Gaelic in the Scottish Parliament

Alasdair MacCaluim (Article submitted to Carn) 1999

Gaelic is to be an official language in the Scottish Parliament.  This was the verdict of the Consultative Steering Group on the Scottish Parliament, the group charged with the drawing up of the standing orders for the Parliament.  Their 170 page report “Shaping Scotland’s Parliament” was released in mid January.  A summary leaflet in Gaelic and the five most commonly used ethnic minority languages of Scotland is to follow.

While English is to be the normal language of the Scottish Parliament, the use of Gaelic will be allowed subject to prior notice being given to the presiding officer.  Simultaneous translation equipment will be present to translate Gaelic speeches and these speeches will be reported bilingually in the Parliaments official report (Hansard).  As there are unlikely to be many Gaelic speakers elected to parliament, however, these facilities are unlikely to be made use of often.

More obvious to the general public will be the bilingual Gaelic/English signs in the Parliament which the Consultative Steering Group has recommended.  The Parliament’s public information centre is also to produce regular information bulletins in Gaelic specifically targeted at the Gaelic speaking population.

The proposals have been warmly welcomed by the Gaelic groups, all of whom had been lobbying hard for such an outcome.  There was, however, disappointment as to the oath to be taken by MSPs.  The oath must be taken in English, though it may be repeated in any other language subsequently.  This has been seen as an insult to Gaelic by language activists.

It also currently unclear whether or not there is to be a parliamentary Gaelic committee or a Parliamentary Gaelic officer.  The issue of whether or not there is to be a right for constituents to correspond with their MSP in Gaelic and to receive a reply in Gaelic is not covered in the report either.