There are some people in life you have to avoid offending; for example, however important being nice to your boss is, it's far more important that you're nice to his PA. Treating the janitor and cleaners with respect always makes your working life much easier and more pleasant, too.
But the journalist has a much more important person to please: the headline writer. Whether this is your editor or there's someone dedicated to the role, this person has the power to undermine your entire article, or, in extreme cases, just outright insult you.
This appears to have happened to a Scotsman journalist by the name of Hugh Reilly. Hugh is a retired teacher who writes a column that is quite informal in style, and often more than a little... abrasive.
Yesterday's column, though, was downright insulting. He opened with the clear implication that Gaelic hasn't moved with the times. Lie. He described it as "terminally-ill". Lie. (And why the sub-editors let him away with that superfluous hyphen I'll never know.) He put the responsibility for its current resurgence at the hands of the SNP, who in real terms have done less for the language than the Tories (who oversaw the inauguration of Gaelic-medium education) or the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties (whose coalition government passed the Gaelic Language Act 2005). The SNP is more open to accusations of tokenism towards Gaelic than anything approaching Reilly's claimed "life support".
Reilly also treads that weary line of quoting figures that are incomprehensible to readers. Twenty-five million pounds seems like a lot to the average punter who earns a thousanth of that in a year, but in television terms it's utterly piffling. And of course, several prominent figures claim that this claimed figure is an exaggeration of the true cost anyway.
I could continue to deconstruct the column, but that would only serve to labour the point: Hugh Reilly's article was ignorant and bigoted, and downright insulting to a great many people.
And one of those people, it would seem, was the man responsible for putting a headline on the piece: A tilt at the windmill of Gaelic.
Ah yes, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, the great Spanish novel that is often credited as being the first true modern novel, the watershed between the heroic romances of the Middle Ages and the realism and cynicism of Renaissance literature.
The phrase "tilting at windmills" has passed into common speech, and refers to a specific incident in the novel. "Tilting" is a word for charging with a lance, and Don Quixote "tilted" at windmills because he mistook them for giants, believing their whirling sails to be flailing arms.
Don Quixote, as you see, was quite seriously deluded. He was a man declining in years, a retired gentleman, and as a pasttime read far too much heroic fiction -- fiction he mistook for fact.
The headline is frankly brilliant. In a mere seven words, it fillets the entire article and gives the author a tremendous slap in the face.
So if you're ever called upon to write a newspaper column, check you're not going to offend the headline writer before you submit your copy.
Showing posts with label Gaelic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaelic. Show all posts
29 October 2013
14 November 2012
By yon bonnie banks....
The Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority in Scotland have been busy refreshing their public image with their logo, which is pretty nice, even if it does look a little bit like an island. (I'd say it's most like Barra, but only after a few meters of sea-level increase turns Eoligarry into a separate island.)
They've put up some fancy new stone signs at some of the entrances to the park, too:
First up, why on Earth is "the Trossachs" so much smaller than "Loch Lomond"? As a child, I spent a heck of a lot of time visiting the Trossachs (Loch Venachar being one of the few lochs in the area suitable for swimming in) and not a lot of time around Loch Lomond. I personally feel a wee bit aggrieved that the much nicer part plays second fiddle to something everyone knows from "that song"....
But secondly, there's no Gaelic on it. Nothing out of the ordinary in that, and while it was traditionally part of Highland Gaeldom, Gaelic is now extinct in the local area.
But...
The signage to the park had been raised bilingually, which means that this new (and expensive) sign is actually taking away the existing visibility and status for the language.
I've written to the park authority:
All of this is true.
In my classes here, several people have asked me if I speak Gaelic -- I don't get that a lot. When I was living in Edinburgh, newly-arrived Catalans, Basques and Galicians would ask about the language. It is a tourist asset.
I say this, but I am not one of those learners who proudly declare that Gaelic is "my language". It is not. I was brought up in the lowlands, in a village that probably spoke an Anglo-Saxon tongue from its very founding (there are various Celtic-derived placenames in the vicinity, but most of these are very, very old). I didn't start learning Gaelic until my mid-twenties, and even then I learned Spanish to a much better level. Either "my language" is English, or "my languages" are Scots and English. I am a nationalist, but my support for Gaelic isn't about Scottish nationalism (most people do not consider Gaelic a pre-requisite for Scottishness, so Gaelic is more likely to damage nationalism than help it).
