In 2019, I had the pleasure of studying abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland. While there, I studied Scots Gaelic Language and Culture.
Scots Gaelic (Gadhlig) is considered to be critically endangered. While once the founding language of Scotland, Gaelic has undergone a significant decline in the last couple centuries. This is in part due to purposeful political efforts to push it into extinction. For example, the 1872 Education Act shifted the official language of formal education to English. Gaelic became associated with rural, poor, and less educated communities in areas such as the Highlands. This caused Gaelic to become a marginalized language associated with discriminated groups.
However, in recent years, efforts have been made to increase appreciation, preservation, and learning of the Gaelic language. For example, Gaelic language returned to schools in 1985, the BBC now has a Gaelic language channel, and Gaelic is offered via Duolingo worldwide. Furthermore, the Bord na Gadhlig, “a public body responsible for promoting Gaelic development” (https://www.gaidhlig.scot/en/our-work/) was created in the early 2000s.
For this mapping assignment, I aimed to visualize the effects of these valiant efforts to preserve and develop the Gaelic language. Through Ildefonso’s “Finding the Right Tools for Mapping”, I knew that Tableau would be the best choice for my skill level and mapping goals. Through the Scotland Census website (https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/), I was able to download the JSON file of Scotland’s Local Authority (LA) region boundaries as well as the csv files for Gaelic language data in both 2011 and 2019. First, I had to synthesize the Gaelic language data. Since Gaelic is a traditionally oral language, I wanted to sum the count of all Gaelic speakers (regardless of reading or writing capabilities) for each LA region. Additionally, I had to ensure that each LA region name matched those in the JSON file. Then, I was able to relate the two data files in Tableau and visualize, by color, the number of speakers in each region. What I found was a significant increase in total number of speakers in every region with numbers doubling in city centers such as Glasgow and Edinburgh.
If I were to move forward with this project, I would love to include location pins with pop out windows of individual stories of native speakers. This would allow the viewer to understand the acquisition of the language and its connection to the real lives of Scottish people. Additionally, I would love to make more maps that show the diaspora of Scots and the hubs of Gaelic language around the world, specifically in Canada.
Throughout this process, I thought often of Dr. Nelson’s presentation on “Critical Cartography”. I aimed to be accessible to those with colorblindness by making the color analysis a gradient scale. I also recognized that as the creator of the map, I was holding power to tell a narrative that is not mine. While this map can be interpreted to show a success in the attempt to bring back the Gaelic language, it only tells a small portion of the story. By omitting data from before 2011, the viewer may not understand the history of hostility and cultural oppression that led to the necessity of these attempts.
