"Indigenous: Welsh, Gaelic, Scots, Cornish and More" was an evening event recently held at the British Library here in London. Three creators who work in some of Britain's "other" languages took part. Is it realistic to redefine "Britishness" to include some of the oldest Brits of all? What does it mean to create in these languages? What are the challenges and rewards if you … [Read more...]
Learning all six Celtic languages (with Simon Ager)
If you've ever googled just about any question about languages, the chances are you'll have hit on Omniglot.com, the "Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems & Lanugages". Like me, though, you might not have immediately known who the self-effacing, yet immensely talented, language expert behind the site actually is. I finally met Simon Ager at the first Polyglot Gathering … [Read more...]
Edinburgh language learners’ meetup, reviewed
Here's a review of the Edinburgh language learners' meetup that I recently attended. It had a bit of a back-story. A new event for language lovers called "LingoFringo" was scheduled to take place in the Scottish capital. The event website was a mess (with no clear programme) and Edinburgh is a long way to travel just for a couple of days. That's especially the case in January, … [Read more...]
The visibility of Scottish Gaelic: a signage safari
In this post I want to share some photos I took of bilingual Scottish Gaelic - English signage from a recent trip I made to the Highlands of Scotland. It was my first visit to areas where Gaelic still hangs on, in pockets, as a minority language. I vlogged the trip in a series of five videos (from Loch Ness, the Isle of Skye, Inverness, Culloden, the Cairngorms National Park … [Read more...]