Gaelic deserves its support simply as a mark of respect for people who speak the language. (By extension, any learner who claims to "love the language more than a native speaker" has completely missed the point of why you should learn someone else's language.)
But if that's not good enough, then be mercenary: Gaelic is a marketable asset. Scotland has a limited tourist draw thanks to its climate and those ******* midgies. Gaelic can be employed as a commercial tool to sell us as a destination for people from the other small nations of Europe, rather than relying on the New World diaspora revisiting their roots, and the odd European whisky fan on a "distillery pilgrimage"....
They've put up some fancy new stone signs at some of the entrances to the park, too:
It's very nice, I'm sure you'll agree. There's only two problems.First up, why on Earth is "the Trossachs" so much smaller than "Loch Lomond"? As a child, I spent a heck of a lot of time visiting the Trossachs (Loch Venachar being one of the few lochs in the area suitable for swimming in) and not a lot of time around Loch Lomond. I personally feel a wee bit aggrieved that the much nicer part plays second fiddle to something everyone knows from "that song"....
But secondly, there's no Gaelic on it. Nothing out of the ordinary in that, and while it was traditionally part of Highland Gaeldom, Gaelic is now extinct in the local area.
But...
The signage to the park had been raised bilingually, which means that this new (and expensive) sign is actually taking away the existing visibility and status for the language.
I've written to the park authority:
I am from near to the national park (Gargunnock) and a frequent visitor. At present I am working overseas, but am looking forward to finishing and getting home, and getting my bike back up the Duke's Pass, along the Inversnaid road and round Loch Katrine.
I am aware that the park has taken on a new brand identity, reflected both on the website and on new long-life stone signage erected at certain major entrance points.
I am disappointed, however, to find that the new logo has no space for the Gaelic name of the park, and that this has led to existing bilingual signage being replaced by a monolingual alternative, which is directly contrary to the general trend in Scotland.
Indeed, it is likely that at some point the park authorities will be subject to a Gaelic Language Plan, and that one of the key actions for the park will be the use of bilingual branding and signage. It is therefore easily foreseeable that the present signage will need to be replaced in the not-too-distant future, leading to additional expenses on the park that could have been avoided had a little foresight been applied.
I am currently living and working in Corsica, one of the many minority areas in Europe that considers themselves a "nation". The current debate over independence has led to increasing exposure for Scotland in the public consciousness here, and in other areas such as the Basque Country and Catalonia, where developments in Scotland are often featured in major news bulletins.
This presents an opportunity for Scotland, whether or not we eventually opt for independence.
While Gaelic does not represent a central feature of Scottish identity in the same way as Welsh in Wales, Catalan in Catalonia and Basque in the Basque Country, it is certainly a feature that is currently garnering much attention, and is therefore useful in attracting tourists. Loch Lomond, the Trossachs and most of the placenames therein are Gaelic in origin, and this is something that should be exploited to its maximum to attract tourists to the area.
Thank you for your time and attention in this matter,
All of this is true.
In my classes here, several people have asked me if I speak Gaelic -- I don't get that a lot. When I was living in Edinburgh, newly-arrived Catalans, Basques and Galicians would ask about the language. It is a tourist asset.
I say this, but I am not one of those learners who proudly declare that Gaelic is "my language". It is not. I was brought up in the lowlands, in a village that probably spoke an Anglo-Saxon tongue from its very founding (there are various Celtic-derived placenames in the vicinity, but most of these are very, very old). I didn't start learning Gaelic until my mid-twenties, and even then I learned Spanish to a much better level. Either "my language" is English, or "my languages" are Scots and English. I am a nationalist, but my support for Gaelic isn't about Scottish nationalism (most people do not consider Gaelic a pre-requisite for Scottishness, so Gaelic is more likely to damage nationalism than help it).
Gaelic deserves its support simply as a mark of respect for people who speak the language. (By extension, any learner who claims to "love the language more than a native speaker" has completely missed the point of why you should learn someone else's language.)
But if that's not good enough, then be mercenary: Gaelic is a marketable asset. Scotland has a limited tourist draw thanks to its climate and those ******* midgies. Gaelic can be employed as a commercial tool to sell us as a destination for people from the other small nations of Europe, rather than relying on the New World diaspora revisiting their roots, and the odd European whisky fan on a "distillery pilgrimage"....
