In the Gaelic-speaking parts of
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, the use of the
Gaelic language
The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages.
Goidelic languages historically ...
on
road signs
Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones. Later, signs with directional arms were introduce ...
instead of, or more often alongside,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
is now common, but has been a controversial issue.
History
In the 18th and 19th centuries, map makers recorded Gaelic placenames in
Anglicised
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
versions. One would expect important towns like
Stornoway
Stornoway (; gd, Steòrnabhagh; sco, Stornowa) is the main town of the Western Isles and the capital of Lewis and Harris in Scotland.
The town's population is around 6,953, making it by far the largest town in the Outer Hebrides, as well a ...
or
Portree
Portree (; gd, Port Rìgh, ) is the largest town on, and capital of, the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Murray, W.H. (1966) ''The Hebrides''. London. Heinemann. Pages 154-155. It is the location for the only secondary school o ...
to have slightly different names in different languages, but it is unusual for this to be the case with small hamlets or minor topographical features, and the Anglicisation of placenames was resented by educated Gaels.
[Hutchinson, Roger (2005). ''A Waxing Moon: The Modern Gaelic Revival''. Edinburgh: ]Mainstream Publishing
Mainstream Publishing was a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1978, it ceased trading in December 2013.Charlotte WilliamsMainstream to cease publishing 1 March 2013, The Bookseller.com' (Retrieved 30 December 2016) It was ass ...
. .
In the 20th century,
Inverness County Council
Inverness-shire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Covering much of the Highlands and Outer Hebrides, it is Scotland's largest county, though one of the smallest in populatio ...
, which until the latter part of the century was known for its antipathy towards the Gaelic language, was responsible for erecting road signs throughout the
Highlands
Highland is a broad term for areas of higher elevation, such as a mountain range or mountainous plateau.
Highland, Highlands, or The Highlands, may also refer to:
Places Albania
* Dukagjin Highlands
Armenia
* Armenian Highlands
Australia
*Sou ...
.
The council insisted that these be entirely in English and follow the spellings on the
Ordnance Survey
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maps. Gaelic language organisations had limited resources and thus did not see opposition to this policy as a priority. In September 1970 Aird District Council rejected a proposal for bilingual signs.
Highland revival
In 1973, however, the issue was forced onto the public agenda as a result of the
Skye
The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye (; gd, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach or ; sco, Isle o Skye), is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated b ...
road sign controversy. The council was planning to build a new road south from
Portree
Portree (; gd, Port Rìgh, ) is the largest town on, and capital of, the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Murray, W.H. (1966) ''The Hebrides''. London. Heinemann. Pages 154-155. It is the location for the only secondary school o ...
, and needed to purchase a strip of land belonging to landowner
Iain Noble
Sir Iain Andrew Noble, 3rd Baronet, (8 September 1935 – 25 December 2010) was a businessman, landowner on the Isle of Skye and a noted Scottish Gaelic language activist.
Early life
Noble was born in Berlin in 1935 the son of a British dip ...
. Noble offered to donate the land to the council on condition that the three signs which were to be erected on the stretch of road be bilingual, a way of registering Gaelic on the
linguistic landscape
Linguistic landscape is the "visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region". Linguistic landscape has been described as being "somewhere at the junction of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psy ...
. The proposal was fiercely resisted by the council, and in particular by
Lord Burton, Chairman of the Roads Committee, who later the same year attempted unsuccessfully to introduce legislation in the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
limiting the use of Gaelic by Scottish local authorities. However, Noble was supported by a petition signed by many prominent Skye residents, and the experience of
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, where bilingual signposting had already been accepted, was favourable. As the issue had aroused public interest, and a
compulsory purchase order
A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for p ...
might have been slow and expensive, the council negotiated a compromise: Portree and
Broadford both received bilingual signposts on an "experimental" basis.
As Noble had hoped, and the council feared, this set a precedent, which was gradually followed throughout the 1980s, becoming generally accepted in the 1990s. Bilingual signposting is now the norm throughout the
Western Isles
The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coas ...
(indeed for a time directional signposts there were monolingually Gaelic) and also in large parts of the mainland on
local authority
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
roads.
In 1996,
Highland Council
The Highland Council (' ), the political body covering the Highland local authority created in 1995, comprises 21 wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, which creates a form of proportional represe ...
decided to make use of Gaelic-only signposts in some areas.
In 2001, the
Scottish Government announced plans to erect bilingual signage along many of the trunk roads in the Scottish Highlands, in addition to those already erected on
local-authority-maintained roads. This project is now all but completed, although importantly it excludes the main
A9 trunk road and also the A96 between
Inverness
Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...
and
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...
. It has however included the
A82 westerly trunk route from Inverness to Glasgow. Since the government has a strict policy of only erecting bilingual roadsigns when new signs in any case had to be erected, the costs to the public purse of making these bilingual has been negligible.
In 2008, eight
Caithness
Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland.
Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...
councillors were unsuccessful in their attempt to block Highland-wide support for bilingual English/Gaelic signage.
In March 2009, Highland Council's Gaelic committee wrote to the
Transport Minister,
Stewart Stevenson
James Alexander Stewart Stevenson (''Gaelic: Seamus Alasdair Stiùbhart MacSteafain''; born 15 October 1946) is a Scottish politician who served as Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change from 2007 to 2010 and Minister for Env ...
, asking for the use of Gaelic signage to be extended on trunk roads. The Minister responded by saying that he awaited a review that had been commissioned, as he thought there was some anecdotal evidence of motorists encountering some difficulties with bilingual signage.
Motorist research
A report was published in 2012 by Transport Scotland stating that bilingual signs were not a danger to motorists. It was noted that the signs required slightly more attention on the part of motorists but that it did not pose any real risk. According to the study there has been no detectable change in accident rates.
Research conducted by Leeds University indicates that multi-lingual signs consisting of four or more lines of text can cause drivers to brake to allow them time to process the additional information. Following drivers may not react appropriately to the change in speed of the leading vehicle. The study recommends the use of "separation techniques", such as using a different colour of font for each language, which eliminates the problem.
[Evaluating the Effects of Bilingual Traffic Signs on Driver Performance and Safety](_blank)
from ''eprints.whiterose.ac.uk''. Published 2005 and retrieved 07 September 2013. Bilingual road signs in Scotland typically use white letters for English and yellow for Gaelic.
See also
*
Ceartas
In the early 1980s in Scotland, Ceartas (; meaning 'justice') was a protest group which attempted to publicise the unequal treatment of the Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic language.
The group was founded in 1981, in the wake of the failure of MP Donald S ...
*
List of Scottish Gaelic place names
The following place names are either derived from Scottish Gaelic or have Scottish Gaelic equivalents:
Endonyms
Scotland
The place type in the list for Scotland records all inhabited areas as City. There are only eight Scottish cities; they ...
References
{{Traffic signs
Road transport in Scotland
Scottish Gaelic language
Traffic signs