Gaelic representation in Libraries
In which we compare the prevalence of Gaelic in the census results with the prevalence of Gaelic literature in libraries
This article is strategic pivot away from my usual topic of the Scots language. Its a short exploration of other territory, to see what we may find.
Scotland’s Census 2022
For more than a hundred years there has been a question in the Scottish census asking whether people consider themselves able to communicate in Gaelic. The current version of the question asks about understanding spoken Gaelic, being able to speak it, read it or write it.
The results data is displayed as below.
We can add together different columns to find the number and percentage of the population who understand Gaelic, speak it, etc.
Total 5,294,863
No Skills 5,164,702 97.54%
Understanders 130,161 2.46%
Speakers 69,701 1.32%
Readers 62,225 1.18%
Writers 43,807 0.83%We must accept that these proportions are a small percentage of the total population, but they are significant. One in forty people consider themselves to be “Understanders” of Gaelic, about one in eighty people consider themselves to be either “readers” or “speakers” and one in a hundred and twenty consider themselves able to write in Gaelic.
These proportions aren’t fixed, they have changed over the decades. In the 1790s it can be estimated that about 20% of the population spoke Gaelic, a more substantial proportion of the population than today. The second most recent census had directly comparable data to 2022.
Census 2011
We can tote up the numbers of people from 2011 who consider themselves to have each set of Gaelic skills
Total 5,118,223
No Skills 5,031,167 98.30%
Understanders 87,056 1.70%
Speakers 57,375 1.12%
Readers 43,055 0.84%
Writers 32,191 0.63%And then we might compare how the proportions changed between 2011 and 2022.
Understanders +0.76%
Speakers +0.20%
Readers +0.34%
Writers +0.20%Each of the four skills have seen an increase in the number of people who consider themselves to possess. The “Understanders” class has increased by around 50%, over the eleven year 43,000 more people now consider themselves able to understand Gaelic.
We must take care when quoting the various percentages in discussions. Most often we refer to the number of Gaelic speakers which is 1.32% but by contrast a larger proportion of the nation can understand Gaelic 2.46%, but we don’t often refer to Gaelic “understanders”. Later in this piece I’m going to make Gaelic “readers” do some heavy lifting, on average 1.18% of people in Scotland can read Gaelic, a smaller proportion than the speakers or understanders.
Of course them proportion of people with Gaelic skills isn’t smoothly dispersed across the nation. Some areas have a greater proportion of Gaelic speakers than others.
Council Regions
We can interrogate the census to find the proportion of people with Gaelic skills in each Council area.
As before we can tote up different columns to calculate the proportions of people with the different skills in each of the thirty three council areas.
Understanders Speakers Readers Writers
Aberdeen City 2.74% 1.02% 0.98% 0.61%
Aberdeenshire 2.76% 1.16% 1.00% 0.68%
Angus 1.39% 0.63% 0.60% 0.35%
Argyll and Bute 6.15% 3.76% 3.09% 2.21%
City of Edinburgh 2.07% 0.92% 1.04% 0.62%
Clackmannanshire 1.69% 0.80% 0.76% 0.53%
Dumfries and Galloway 1.44% 0.62% 0.59% 0.37%
Dundee City 1.73% 0.68% 0.71% 0.44%
East Ayrshire 1.37% 0.71% 0.62% 0.45%
East Dunbartonshire 1.77% 0.98% 0.93% 0.65%
East Lothian 1.28% 0.58% 0.58% 0.35%
East Renfrewshire 1.44% 0.79% 0.69% 0.49%
Falkirk 1.59% 0.79% 0.66% 0.43%
Fife 1.34% 0.58% 0.60% 0.37%
Glasgow City 2.88% 1.49% 1.38% 0.99%
Highland 8.08% 5.24% 4.40% 3.37%
Inverclyde 1.40% 0.69% 0.63% 0.44%
Midlothian 1.36% 0.59% 0.60% 0.39%
Moray 2.04% 0.91% 0.77% 0.50%
Na h-Eileanan Siar 57.24% 44.70% 34.10% 27.29%
North Ayrshire 1.38% 0.67% 0.62% 0.43%
North Lanarkshire 1.45% 0.75% 0.68% 0.51%
Orkney Islands 1.46% 0.67% 0.60% 0.39%
Perth and Kinross 2.13% 1.07% 0.98% 0.63%
Renfrewshire 1.64% 0.80% 0.71% 0.47%
Scottish Borders 1.36% 0.60% 0.58% 0.36%
Shetland Islands 1.12% 0.50% 0.50% 0.32%
South Ayrshire 1.42% 0.65% 0.58% 0.39%
South Lanarkshire 1.32% 0.66% 0.61% 0.43%
Stirling 2.08% 1.00% 1.00% 0.63%
West Dunbartonshire 1.60% 0.79% 0.66% 0.47%
West Lothian 1.42% 0.65% 0.58% 0.39%We might note that Na h-Eileanan Siar has the greatest proportion of people with Gaelic skills (44.70% speakers), followed by the Highland region (5.24% speakers), followed by Argyle and Bute (3.76% speakers). This might not be surprising if we are aware of the historic Dál Riata kingdom, which first brought the Celtic Gaelic language to Scotland from Ireland about fifteen hundred years ago.