10 March 2012
Minority Languages aren't tied to Political Parties
It's all too often that you'll see people decrying Scottish Gaelic as some kind of tartan-wrapped plot by the Scottish Nationalist Party to trick people into independence.
Well, sorry, but it's not.
A) Gaelic has had cross-party support, and cross-party opposition in both Westminster and Holyrood.
B) Scottish Gaelic is more of a weapon against Scottish nationalism than a tool for it. After all, people see it as a tartan-wrapped plot by the Scottish Nationalist Party to trick people into indepedence. People don't trust it. People don't like it. Which is a bit mean of them, but that's beside the point. Gaelic doesn't win elections. No party claims it as their own.
Anyhow, back to A: cross-party support.
An early-day motion has been presented to parliament by Tom Harris MP, Labour member for Glasgow South. This motion calls for Westminster to give the same status to Gaelic as it has already done for Welsh. The motion is sponsored by Malcolm Bruce, Liberal Democrat MP for Gordon constituency (Aberdeenshire); Tom Clarke, Labour, Coatbridge Chryston and Bellshill; Jim Cunningham, Labour, Coventry South (yes, England); Graeme Morrice, Labour, Livingston; Jim Sheridan, Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North.
To date, 25 MPs have signed. Yes, all 5 SNP MPs have signed, but then they would, wouldn't they? You might also expect Plaid Cymru and the SDLP to sign, and 2 of Plaid Cymru's 3 have signed and all 3 SDLP MPs have signed. But the motion has been backed by 3 LibDems and 12 Labour MPs, so over half the support is from mainstream parties. 7 of the MPs represent English constituencies, and in addition to the 2 Plaid signatories, there are 2 Welsh Labour MPs.
It is clearly not a partisan issue, and the majority (14 out of 25) are not in Scottish constituencies. It was proposed by Labour.
A language is not a political party, and people would do well to remember that....
It's all too often that you'll see people decrying Scottish Gaelic as some kind of tartan-wrapped plot by the Scottish Nationalist Party to trick people into independence.
Well, sorry, but it's not.
A) Gaelic has had cross-party support, and cross-party opposition in both Westminster and Holyrood.
B) Scottish Gaelic is more of a weapon against Scottish nationalism than a tool for it. After all, people see it as a tartan-wrapped plot by the Scottish Nationalist Party to trick people into indepedence. People don't trust it. People don't like it. Which is a bit mean of them, but that's beside the point. Gaelic doesn't win elections. No party claims it as their own.
Anyhow, back to A: cross-party support.
An early-day motion has been presented to parliament by Tom Harris MP, Labour member for Glasgow South. This motion calls for Westminster to give the same status to Gaelic as it has already done for Welsh. The motion is sponsored by Malcolm Bruce, Liberal Democrat MP for Gordon constituency (Aberdeenshire); Tom Clarke, Labour, Coatbridge Chryston and Bellshill; Jim Cunningham, Labour, Coventry South (yes, England); Graeme Morrice, Labour, Livingston; Jim Sheridan, Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North.
To date, 25 MPs have signed. Yes, all 5 SNP MPs have signed, but then they would, wouldn't they? You might also expect Plaid Cymru and the SDLP to sign, and 2 of Plaid Cymru's 3 have signed and all 3 SDLP MPs have signed. But the motion has been backed by 3 LibDems and 12 Labour MPs, so over half the support is from mainstream parties. 7 of the MPs represent English constituencies, and in addition to the 2 Plaid signatories, there are 2 Welsh Labour MPs.
It is clearly not a partisan issue, and the majority (14 out of 25) are not in Scottish constituencies. It was proposed by Labour.
A language is not a political party, and people would do well to remember that....
18 October 2011
An unfunny joke
An Englishman, a German, an American and a guy from Barra walk into a bar. "Tha Gàidhlig cho cudromach," says the Englishman [Gaelic is so important]. "Tha Gàidhlig cho sònraichte," says the German [special]. "Tha Gàidhlig cho breagha," says the American. "I'm going for a slash," says the Barrach.
Not funny at all, I'm sure you'll agree, but you might not fully appreciate just how unfunny it truly is. In order to understand it, though, you need to know that the Barrach is a native-speaking Gael. So why did he speak in English?
It's something linguists like to call "divergence". We use language to indicate social distance from, and proximity to, others. When we speak like someone, we show variously agreement, respect or even affection. I find my accent when speaking any foreign language varies depending on who I'm talking to, as I try to match them (particularly if it's someone I fancy).
