Gaelic in the workplace: helping to create linguistic capacity

Proficiency in Gaelic can be of benefit in many job areas, from teaching to the entertainment industry and the public service. Public sector organisations are now being asked by the promotional body for Gaelic, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, to create Gaelic Language Plans, i.e. to describe the ways in which they will incorporate Gaelic into their workplace and work practices. This means of integrating Gaelic into the public sector is modelled on language planning for Welsh in Wales, where similar schemes have been highly successful in helping to support the language and its users. However, the number of Gaelic speakers within Scotland is far smaller than that of Welsh speakers in Wales. Therefore, a key challenge facing Scottish organisations is capacity for provision. In other words, organisations may struggle in their efforts to integrate Gaelic within their day-to-day operations and to make an active offer of Gaelic service. It is therefore necessary to create long-term solutions to the issue of linguistic capacity, and this paper reviews the efficacy of ‘language learning’ as a method of building linguistic capacity for the integration of Gaelic into the workplace.