I’m afraid I must concern myself with the twenty-first century. whilst some areas have higher proportions of Gaelic speakers, and readers, the median proportion of Gaelic readers in Scottish council areas is just 0.67% or one in a hundred and fifty people being able to read Gaelic.
This proportion is typical for the twenty-first century, its been lower, but not much.
Council Libraries
Let us imagine stepping into a public library run by an eccentric strawman librarian, and we find that 90% of the books on the shelves are written in Gaelic, and just 10% are written in English. After elbowing aside the huge crowds of people clustered round the English language shelves, we might reasonably argue with the librarian that they have clearly spent too much of the acquisitions budget on Gaelic books and not enough on English books.
The strawman librarian might turn round and say that this is historically been a Gaelic speaking area and their collection of literature reflects that. But after further discussions about the nature of their job we might negotiate that the proportions of books need to change, and we might remember a half-read Substack article that suggested the proportion of books ought to match the proportions of people who consider themselves to be Gaelic readers in the region.
A typical public library contains around 10,000 titles, the median proportion of Gaelic readers is 0.67%, therefore the library ought to hold 67 Gaelic books. Its not many, but we can’t fault the logic.
This has been a strawman argument.
If we go through the online library catalogues for each council area in Scotland we find that typically library services hold 140,000 titles of which only 105 titles are written in Gaelic, as a proportion this is 0.0885% about an order of magnitude lower than it ought to be. Each library service ought to hold about a thousand Gaelic books on average.
Here are the number of English and Gaelic titles in each Council Library Service.
English Gaelic Proportion
Aberdeen City 233,138 128 0.0549%
Aberdeenshire 214,706 34 0.0158%
Argyll & Bute 72,866 356 0.4886%
Clackmannanshire 48,933 25 0.0511%
Dundee City 202,421 76 0.0375%
East Dunbartonshire 60,475 105 0.1736%
East Lothian 98,605 35 0.0355%
East Renfrewshire 71,280 170 0.2385%
Edinburgh, City of 449,852 730 0.1623%
Eilean Siar 77,000 301 0.3909%
Falkirk 124,183 65 0.0523%
Fife 176,370 107 0.0607%
Glasgow City 142,247 898 0.6313%
Highland 102,477 1,393 1.3593%
Inverclyde 52,591 74 0.1407%
Midlothian 108,316 42 0.0388%
Moray 160,716 143 0.0890%
North Ayrshire 67,180 155 0.2307%
North Lanarkshire 146,677 284 0.1936%
Orkney Islands 113,617 20 0.0176%
Perth & Kinross 179,698 445 0.2476%
Scottish Borders 118,591 56 0.0472%
Shetland Islands 108,019 30 0.0278%
South Lanarkshire 129,347 105 0.0812%
Stirling 133,116 197 0.1480%
West Dunbartonshire 233,204 38 0.0163%
West Lothian 101,072 8 0.0079%A number of regions don’t have easily searchable library catalogues online, so we will skip them and assume the worst - South Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Angus, Dumfries and Galloway, and East Ayrshire.
Close inspection will lead us to note that the regions with the highest proportion of Gaelic books are the old Dál Riata regions, and Glasgow, but all four have a significantly lower proportion of Gaelic books compared to Gaelic readers
Gaelic titles Gaelic readers
============== ==============
Eileanan Siar 0.3909% 34.10%
Highland region 1.3593% 4.40%
Argyle and Bute 0.4886% 3.09%
Glasgow 0.6313% 1.38%Eileanan Siar would need to acquire a hundred times more Gaelic titles to match the proprotion of Gaelic readers, Argyle and Bute would require six times more books, the Highlands would require three times as many and Glasgow would merely need to double its stock.
Its not terribly difficult to acquire Gaelic books, the Gaelic Books Council shop in Glasgow actually lists more than 500 titles on its website, a single phonecall could fix this.
Library Acquisitions
Library services often have a fixed acquisitions budget - ring-fenced to be spent on acquiring books. Its not coming out of anyone’s wages at the council, this is taxpayers money, gladly handed over by taxpayers who might speak all manner of languages, and then currently passed on to English-language publishers and writers. I would casually mention that Gaelic speakers are literally paying to minoritise their own language here.
I sent out a handful of Freedom of Information requests to find out more about library acquisition budgets over the last three years in a load of Scottish council areas.