The Barrach in the "joke" isn't rejecting Gaelic, then, but is indicating that he doesn't associate himself with the three foreigners.
What we have here is the core paradox of the current Gaelic revival. While everyone says that the goal is for Gaelic to be considered normal in all contexts, the act of attempting to achieve this is actually making Gaelic into a far more self-conscious choice. Gaelic is at risk of developing a sort of "personality" based on the feelings of the loudest advocates of the language, and therefore people who do not identify with this personality will therefore find themselves subconsciously pushing away from the language.
Well, I say "at risk", but I actually think that this is already the case in many parts of Scotland. While not a statistically significant portion of the population, there is a reasonable number of native Gaels in Edinburgh. Yet when there is a Gaelic-related event put on, it's often mostly the learners that turn up. The natives will happily sit and talk to each other in their own language, but Gaelic in a public setting seems to be overly politicised for most to identify with. (The association of Gaelic with nationalism has no real basis in fact - Gaelic is a language and is spoken by people of every political allegiance.)
The problem is that the domain of the well-meaning learner is stretching further and encroaching into the few remaining Gaelic heartlands. Adult learners are gaining ever-increasing air-time on television and radio, as well as positions at all levels of Gaelic education. Even several prominant members of the Scottish Government's Gaelic language agency are adult learners. People are even being encouraged to learn Gaelic in order to teach in Gaelic medium schools, despite it being self-evident that the education available is insufficient to bring anyone close to a near-native model.
It is now often said that Gaelic's future is in the hands of the learners. This is true, but it does not mean what it is supposed to mean. We as learners cannot save Gaelic, but we do have the power to kill it within a generation.
If we want Gaelic to continue, then we must be humble. We must accept that:
- we are not "Gaelic speakers", and we never will be;
- the books we study do not, in fact, contain "correct" Gaelic, but someone else's guess about what Gaelic is - the natives are the only real model worth following;
- Gaelic is not "ours" or "our heritage" - it belongs to the Gaels;
- and the most difficult of all: we shouldn't put ourselves forward as representatives of the language, either in a professional or amateur capacity.
13 March 2011
United we stand, divided we fall: Multiple minorities
Anyone living in Scotland will be familiar with the big noise made in the media over Gaelic. Mostly it's just about how a minority is getting money (incidentally, the figures aren't really that high), bolstered by the claim that it was "never spoken here". Every now and then we see that argument reinforced with "what about Scots"?
The claim "never spoken here" is untrue in most places, as most parts of Scotland had Gaelic at some point in history, and a lot of it still had some even only 200 years ago. But this is an irrelevancy, and people get there blood up picking over the semantics of never. In the final analysis, history is less important than the present: if people don't identify with a language now, then it simply isn't their language. Sadly a core minority of Gaelic activists do not accept this and get people's backs up by effectively telling their fellow countrymen that they aren't true Scots.
Some people who support Scots call Gaelic an incomer language from Ireland. Some people who support Gaelic call Scots an incomer language from England. Well so what? Every language came from somewhere else to start off with. (And incidentally, Scots came from overseas, not from England. Common thought still says Gaelic came via Ireland, but it came from Iberia before that, and somewhere else before that.) The simple fact of the matter is that both are present in Scotland today, and both are part of lineages that have been spoken in parts of what is now Scotland for well over a millennium. In my book, that makes them both "Scottish languages".
In arguments such as these, people often reach back and invoke the names of legendary historic Scots. A recent blog post claims Wallace and Robert the Bruce as Gaelic speakers. "Wallace" is an Anglo-Saxon name for a speaker of Brythonic (related to the modern "Welsh"). So maybe he spoke Gaelic, but he mostly likely was at least bilingual.
Robert de Brus was from the Norman nobility, and though to have been brought up in the Scots-speaking southeast, or in the northeast of England where even now the everday speech is more like Scots than Standard English. His mother was a Gael. Why did a Norman lord marry a Gaelic countess? This romanticised in legend as some great romance, but in truth the most likely explanation is that the de Brus line had been claiming the throne since the death of Alexander, and Bruce's grandfather (after being denied the crown in favour of Baliol) realised that he needed to get the Gaelic clan chieftains on-side if one of his descendants was ever to be crowned king. So he married his son to a Gael. When the young Robert the Bruce courted the chiefs and lairds, he would have been able to address each and every one of them in their own language, and as one of them.
