Tha mi cho uaine ri...

Ann an Gàidhlig, math tha sinn ag iarraidh ruideagan a tha aig daoine eile, tha sinn ag ràdh gu bheil farmad oirnn. Ach ann an Gaeilge Corca Dhuibhnne tha iad ag ràdh gu bheil eud ort. Bha seo fùrasda gu leòr dhòmhsa, air sàilleabh gu bheil am facal eud ann ann an Gàidhlig cuideachd, ach cha chanainn gu bheil eud orm, uill, tha mi gu math toilichte le mo bheatha ;), ach tha fios 'am gu bheil am facal eudach cumanta gu leòr, tha mi eòlach air an òran, 'A' Bhean Eudaich' mu dheidhinn dithis phiuthar, aon a' chaidh a' bhàthadh le aon-dhuibh eile. Ach, cho fàd 's a tha sinn air a' chùspair, an seo, chan eil iad a' chuir gu feum am facal uaine airson 'green' ach chlachaidh iad am facal 'glas', mar ann an Alba, tha 'glas' a' ciallachadh 'grey'. Co-dhùi, aig ceann mu dheireadh, tha mi smaointeann gu bheil e nas fhèarr a bhith glas, an àite uaine.

Flashback Episode AKA I Have Three Essays to Write this Week

I wrote this peice over the summer for a magazine about learning Gàidhlig, they weren't crazy about the language, but I'm now happy to publish it here. I'll continue next weekend with further adventures from West Kerry.

My father’s bookshelf is a staple childhood memory. I can remember when my head reached only the third shelf, where the solid spines of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Tibetan Book of the Dead stared back at me. Even more clearly I remember my first bedtime stories, there were no forks and spoons, or cats jumping over the moon, but instead, Jane Eyre’s immovable will, Miss Havisham’s twilight romance.

By the time my head reached the sixth shelf, I was a college student, and suddenly, Peig Sayers’ autobiography, and Tomas O’ Crohan’s, The Islandman, stared back at me. Their back covers claimed they were originally written in Irish Gaelic. Our ancestors were from Ireland, but like most of the Gaels that fled during the lean years, they shed their old-world identities like a worn coat. Today, my family has no memory of the Irish tongue, or of what drove our ancestors to finally, and irrevocably, leave their pasts behind.

I can trace all that has happened in my life, the years leading up to my first year at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and my fluency in Gàidhlig, back to discovering those books, I consider them the stone-drop source of the ripples that have come to an end on the Western shores of Scotland.

I spent a semester abroad in the Gàidhealtachd of Ireland, learned a bit of the language, wrote my senior thesis on Tomas O’Crohan’s memoir, and afterwards, received a grant to go to Cape Breton for a year to learn Gaelic. I played Cape Breton tunes on my fiddle, heard the islander’s singing the Gaelic words to the melodies, and wanted to learn. I applied to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, and at the end of August, found myself on a train from Glasgow to Mallaig, squinting to make some sort of meaning out of the Gaelic station signs, my ancestor’s own language as foreign to me as brail.

The first few months at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig were extremely difficult. Unlike most of my peers, I hadn’t grown up hearing the language, or gone through Gàidhlig medium education. The sounds and structures of the language were completely new to me. To catch up, I knew what I would have to do, give up the comforts of speaking English, sacrifice my eloquence in my native tongue, and hope that it would eventually come in this new one.

A student from the city might have difficulty adjusting to the rural setting of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. For me, it was completely conducive to what I wanted to do. There are few distractions, sea and the mountains for inspiration, and enough happening on campus to make you feel that somehow, you’re still at the centre of it all. While many of the students left for the big city on the weekends, I stayed on campus, to be closer to the language, and by Christmas, I’d stopped speaking English completely. What had one been gibberish to me began to take form and sense, what had once seemed insurmountable had shrunk considerably in size.

The real test came when I went to live in Uist for three weeks in February, to work at a Gàidhlig medium primary school. I had to ask myself, would my learner’s Gàidhlig make the cut outside the learning environment of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig? When I arrived on the shores of Lochmaddy, I went into the ferry station to ask about buses, mustering my courage to address the woman behind the desk in the language, ‘Hallo? Ciamar a tha thu an-diugh?’, ‘I’m fine, thanks’, she replied in English. Well, that’s one down I thought. Was she offended by my obvious American blas? Did my brightly patterned Wellies scream tourist? On the taxi ride to my B%B, I was too shy to address the driver in Gàidhlig, luckily, all this would change the second I reached Flòraidh's house.

Small and stout, with a knot of white hair, and a surprisingly youthful face, I received a brisk hug from Flòraidh as soon as I entered the door. She addressed my confidently in Gàidhlig, and I replied back to her the same, apologizing for being late, explaining that I’d had a bit of difficulty finding a lift. ‘Oh, tha thu fileanta!’ She replied in wonder, ‘you’re fluent’, straight from the mouth of a native speaker, my will was restored. My driver, who had begun to edge conspicuously towards the door the second the conversation turned away from English, muttered a quick 's e do bheatha’ in response to our thank you.

The next three weeks passed like a dream. I was thrilled to be in a community where Gàidhlig was natural and alive. I was praised for my language skills, offered support by those who, admittedly at times, had trouble understanding what could inspire an American to come all the way to the Western shores of Scotland to learn the language in the first place.

