Chapter 7: Linking the Findings and Drawing Conclusions: Tracking a Trajectory of Decline

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The aims of this chapter are threefold: (1) to summarise the most important findings of the surveys (7.1); (2) to examine comparable data across the surveys to test for correlation in key variables (7.2; 7.2.1); and (3) to present the demolinguistic trajectory of the decline of the Gaelic vernacular group, according to their spatial distribution (7.2). In testing for correlation across module data, we took the key variables from the census data, the Teenager Survey and the Preschool Survey which were compatible according to Study District level analysis. We chose variables from these three survey modules due to their importance as indicators of the sociolinguistic vitality/fragility in the Research Area. This chapter draws together key findings from the various modules as inter-related evidence on the current condition of the Gaels.

7.1 Main findings

The principal aim of this study was to provide baseline data to indicate the contemporary societal condition of the remaining Gaelic vernacular communities in the islands of the Inner and (primarily) Outer Hebrides. Census data for the rest of Scotland indicate that weaker densities of Gaelic competence are found outside this IGRP survey area. Therefore, this study focuses upon and analyses those areas where Gaelic is more prevalent than anywhere else. In short, this is as good as it gets for the social prevalence of Gaelic. This study triangulated a series of modular surveys: the survey of preschoolers’ Gaelic competence and practice, taken as an indicator of intergenerational transmission of Gaelic; the Teenager Survey; and two sets of community-based surveys, conducted in three separate districts. This subsection summarises the most important findings from the survey chapters. The summary follows the sequence of themes covered in the previous chapters:

Demolinguistics of the vernacular group
Intergenerational transmission
Teenagers’ social experience of Gaelic
Profiles of communities
Speaker typology of the profiled communities.

7.1.1 Demolinguistics of Gaelic’s vernacular group in the islands

We confine our summary here to the Gaelic-speaking group of the study. The main feature of Gaelic demolinguistic data from the Scottish Census is the demonstrable thirty-year trajectory of decline of Gaelic in the islands since 1981. For every ten-year period since 1981, there has been a 13% proportional average loss in Gaelic speakers. In absolute numbers, this represents an average loss of 3,220 Gaelic speakers each decade from 1981 to 2011. The proportional contraction over the thirty-year period is 35%, a net loss of 9,660 speakers. The contraction of the Gaelic-speaking group during the ten-year period of 1981–1991 was particularly critical to the social viability of Gaelic. It was during this decade that Gaelic speakers in the Western Isles fell below the high social density of 80%. In the decade from 1981–1991, the number of Gaelic speakers dropped by 4,242, representing an 18% absolute fall, taken from a base of 24,226 Gaelic speakers in 1981. However, the contraction for the 3–17 age cohort, many of whom were born in the 1970s, during this decade underwent an even more precipitous decline, from 5,329 to 3,166 speakers, representing a decadal absolute fall in speakers of 41%. The youth cohort reporting an ability in Gaelic in the 2011 Census stands at less than 2,000 speakers. While data from the 2011 Census indicate that 52% of the 3-yrs+ population report an ability in Gaelic, a comparison of the individual Gaelic ability data with the household use of Gaelic (19% of the total relevant households with adults and children) suggests that the current size of the Gaelic vernacular speaker-group extends to around 11,000 people (see sections 2.4.1.4 and 2.5.1). These are mainly 50yrs+ speakers, residing in this dispersed archipelago of islands.

The 25 Study Districts show an important divide at the intersection of 45% of inhabitants having an ability in Gaelic with 15% of households reporting the home use of Gaelic (2.4.3). The 19 Study Districts in the higher range of the spatial distribution retain some social salience of Gaelic; whereas the six Study Districts in the lower range represent a level which corresponds to societal loss. In these six moribund Study Districts, Gaelic is largely confined to elderly social networks, atypical familial practice and institutional provision.

Based on the current trajectory, we indicate that by 2021, 40% of the Study Districts will pertain to this moribund profile, at or below the 45%/15% sociolinguistic nexus. Based on the same extrapolation, the remaining 15 districts will have percentage levels of Gaelic competence in a range of 45–60%, as they edge closer to the nexus point of low viability. Under current conditions and trends, therefore, the prospects for Gaelic’s vernacular habitat are clearly that of continued, rapid societal loss.

7.1.2 Intergenerational transmission and communal continuity of Gaelic

The Preschool Survey in Chapter 3 was primarily designed as a social survey, rather than a pedagogical study. We ascertained information on the extent of Gaelic competences and practice among this age group as indicators of Gaelic intergenerational transmission. The survey was conducted in preschools in the Research Area irrespective of their GME policy (though 76% of the preschools provided some form of GME). The chief finding of the Preschool Survey corroborates the conclusion of the demolinguistic analysis of Chapter 2 and provides additional evidence of the advanced state of sociolinguistic collapse of the remaining Gaelic vernacular communities. The marginal levels of familial transmission of Gaelic in all the preschool catchment areas are indicated in the responses of preschool managers or teachers. A small proportion of preschoolers were judged to have Fluent, Good or Reasonable Gaelic on enrolment in the preschools: 8% of the 359 preschoolers. It is clear from this statistic alone that the home transmission of Gaelic has contracted to such an extent that it is now at the point of total loss. There is a considerable divergence between, on the one hand, the very low home practice of Gaelic among the preschoolers’ young families in our survey and, on the other hand, the considerably higher level of household use of Gaelic indicated in the census. Therefore, the census presents a far more favourable portrayal of the prevalence of Gaelic. This survey provides additional evidence for the principal contention of the demolinguistic analysis in Chapter 2, that since the 1980s the island communities are no longer self-regenerating as Gaelic communities. Given how marginal the home transmission of Gaelic is, the remaining Gaelic networks are becoming confined to the elderly and some institutional practice.