In his blog post at Tocasaid, Mac an t-Srònaich seems to suggest Scots is a massive conspiracy to divide the people of Scotland by separating them from their true language. This couldn't be further from the truth. Scotland has always been divided and has always resisted the imposition of a shared identity from one of its groups. Scotland was at its best when a few visionary leaders were willing to stand up and bridge that divide and develop a common purpose that still respected individual identity. This is the model we should be following.
Come on now people let's get on the ball and work together.
The claim "never spoken here" is untrue in most places, as most parts of Scotland had Gaelic at some point in history, and a lot of it still had some even only 200 years ago. But this is an irrelevancy, and people get there blood up picking over the semantics of never. In the final analysis, history is less important than the present: if people don't identify with a language now, then it simply isn't their language. Sadly a core minority of Gaelic activists do not accept this and get people's backs up by effectively telling their fellow countrymen that they aren't true Scots.
Some people who support Scots call Gaelic an incomer language from Ireland. Some people who support Gaelic call Scots an incomer language from England. Well so what? Every language came from somewhere else to start off with. (And incidentally, Scots came from overseas, not from England. Common thought still says Gaelic came via Ireland, but it came from Iberia before that, and somewhere else before that.) The simple fact of the matter is that both are present in Scotland today, and both are part of lineages that have been spoken in parts of what is now Scotland for well over a millennium. In my book, that makes them both "Scottish languages".
In arguments such as these, people often reach back and invoke the names of legendary historic Scots. A recent blog post claims Wallace and Robert the Bruce as Gaelic speakers. "Wallace" is an Anglo-Saxon name for a speaker of Brythonic (related to the modern "Welsh"). So maybe he spoke Gaelic, but he mostly likely was at least bilingual.
Robert de Brus was from the Norman nobility, and though to have been brought up in the Scots-speaking southeast, or in the northeast of England where even now the everday speech is more like Scots than Standard English. His mother was a Gael. Why did a Norman lord marry a Gaelic countess? This romanticised in legend as some great romance, but in truth the most likely explanation is that the de Brus line had been claiming the throne since the death of Alexander, and Bruce's grandfather (after being denied the crown in favour of Baliol) realised that he needed to get the Gaelic clan chieftains on-side if one of his descendants was ever to be crowned king. So he married his son to a Gael. When the young Robert the Bruce courted the chiefs and lairds, he would have been able to address each and every one of them in their own language, and as one of them.
In his blog post at Tocasaid, Mac an t-Srònaich seems to suggest Scots is a massive conspiracy to divide the people of Scotland by separating them from their true language. This couldn't be further from the truth. Scotland has always been divided and has always resisted the imposition of a shared identity from one of its groups. Scotland was at its best when a few visionary leaders were willing to stand up and bridge that divide and develop a common purpose that still respected individual identity. This is the model we should be following.
Come on now people let's get on the ball and work together.
21 December 2010
Good news for Gaels - BBC Alba coming to Freeview!
The BBC Trust has just announced their approval of the plan to make space for BBC Alba on Freeview by giving them the bandwidth used by the BBC digital radio stations of Freeview. Unsurprisingly, MG Alba are pleased as punch.
Now this will be a right bugger for all those Scots who supported the "save 6music" campaign, because I know that some of them relied on their Freeview boxes. Expect to see 1001 vitriolic rants on the comments sections of the news websites in the morning.
The big question mark hanging over this is how it will affect plans for FM switchoff. Current figures used to support the introduction of all-DAB radio use the figures for all digital listening as justification for DAB, while most listeners prefer Freeview for digital radio because it's of a higher quality, even if it does offer less choice. Does this move help or hinder the campaign to keep FM broadcasts on the air?
The BBC Trust has just announced their approval of the plan to make space for BBC Alba on Freeview by giving them the bandwidth used by the BBC digital radio stations of Freeview. Unsurprisingly, MG Alba are pleased as punch.
Now this will be a right bugger for all those Scots who supported the "save 6music" campaign, because I know that some of them relied on their Freeview boxes. Expect to see 1001 vitriolic rants on the comments sections of the news websites in the morning.