I must admit, I have trouble answering this common question myself. What I can tell people is that learning Gàidhlig has changed me permanently. It has been said that, ‘to have two languages is to have two souls’. Indeed I feel like the richness of my own life has easily been doubled. I have wonderful new friends I wouldn’t speak a word of English to, deep connections that have been forged through the medium of Gàidhlig, and enough fluency in the language to go to Uist and converse comfortably the islander’s in their native tongue. The language doesn’t live within the walls of the classroom for me, it’s as alive as a fiddle tune and a cup of coffee, and will continue to be so, I hope, regardless of where ever I travel next.

Ann a Gàidhlig tha sinn ag ràdh am gnìomhair, ‘a’ bruidhinn’ nuair a bhios sinn a’ bruidhinn mu dheidhinn còmhradh, ach ann an Gaeilge, tha iad ag ràdh ‘a’ labhairt’ no ‘ag cainnt’, nuair a bhios iad a’ bruidhinn air còmhradh, agus tha an gnìomhair ‘a’ bruidhinn’ a’ ciallachadh, ‘a’ sabaid’! Mar sin, feumaidh tu a bhith faiceallach nuair a bhios tu a’ bruidhinn na Gàidhlig ann an Èirinn! Ach taingeal do Dhia, tha an gnìomhar ‘ag ràdh’ aca cuideachd, agus an gnìomhair ‘ag siubhal’, ach tha ‘ag siubhal’ a’ ciallachadh ‘ag coiseachd’ an seo, nuair ann an Alba, bidh tu a’ siubhal mun cuairt an t-saoghal, is dòcha, agus ag coiseachd suas an rathad.

Static and Rain

For the last week the rain has been driving down in solid sheets. Coming home at night, my headlights can barely cut through the wet curtains that ripple a top the road’s surface like the curtains of a stage; in anticipation of some great production, a monsoon, a tidal wave, complete with orchestral crescendo, quietly gathering it’s strength beyond the the Great Blasket Island and Am Fear Marbh.

When I finally get home my headlights illuminate our squashed vegetable garden. A head of lettuce bobs like a buoy in a wide brown puddle, a flock of misguided sheep scatter like frightened children in the dual spotlights of my car. Every so often my ancient car-radio picks up snippets of conversation from Raidiò na Gaeltachta. I can’t help but think that it’s only symbolic of my understanding of the language, bits and pieces that I can link back to Gàidhlig, or even to English, before the narration fades again into a whirl of static.

Almost four weeks now that I’ve been in the Gàidhealtachd. Lucia tells me I’m fluent. I tell her she’s biased. Still, I can navigate my way around Dingle in the language, from the grocery store, to my favorite Café, to the library and the high-ceilinged rooms of the old nunnery where I Skype in four days a week to the Gàidhlig college up on Skye, the sounds of Gàidhlig as welcome to my ears as the brief silences preceding the rain.

I’ve formed a language bond of Irish/Gàidhlig with more than a handful of people in Dingle, or re-formed, should I say from when I was first here almost four years ago strictly as an English speaker. That initial bond I find the hardest to break. You link the people you know with the language you know them in. The re-acquaintance comes with a certain degree of awkwardness.

And of course, as with everything else, there is also a certain degree of resistance. I’m sure this is true every place on earth that harbors a minority-language, the learner will come up against the extremes of animosity and awe. It’s a heady mix that keeps one feeling, even in a place like Dingle, where half the buildings are shuttered and locked for the winter, and half the population walking again the neon-glinted sidewalks of their city homes, that life is still unfolding to you in its utmost, each experience rich and crisp, your mind sharpened and engaged in the constant challenge of learning and re-learning.

There’s a café near the Diseart building that I love with an open fire, fresh scones, and more often than not a couple from back West engaging in a lively Irish conversation. I’ve passed more than a few mornings eavesdropping. Last week, I went in the late afternoon, elated by a day of speaking the language in town, I asked the woman if the Café was still open in Irish. ‘What?!” She said, I went over the words carefully in my mind, it’s a simple statement, I was right, I was sure of it. I asked her again, slowly, and more clearly, “WHAT!?” I switched over to English, ‘Oops not an Irish speaker,’ I thought. Later, I heard her conversing fluently with two women from Ballyferriter.

Over the weekend, Lucia and I drove to Killarney to see a concert. We passed up the hostel for a swank hotel room at a super-discounted winter rate. The hotel owner, seemingly from some older genteel era, was wearing the same tailored suit the morning of check-out he’d had on the evening of check-in. ‘Excuse me,’ he asked, ‘but was I hearing the two of you speaking Irish? By God that’s amazing, two foreigners speaking Irish, it’s a pity no one is hear to document this, it would be great press for the hotel, two foreigners who speak Irish, staying with us.’ Lucia gave him her reasoning behind the oddity, yes she was from Spain, but she lived in the Gàidhealtachd, it’s a minority language, it needs all the support it can get, and to top it all off, it’s a lovely sounding language. The hotel-owner agreed with each statement whole-heartedly, and I consoled myself with the thought that every episode of resistance (few and far between that they are) should be coupled with a visit to Killarney.