Paul. I come from Alba (Scotland) and live in Toronto. I am happy. I am grateful.

‘S e Gàidheal a th’annam. Tha mi à Glaschu. Tha mi ag ionnsachadh Anishinaabemowin agus Gàidhlig. ‘S math ur coinneachadh.

I’m a Scottish Gael from Glasgow. I’m learning Anishinaabemowin and Gaidhlig. It’s nice to meet you.

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Searching for New Stories and A Language to Live By: Reflections of a Gael in a Foreign Language (by Paul Meighan-Chiblow)

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Growing up, I read a lot. I have always been fascinated with otherworldly, ethereal, fantasy books. One of my favourites, a short story, is “A Dark Horn Blowing” by Dahlov Ipcar. I then developed a passion for researching clan histories, such as that of my own Gaelic clans Meighan (Miadhacháin) and MacGillivray (MhicGilleBhraith), and Scottish Kings and Queens. These things weren’t spoken about much, if at all, when I was in school.

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