The big question mark hanging over this is how it will affect plans for FM switchoff. Current figures used to support the introduction of all-DAB radio use the figures for all digital listening as justification for DAB, while most listeners prefer Freeview for digital radio because it's of a higher quality, even if it does offer less choice. Does this move help or hinder the campaign to keep FM broadcasts on the air?
15 November 2010
So that Susan Boyle has been back in the press, promoting her new album just in time for the Christmas rush.
I hear she's being quite inspirational too, telling people how all they need to do is work hard and turn up to lots of auditions. The trouble is, for SuBo it's not just about how good she is. She's a very talented singer, but she really isn't the "best". There's a few rough edges and she pronounces some words very oddly.
SuBo's success is down to being... well, not the prettiest picture in the gallery, and standing up and singing well despite getting laughed at by an audience and judging panel who seemed to believe that anyone who isn't naturally gorgeous can't sing. She is, basically, a novelty act - a one-off. There are people who have worked harder than her and have as much or more talent than her that remain as unknown as she was only 2 years ago. This is not through lack of effort, it's just a lack of lucky timing.
This is a pervasive trope in our modern world: "try hard enough and you can be the best!" It's like the American parent in the old black-and-white films telling the kid that one day he can be president.
But there are over 300 million people in the USA, and there's a presidential election once in every 5 years. That means in a average lifetime, you'd expect to see about 15 presidents. So about 0.000005% of the US population will ever be president. 1 in 20,000,000.
The odds for popular singers are a bit better, but you're still relying on a whole lot of luck.
OK, so what's this got to do with language?
Well, have a look at this article from the BBC's From our own Correspondent. French bands are increasingly singing in English. His article focuses on the angle of choice, freedom and cool, and skips past the question of success, but I find it hard to imagine that an ambitious young French singer doesn't have at least half an eye on the international success of Daft Punk. But this is new only because we're talking about France. If we step slowly backwards in time, we can see the Latin American stars (Shakira and Ricky Martin), Dutch electronic dance music (remember the Vengaboys anyone?) and on back through to Sweden where acts like Roxette followed on from cheesetastic Abba.
The number of international success stories is low, and it's a fair assumption that for every break out artist there's a hundred or more that didn't make it, and who're doing the same thing -- which means singing in English.
The desire to be the best, the biggest, the worldwide hit is discouraging people from being happy with being good locally, and it's taking people away from their own languages.
Take a look at the show Rapal on BBC Radio nan Gaidheal and BBC Alba. Over the years they've supported various bands from within the Gaelic community, but for the most part these bands sing exclusively in English. They're chasing the bigger audiences, but sadly the odds are stacked against them. It's a shame to see talented young people waste their time chasing the unobtainable rather than making a genuine impact in their own small part of the world.
I hear she's being quite inspirational too, telling people how all they need to do is work hard and turn up to lots of auditions. The trouble is, for SuBo it's not just about how good she is. She's a very talented singer, but she really isn't the "best". There's a few rough edges and she pronounces some words very oddly.
SuBo's success is down to being... well, not the prettiest picture in the gallery, and standing up and singing well despite getting laughed at by an audience and judging panel who seemed to believe that anyone who isn't naturally gorgeous can't sing. She is, basically, a novelty act - a one-off. There are people who have worked harder than her and have as much or more talent than her that remain as unknown as she was only 2 years ago. This is not through lack of effort, it's just a lack of lucky timing.
This is a pervasive trope in our modern world: "try hard enough and you can be the best!" It's like the American parent in the old black-and-white films telling the kid that one day he can be president.
But there are over 300 million people in the USA, and there's a presidential election once in every 5 years. That means in a average lifetime, you'd expect to see about 15 presidents. So about 0.000005% of the US population will ever be president. 1 in 20,000,000.
The odds for popular singers are a bit better, but you're still relying on a whole lot of luck.
OK, so what's this got to do with language?
Well, have a look at this article from the BBC's From our own Correspondent. French bands are increasingly singing in English. His article focuses on the angle of choice, freedom and cool, and skips past the question of success, but I find it hard to imagine that an ambitious young French singer doesn't have at least half an eye on the international success of Daft Punk. But this is new only because we're talking about France. If we step slowly backwards in time, we can see the Latin American stars (Shakira and Ricky Martin), Dutch electronic dance music (remember the Vengaboys anyone?) and on back through to Sweden where acts like Roxette followed on from cheesetastic Abba.
The number of international success stories is low, and it's a fair assumption that for every break out artist there's a hundred or more that didn't make it, and who're doing the same thing -- which means singing in English.
