Introduction

The Western Isles of North-West Scotland (comprising the islands of Lewis, Harris, and the Uists) are today the main surviving stronghold of the Scottish Gaelic language, once spoken throughout much of Scotland. Out of a total Western Isles population of 29,492 people aged three or over, 80.0 per cent were reported in the last Census to be Gaelic-speaking (Government Statistical Service 1983), and the language is widely used throughout the islands. However there are now few if any islanders who are not also fluent in English, the dominant language of the media, of many official functions, and traditionally also of education. There is evidence of language shift in some parts of the islands, in the direction of English (see e.g. MacKinnon 1977), a trend which has gone much further in recently Gaelic-speaking parts of the mainland and the Inner Hebrides.

By comparison with the other surviving Celtic languages of the British Isles, Scottish Gaelic has a much less well developed language maintenance/revival movement. Local varieties of English have been the focus of language loyalty in the Lowlands of Scotland, so that Scottish Gaelic has not acquired the symbolic status of ‘national language’ accorded to Welsh or to Irish Gaelic. None the less, when the contemporary local government structure was established in Scotland in the early 1970s, there was sufficient concern for the status and future of the language for the newly-formed ‘Western Isles Islands Council’ to adopt a Gaelic title (‘Comhairle nan Eilean’), and to commit itself to the promotion of Gaelic in various aspects of official life, through the adoption of an official bilingual policy.