Halò. Is mise Adrianne. Ciamar a tha sibh? – Hello, my name is Adrianne. How are you? Despite growing up and living in Scotland for all of my life, that’s about the extent of my knowledge of Gaelic, one of the indigenous Celtic languages of Scotland. It’s woven into the country’s cultural fabric, yet for many of us it exists at a distance: glimpsed on road signs, heard in traditional songs, or broadcast on dedicated television and radio channels, rather than spoken in everyday conversation.

However, Gaelic is experiencing a quiet resurgence. According to the 2022 Census, 130,161 people in Scotland reported having some Gaelic skills, up from 87,000 in 2011. In November last year, the Scottish Languages Act was passed by the Scottish Government, formally codifying Scots and Gaelic as the official languages of Scotland. On paper and in policy, at least, Gaelic has a new footing.

However, despite all the recent goodwill, Gaelic hasn’t always been ‘in’. Long dismissed as old-fashioned and parochial, it became associated with isolated, religious communities and a ‘shortbread tin’ depiction of Scotland – not at all the fresh and relatable culture that young people on social media are helping to rebrand it into today. “There's been a pretty consistent message for several hundred years that Gaelic is something that holds people back,” shares Duncan Sneddon, a lecturer in Celtic Studies at Edinburgh University. “It’s starting to change, and immense credit is due to those within the Gaelic community who have worked hard to change attitudes.”

Much of that change is happening not just in lecture halls or parliamentary chambers, but online, too. One of the most recognisable names in the digital Gaelic community is Etta May (@ettamaigh), from Harris, in the Outer Hebrides, who runs an Instagram account where she chats in Gaelic, sharing relatable get-ready-with-me and day-in-the-life videos that remove the stuffiness from Gaelic learning. Despite growing up in a Gaelic-speaking family and community, she says she remembers feeling embarrassed to speak it at times, thinking for a while that it was ‘cringe’: “But I definitely think social media has made Gaelic trendier,” she says. “There are more Gaelic content creators than I ever imagined, which is amazing to see.”

For her, the language has been transformative: “As someone who speaks Gaelic, I’ve gained more opportunities, connections and experiences than I could count. It means everything to me, and I’ll be forever grateful that my parents put me into Gaelic Medium Education.”

She’s not alone in reclaiming and reshaping the perceptions around Gaelic. Choirstaidh Iona NicArtair (@choirstaidhiona.jpeg), a Gaelic-speaking multidisciplinary artist, writer, and workshop facilitator based in Glasgow, also uses her platform to normalise and celebrate the language. For her, Gaelic culture is inseparable from identity. “Gaelic is a huge part of me, and being connected to that heritage aspect as well as the living, breathing community I'm part of means so much to me,” she explains. 

That connection, she says, is all the more powerful given how fragile intergenerational transmission once became. “My dad's granny spoke Gaelic, but didn't pass it down to her children, which was so common then. There was a lot of shame and fear in speaking Gaelic; it was literally outlawed, and children were beaten in school for speaking it,” she explains. 

It feels like a really punk thing to keep the language alive

Keeping the language alive, then, feels quietly radical: “It feels like a really punk thing to keep the language alive despite all that. A lot of people had to be bold and really fearless to keep using this language; there's no danger nowadays, but we owe everything we have to their rebellion. I try to remember all this when the complicated grammar makes me wish I'd just learned French instead.” 

To understand why that rebellion matters, it helps to look back across history. “Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going,” said American writer and LGBT rights campaigner, Rita Mae Brown. If we inspect the roadmap of Scotland and its relationship with Gaelic throughout history, it’s… dicey, to say the least, riddled with potholes in the shape of systematic oppression from the top down. “Gaelic has certainly been marginalised in Scotland for a very long time, and it's only in recent years that we're seeing this start to change,” explains Sneddon.  

Quick history lesson to put things into context: the repression of Gaelic speakers goes way back to the 1600s, when King James IV ordered that Gaelic be abolished to ‘civilise’ the Highlands, forcing clan chiefs to send their eldest sons to English-speaking schools. Education was one major way that the powers that be were able to reduce the number of speakers across the country. “The Education Act of 1872 – which saw the state taking on the responsibility for schooling – made no provision whatsoever for teaching in Gaelic, at a time when many Gaelic speakers couldn't speak English, and many communities were comprised almost entirely of monolingual Gaelic speakers,” says Sneddon. 

“It wasn't until the 80s that Gaelic speakers were, in a small handful of places, able to send their children to be educated in their own language. Generations of Gaelic speakers have spent their whole working lives paying their taxes to support an education system that denied them literacy in their own language.”

Against that backdrop, today’s revival feels especially significant. It can’t be denied that Celtic identity more broadly is in vogue right now. Irishness, in particular, has ridden what’s been dubbed the ‘green wave’: in pubs across Britain, you’ll hear talk of ‘splitting the G’, often soundtracked by Kneecap, whose advocacy for the Irish language featured prominently in their 2024 self-titled documentary. In Scotland, too, heritage aesthetics are being reimagined for the modern age, with designers like Annabel Stewart, Sam McCoach of Le Kilt and Scottish fashion content creators like Blessing Afolayan and Sade Folashade Adeyemi putting an elevated spin on traditional textiles. Language is following suit. What was once sidelined is being reclaimed as a living, breathing means of expression.

So, for the habitual Duolingo users hovering over the Scottish flag and wondering whether to commit, Etta May has one simple piece of advice: “Feuch air” – try it!