The desire to be the best, the biggest, the worldwide hit is discouraging people from being happy with being good locally, and it's taking people away from their own languages.
Take a look at the show Rapal on BBC Radio nan Gaidheal and BBC Alba. Over the years they've supported various bands from within the Gaelic community, but for the most part these bands sing exclusively in English. They're chasing the bigger audiences, but sadly the odds are stacked against them. It's a shame to see talented young people waste their time chasing the unobtainable rather than making a genuine impact in their own small part of the world.
12 October 2008
Minority language television needs careful handling.
BBC Alba, the new Scottish Gaelic channel, went on the air a few short weeks ago, receiving an unsurprisingly mixed reaction.
Setting aside the tiresome and predictable -- too much money, dying language, shortbread tin, etc etc ad nauseum -- there were a few areas of comment that perhaps justify more examination: too many repeats, the same old faces, too much music. OK, the number of repeats is to be expected as new programs cost money which any minority channel is going to be short of. The same old faces? Well who else has been trained to do the job? But too much music? That brings us to the heart of the one of the greatest problems in Gaelic broadcasting, and perhaps also the Gaelic public image.
Why so much music?
Well, put simply, music is cheap. There's loads of people who rehearse in their own time and all you've got to do is bring them into a suitably kitted out studio or hall and record them. Secondly, a music program is far more accessible to the non-speaker and/or outsider than a sitcom (something's always lost in the translation) or a debate on the impact of crofting reforms on the Western Isles. Furthermore, traditional music is woefully underexposed by mainstream programming. Combining music programming with Gaelic programming may not kill two birds with one stone -- many of the traditional music fans decry the lack of Scots, and many Gaels are seachd searbh sgìth of the whole harp-and-bagpipe scene -- but where statisticians are concerned, two half-dead birds are the same as one parrot that has ceased to be.
The use of music programming in the great ratings chase has done inestimable damage to Gaelic's public image: it reinforces the notion that Gaelic is primarily the plaything of anachronistic Celtic twilightists, and obscures the fact that Gaelic is a living community language, flexible to myriad situations, and spoken mostly by normal people with no particular cultural axe to grind.
But this music-heavy tradition still is of great importance to BBC Alba.
The BBC Trust have declared that for BBC Alba to be considered viable and receive the funding required to move to Freeview in 2010, they must have an audience of a quarter of a million. This is more than four times the number of speakers of Gaelic in Scotland, so the channel has to reach out quite far to people with little or no interest in the language.
How is BBC Alba to compete? Even if they bought the rights to a hit series on the scale of Friends or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who would tune in to see a Gaelic dubbed version with English subtitles when they can watch the original on another channel? Creating a new series of that magnitude is pretty difficult given the budget they've had to settle for. So what can they do? Same old faces and too much music. For now... but it's still not enough.
So the channel came on-line with two different active audience groups -- the supposed core market of Gaelic speakers and the supporting market of traditional music fans -- but these hardly go any way to providing the ratings needed, so the channel will either have to focus much of its expenditure in the forthcoming round of commissions on a non-Gaelic speaking audience or simply put it's head down, rely on integrity and produce a Gaelic channel.
Because in essence, what the BBC Trust has said is not that the Scottish Gaelic community can have a channel, but that they can make a channel. Yes, make a channel, but for someone else. Who? The BBC doesn't care. Just anyone other than Gaels.
You may have heard of the POOLS project, funded by the Leonardo II scheme during 2005-2007. They collected short videos on permissive and open licenses in a number of less-studied languages.
Well, now they're back with POOLS-T. The focus now is on tools, not materials; hence the T. Things are only just starting off, but there's already a lot of material from the first round of work as well as donated videos in a variety of languages.
Gordon Wells made some excellent and very professional videos under the title Scottish Island Voices. These are available in two versions, English and Gaelic, and have been included in the Pools project. You can hear an interview with him regarding the project courtesy of the Irish National Digital Learning Repository.
Finally, I've been playing with some of these videos, trying to figure out how best to use the materials. I've uploaded one of Gordon's sets of Gaelic films to YouTube, and I've been playing around with annotation and subtitling options. You can check them out on my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/NiallBeag.
The Pools project currently hosts videos in the following languages:
Basque
Danish
Dutch
English
Gaelic
German
Lithuanian
Romanian
Spanish
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