Gaelic online learners outstrip total population of Highlands and islands
The number of people who have signed up to a new online Gaelic language course has outstripped the entire population of the Highlands and Islands.
Around 300,000 people are now learning Scottish Gaelic on the free Duolingo app, with the course launched just over five months ago.
The number of Gaelic learners using the app now outstrips the entire population of the Highland and Western Isles council areas, where a total of around 265,000 people live.
Figures show interest in Gaelic among the countries linked to the Scottish diaspora are helping to drive the high numbers of users.
The highest number are based in the United States (35 per cent), followed by the UK (34 per cent), Canada (6 per cent) and Australia (3 per cent). A further 2 per cent of learners live in Germany. Colin Watkins, Duolingo’s country manager in the UK, said: “To hit 300,000 learners in under six months is fantastic progress.
“We are thrilled so many people around the world are choosing to learn Scottish Gaelic. We will be updating the course soon to include even more content.”
The course was launched on St Andrew’s Day and in five days there were more people learning the language than native speakers and those learning the language by other means, the company said.
According to the last census in 2011, 57,375 could speak Scottish Gaelic.
Meanwhile, more than 4,300 students in Scotland received their education in Gaelic, at both primary and secondary level, in 2018 – a 64 per cent increase from 2010.
Many more thousands learn Gaelic at some level in the classroom.
Malcolm Maclean, former chair of Unesco Scotland and past chief executive of Proiseact Nan Ealan, Scotland’s national Gaelic arts agency, said he was “delighted” to hear of rising numbers of Gaelic learners.
Mr Maclean, who lives at Uig on the Isle of Lewis, said: “If you scratch the surface of most Scots you will find a parent, a grandparent or a greatgreat-grandparent who came from a Gaelic background.
“Gaelic is now become more acceptedandnormalised.people are watching Gaelic television and there is a growing interest in genealogy.”
He said the figures did not come as a great surprise given “the status of Gaelic in Scotland and particularly the Highlands and Islands has changed”.
Mr Maclean said: “The focus on Gaelic for the past 30 to 40 years has been to shift perception away from conservation towards development.”