Fòram na Gàidhlig

With respect, as a resident in Scotland - and not having been resident at all in, e.g., Norway - I'm wondering how the good folk of Norway would react if I were to bring to their attention, e.g. on some Norwegian folk music web forum, that the Eidsvoll Festival is about to get underway or some such? Maybe quoting a link to the publication "Folkemusikk"?

I'm not getting your post, a Sheonaidh, but then I haven't got access to the full article... what do you mean?

IF Seonaidh's logic is that a non-Scot is unnecessarily drawing Scots' attention to something they all know about already, I have to take issue.

a) I certainly didn't know about that item anyway, and it's of general interest to Gaelic supporters (which is what our forum members are).

b) Where someone happens to be neither gives nor takes away any right to post on particular topics. E.g. I post on Gaelic in North America and I'm a Scot. And if I ever feel like posting on Wales or Welsh because I see a relevance for our members here, I will also do so.

My point was rather more subtle.

From what I can gather, there is a fair amount of activity going on in the field of Gaelic in both the USA and Canada. And we do hear about such things from time to time, as there are, indeed, a number of Gaelic speakers and learners from America on this site. But it's not generally the custom of us who happen to be in Scotland to seek out and publicise what's happening in the field of Gaelic in America - and I'm not at all sure that such would be particularly welcome if we did.

It is, however, nice to hear about such things. My main fear is that somebody in America seeking out and publicising a bit of Gaelic news of relevance to Scotland could be interpreted as somebody who sees no future for anything to do with Gaelic where they are. This is particularly distressing when you consider that there are (still...) some native Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia.

Well, that was definitely too subtle for me, and still is.
I really can't read that much into an innocent passing on of information that no one on here had as yet pointed out. It seemed to me a mere sharing of a bit of good news for Gaelic being taken more seriously in a local community, which is what we're always on about as desirable.

And we certainly can't deduce from it that the poster is idle in his own territory, nor is it comradely to put him on the defensive to confirm that he is.

I have friends in Europe who are interested in Scotland and sometimes pass on snippets from the online Scotsman (which they subscribe to, and i don't) about Gaelic and Scottish history from my area, in case I have missed them. I am glad they do that and have in fact missed things they passed on.

faoileag wrote:I have friends in Europe who are interested in Scotland and sometimes pass on snippets from the online Scotsman (which they subscribe to, and i don't) about Gaelic and Scottish history from my area, in case I have missed them. I am glad they do that and have in fact missed things they passed on.

I have friends in the old country who naturally pass on to me links of what Czech media say about Scotland and I'm positive I'd rather if they instead of passing links wrote me a bit more about what's happening where they, unlike me, keep on living.

Ok, let me simplify this: Mìcheal Beag, thank you for posting, I had known about the centre but only because Donnachadh had asked me for some flyers. As we heard, not everyone did. It's the nature of the web (duh?) that national boundaries are much less of and issue and Fòram na Gàidhlig is, as a result, a pretty international place. As long as it fits the general topics of Fòram na Gàidhlig, anyone is welcome to post, even if it's just a one-off post (which in Mìcheal Beag's case isn't even the case).

PS My personal view is this: achieving critical numbers on a forum is hard. For every active contributor there are many hundreds of lurkers (i.e. people who read, but who don't post much). At the moment there's an ACG forum which isn't exactly buzzing, Schottisch-Gälisch which isn't exactly buzzing either and so on. There just aren't enough Gaelic-minded people on the web for that many fora. I'd prefer it if there was just the one with subsections for "locale" topics or topics in other languages, it would end up being much more active and cross-fertilising. It's the reason I asked GunChleoc if we could merge the Gaelic IT forum into FnaG...

Now, to get back on topic...
I can imagine the ICCI will be a bit miffed about a new "focal point for Gaelic development and education in Argyll" that's run by a non-Argyller. Argyll Gaelic's in a pretty "cugalach" state at the moment, and there's already justifiable concern that Western Isles and Skye Gaelic is pushing it out. If the "warm welcome" at the centre with 's urrainn and coltach, it risks hastening the decline.

(Of course, you could argue that the Islay folk have made a rod for their own back by focusing on their dialect as "Islay Gaelic" rather than "Argyll Gaelic"...)

Thanks, Niall, for that welcome re-route.
I must say that thought also crossed my mind.

(PS: Thrissel - it's not a question of 'either / or' - my friends do both, and I'm happy to receive both. In your case, I would have thought it was of interest how Scotland (your current home) is seen in your old home. A different window.
Interesting information is always welcome to me, no matter where I get it from.)

faoileag wrote:In your case, I would have thought it was of interest how Scotland (your current home) is seen in your old home. A different window.

I can see what you mean, but after decades spent there I think I have a better idea about that than what I can glean from Czech media, especially as nine times out of ten they just give you a shortened tr*nsl*t**n of some BBC, Times, Guardian &c article. (Not that your typical Czech cares to know any more about Scotland than your typical Scot cares to know about the CR anyway.)

Saoilidh mi gur ann an coimhearsnachd cànain cho beag 's a tha am fear againn, chan eil dad cearr le ùidh anns na tha tachairt taobh thall a' chuain - ge b' e dè an taobh!

I think in a language community as small as ours, there's nothing wrong with being interested in what goes on on the other side of the pond - in both directions