CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK,
GAELIC SIGNAGE,
and the PRICE OF CHEESE...
Three Letters to
the Cairngorms National Park Authority concerning their deplorable use of Gaelic on A9 signage. Please make your own views known to them -http://www.cairngorms.co.uk/park-authority/contact/  | ||
| Most recent style of signage |
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| Previous style of signage (Photo by Thelma Stuart) |
As someone concerned about the use of Gaelic I wish to express my utter despair at the "bilingual" signs for the Cairngorms National Park erected recently on the A9. Heading south, the Gaelic is illegible until one is at the sign. Heading north, and therefore being on the lane farthest from the sign, the Gaelic remains totally illegible. The signs, of course, have at least half their surface blank. Plenty of space. For the life of me I cannot fathom the mindset which thoughtfully chooses for the English a good font size, colour and style calculated to register with passing traffic, then abandons all design and functional issues for the Gaelic. Are Gaelic-speakers supposed to doff their caps and be honoured with these few crumbs from the rich man's table? Such patronising semiotics would get very short shrift in Wales, as you no doubt well know. I urge the Cairngorms National Park Authority to catch the vision for the conservation and promotion not just of our natural heritage, but insofar as the CNPA uses words, for the Gaelic linguistic heritage which gave a name to every peak, slope, stream and loch etc within your jurisdiction. The Cairngorms National Park Authority cannot be neutral on the matter of Gaelic, as if your remit does not extend to linguistic matters. You must be aware that, intentionally or not, you are helping to extirpate Gaelic unless you actively use it. And not with a token nod, such as the heading on your webpage, or the crass small print of those road signs. Not decoratively but functionally. I say again, functionally.
Yours sincerely,
Fearghas Macfhionnlaigh.
*************
Dear Sir,
I wrote (via your website) a number of months ago on the above matter, but received no reply. It has now come to my attention that you intend to put up new signs, but that you have decided to keep the Gaelic smaller than the English because otherwise this would apparently "present too much material on the one sign and compromise the overall design". I wish to express my outrage at this sort of inane nonsense being proffered as a serious rationale. For insufferable and vital decades Gaelic-speakers have had to endure such insulting and patronising claptrap from officialdom. You may not quite appreciate just how depressingly numerous your forbears are. So many patter-merchants! What mock-gravitas you have all brought as you have shaken your heads and intoned your po-faced pretexts. Let's tell it how it is, shall we? Where Gaelic is absent from road-signs it is because some partisan decision-maker wants it that way. Where Gaelic is present on signs but is small and/or faint, it is because some decision-maker considers it of corresponding consequence. If for some irksome technicality Gaelic MUST appear on a sign, then the knack is, correct me if I'm wrong, to make sure it is as unobtrusive as possible. I strongly suggest that "not compromising the overall design" is simply your code for "not compromising the paramount functionality of the English". I happen to be an art teacher. I find it less than likely that your commissioned designer came back to you with proposals that all required smaller Gaelic for the sake of the integrity of the "design". A designer works to the brief given. If the remit is to make sure that the Gaelic and English are of equal prominence and functionality, then the designer loses the commission if he/she doesn't produce the goods. We call this "equality" concept, bilingualism. One or two other countries have managed to get their heads round it without, as far as I know, designers having nervous breakbowns.
Signs are signals. The nigh-invisible non-functional Gaelic on your current signs simply signals a grudging tokenism towards the language. It signals disparagement. Let's at least have some honesty for once. You know perfectly well that if the Cairngorms National Park decided tomorrow to have trilingual signage in, let's say, English, French, and Japanese, no insoluble logistical issues would preclude it. Designers worth their salt would enjoy the challenge. You know that. You know that very well. So to attempt to palm off the Gaels, who named everything you can see out of your window, with talk of "too much material on one sign" and of "compromising the overall design", is exasperating in the extreme. I ask you yet again, have you ever been to Wales?
Yours sincerely,
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh.
*******************
Dear Mr Ferguson,
Thank you for your courteous reply. If I might respond to your key sentence. One would have thought that whatever the "range of views" on your signage, the most equitable resolution would be an even-handed bilingualism. But apparently not. And then I wonder if you are still talking in code here. It is difficult to imagine that there are "a range of views" in the Gaelic camp, though my jaw HAS indeed dropped more than once in the past when Gaelic-speakers have stood up and presented heartfelt arguments against the use of their own language. But apart from such aberrations, it is surely safe to assume that Gaels who have contacted you will have been pretty much univocal in favour of maximum promotion of Gaelic. It is also unlikely that these Gaels are arguing for no English at all on the signs, or for a "bottom-line-of-the-optician's-chart" presence for the English. Therefore, when you say "people have a range of views on the design" I must surmise that you primarily mean "English-speakers have a range of views on the design". I suppose this "range" might in principle stretch from those happy to see equal status given to both languages, down through a spectrum of increasing prejudice until we reach the "Gaelic-can-go-to-hell-in-a-wheelie-bin" contingent. The current political climate is slightly less favourable to that latter position than was the case. Also, you are already on record as saying that Gaelic WILL be on the signage, though smaller than the English. We can therefore conclude that Cairngorms National Park feels that it is doing justice to the "range of views on the design" by opting for MODERATE prejudice against Gaelic rather than EXTREME prejudice.
As the traveller approaches the precincts of the Cairngorms National Park, I anticipate that he/she will pass what is in effect an English sign with some small and/or pale subtext (Gaelic), thoughtfully 'designed' not to intrude beyond one's peripheral vision. The Highland Council's own logo [now amended [2012)] could well have been your designer's, as they say in education circles, "exemplar". Lack of room on the sign will not have been the issue. There will be plenty of blank space. But that blank space will have priority over the Gaelic. Quite "Zen" really, when you think about it.
Clearly it is not "possible to please everyone" if "everyone" includes those of both pro- and anti-Gaelic convictions. But just who, in fact, WILL your proposed (already ordered?) signage please? Certainly not the Gaelic-speaker. Nor the fair-minded English-speaker. Nor the outright antipathetic English-speaker. You will have pleased only that stratum of English-speaker which is willing to smile upon Gaelic as long as it sits quietly in a corner. Like a well-behaved deerhound perhaps. Decorative in its own way. Majestic even. But an indulgence, nevertheless. "A creature of Fingalian legend, you know. But rather short-lived. Sad, really. Now, what were we saying? Oh, yes, the price of cheese..."
Yours sincerely,
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh.
