Andrew Marr's anti-Gaelic error invokes the usual 'strawman' arguments

If you haven’t caught up on this latest dead haggis, here’s the gist. At a Labour conference “In Conversation” event with Anas Sarwar last week, the veteran broadcaster criticised the use of Gaelic signs in areas of Scotland which he presumably assumes are without a Gaelic-speaking history.

During a Q&A organised by Scottish Fabians, Sarwar mentioned Gaelic positively after a question on the Welsh language, prompting Marr to say: “Perhaps I disagree totally with Anas here, I don’t know.”

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He added, “I find it equally offensive that all sorts of parts of Scotland, which have never been Gaelic, have never had Scots spoken [have Gaelic signs].”

Marr questioned the use of Gaelic at Haymarket Station, calling it “ridiculous” and suggesting that languages should “rest and prosper where they come from”. He has now issued an apology, saying that he has now been educated about the importance of Gaelic.

It’s not the most fulsome of apologies, and I’m not entirely sure I buy it. Marr’s comments about Gaelic road signs cannot be simply born of ignorance, as some are suggesting – he’s a very well-educated person.

Road signs – in fact any public-facing Gaelic translations – function as a big red rag to the anti-SNP, usually Unionist, cohort in both social and traditional media. A number of years ago now, a well-known Twitter troll called Effie Deans tried to make Unionist hay out of the fact that she/they couldn’t find Fort William due to the town’s Gaelic name, An Gearasdan, appearing on the road signs. Gaelic Twitter laughed about it for weeks.

In fact, mentioning Fort William still makes many of us chuckle. I created a 404 page on a website that says “An Gearasdan”. For a while, we hoped that Effie remained hopelessly lost, but sadly that wasn’t the case.

Mention Gaelic, as I did in this paper a few weeks ago, and the trolls start limbering up. My last column was about native speakers and how language is used and learned. Not once did I mention a road sign. The featured image used to promote the article online, however … Well, that did include road signs (with incorrect spelling – but that’s a rant for another day). The choice made by that week’s picture editor ensured that the point I was trying to make was, like poor Effie Deans, totally lost.

The Facebook comments under the article numbered over 1400 – the vast majority of which related to a pitched battle over the sodding signs.

If I was to summarise the objections to Gaelic road signs, they would break down as follows … “It’s dead,” (not yet, I’m afraid, despite your best efforts); “It was never spoken here” (that’s usually incorrect); “They are dangerous,” (in which case I hope you never visit Catalonia, or Wales, or honestly, anywhere in Europe); “It’s the SNP forcing Gaelic down our throats” (it is absolutely not).

On that last point, if that were true, Gaelic would be well-funded across the media, the community and the education system. To think it is is to indulge in mere fantasy.

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In fact, every one of the arguments against Gaelic road signs is a red herring. And the shoal of red herrings are designed to hide the truth – which is that this group of commentators are both rabidly anti-independence and frankly racist.

And that group is precisely the cohort Marr managed, innocently or not, to communicate with. The man is not a seemingly impartial broadcaster these days. He’s flying his own red flag, and with more years of journalism under his belt than most, he should have known better.

Born in Glasgow and educated by way of Loretto and Cambridge, achieving an MA in English, and then a distinguished career in journalism, Marr cannot have missed the fact that the Gaelic Language Act (2005) – which enshrined into law the rights Gaelic has as a legally recognised Scottish language – was developed, and passed under the Labour and LibDem coalition.

The forcing argument is therefore a complete non-starter, as is the “never spoken here,” one. Gaelic was spoken widely across Scotland. It just so happens that by the time any legal protections were put in place, native speech had been destroyed so effectively by English that the language remained in vernacular use almost exclusively in the Highlands and Islands. Pushed to the edges of its own country, banned from the education system and its speakers cleared across the water more than once.

The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 was designed to secure the status of Gaelic as an official language of Scotland, commanding “equal respect” with English in certain contexts. It stopped short of giving Gaelic equal status with English, but it did require Gaelic to be given increased visibility in public life, including bilingual signage.

It certainly wasn’t achieved without a fight – mainly, I’m told, as a result of civil servant scepticism about the language – but it had cross-party support. A new Scottish languages bill is working its way through Parliament. It’s not dead yet. And as for the “dangerous” aspect – give me strength. Many other countries manage just fine.

I spent a week in Wales this year and the only thing that caused navigation issues were the lanes and hedgerows which seemed hell-bent on killing us – either by way of a collision with an oncoming taxi driver and his death wish, or by way of lorries appearing from seemingly nowhere. Passing places were sadly lacking, but at no point did the dual language on the signs risk our lives. To be fair, there was a heated debate in the car about the use of “filtir” and “miltir” and the appropriate grammatical context, but Google suggested that that was also debated by the Welsh speakers, so we gave up.

This never-ending onslaught of hate against Gaelic is enough to make me give up too. Sometimes it’s outright offensive, other times it is couched in questionable attempts at humour. Every time someone sees “Ambaileans” on an ambulance, their inner comedian takes to Twitter to ask if the vehicle is drunk. Yes, very funny. ha ha. The annoying thing about it is that on one hand, it is a bit funny – if derivative – but on the other hand, it’s punching down on a minority language which is lazy, and wouldn’t fly if it was Polish or Hindi being mocked. The Gaels have long been fair game and remain so.

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There’s another angle though. Ambaileans is new-fangled Gaelic. If we wanted to do it properly, it would be a “Carbad-Èiginneach”, an emergency method of movement. That would take up at least a third more space than the English version – which is what Gaelic does anyway – it’s not a pithy language that abbreviates well. In most cases, therefore, Gaelic signs should frankly, be bigger. Bigger signs would no doubt cause even greater fury – although they might save Effie Bhochd from getting her glasses out.

Joking aside, Marr’s ill-informed rant might have been off the cuff but it once again focused the wrath of the childish and uninformed on a minority language and culture. And I didn’t see any push-back on his comments from Labour politicians. Far be it from me, but the cynical might think it was due to the stink being a useful distraction. After all, it helpfully took the heat off Keir Starmer and his track record on freebies.

Pleasingly, there has been a lot of support for Gaelic and our signs, especially in the media – which has been noted and appreciated. As a result, it didn’t take long for Marr to realise his error. Maybe, just maybe, others will follow suit – and the Gaels might, at long last, see signs that all is not lost.