Average Average Average
Council Budget Acquisitions Gaelic Acquisitions
======= ======= ============ ==================
Stirling £ 148,710 18,347 28
South Lanarkshire £ 120,262 19,053 0.3
Aberdeen City £ 257,833 15,322 0
Clackmannanshire £ 39,191 2,702 0
City of Edinburgh £ 363,291 47,507 88
West Dunbartonshire £ 103,333 (quantities not supplied)
East Renfrewshire £ 77,978 13,717 7
East Ayrshire £ 50,608 7,794 (not supplied)
Angus £ 102,667 9,278 12
Renfrewshire £ 177,413 26,640 0.3
Moray £ 85,991 11,382 36
Fife £ 233,673 38,424 29If each library service was ordering proportionate quantities of Gaelic books, they would be receiving around 130 books each year. Out of the council areas who have responded, none have anything near this quantity, except perhaps Edinburgh who are still under-ordering, they ought to be receiving more than 600 Gaelic books.
We might also note that the proportion of Gaelic books needs to “catch up” to the levels that it ought to be so the libraries should be over-ordering Gaelic quantities.
The acquisitions budgets are worth looking at, this money is merely spent on books for the local community, English speakers, Gaelic speakers and Scots speakers, but disproportionately it is handed over to the English language publishers and writers.
Now whilst some council areas are receiving a small quantity of Gaelic books, we shouldn’t forget that this quantity is shared among all the public libraries in the area, typically a dozen or so. So whereas East Renfrewshire receive on average seven Gaelic books each year, they have ten public libraries, so fewer than one new Gaelic book per library.
It is often stated in article about the plight of the Gaelic language, that there aren’t many professions that require Gaelic language skills, Gaelic speakers are disillusioned with the suggestion that they all become Gaelic teachers.
There aren’t many many professional Gaelic writers, writing is a difficult profession in most languages, but if the libraries are disproportionately under-spending on Gaelic books, then they are starving Gaelic writers and publishers of revenue, and making the profession even less sustainable.
Library Branches
We can return to the online library catalogues and check how many Gaelic titles are in each branch library, and compare the proportion to the council region proportion of Gaelic readers.
If we first look at Perth and Kinross, Gaelic readers make up 0.98% of the regional population. The entire library service holds a total of 179,698 titles, of which 445 are Gaelic, this is a proportion of 0.2476%.
In order to have a representative proportion of Gaelic titles, Perth and Kinross would need to acquire four times as many titles as they currently hold.
In the table below we have noted how many Gaelic titles each Perthshire branch library actually holds and how many it should in stock.
Total Gaelic Proportion Should be
===== ====== ========== =========
AK Bell Library 140,783 174 0.124% 1,380
Alyth 5,618 2 0.036% 55
Auchterarder 12,817 10 0.078% 126
Birnam 3,019 1 0.033% 30
Blairgowrie 9,185 22 0.240% 90
Breadalbane 11,096 318 2.866%
Comrie 2,115 0 0.000% 21
Loch Leven Community 17,224 1 0.006% 169
Mobile 1 3,546 1 0.028% 35
North Inch Community 14,451 50 0.346% 142
Pitlochry 3,087 0 0.000% 30
Scone 10,538 1 0.009% 103
Strathearn 14,367 10 0.070% 141Here we see out of the thirteen public libraries, Breadalbane has the largest proportion of Gaelic books, at 318 titles. The AK Bell Library has a substantial number, 174 titles, but due to the huge collection of English books, these only make up a tiny proportion of the total.
Twelve out of thirteen Perth and Kinross don’t hold proportionate quantities of Gaelic language literature.
We can carry out similar analysis on other regional library services:-
Proportion Median branch Need to
Gaelic readers proportion increase factor
Aberdeenshire 1.00% 0.0153% 65
Dundee 0.71% 0.0240% 30
Edinburgh 1.04% 0.0058% 180
Glasgow 1.38% 0.0396% 34
Midlothian 0.60% 0.0106% 56
Moray 0.77% 0.0200% 39
North Lanarkshire 0.68% 0.0072% 94
Perth and Kinross 0.98% 0.0356% 28
Stirling 1.00% 0.0548% 18
Na h-Eileanan Siar 34.10% 1.8123% 19I’m not going to go through every branch of every library service, but from this sample of nine councils we can see that in order to proportionately represent and support their own populations of Gaelic readers, each library service needs to acquire many times more Gaelic titles than they currently acquire.
Whilst a few branch libraries are outliers with a relatively large proportion of Gaelic titles, Glasgow’s Mitchell AL Library and Perth’s Breadalbane Library carrying around 3% Gaelic titles, the average and median libraries carry far fewer than the expected level.
We may note that the Western Isles libraries have a greater proportion of Gaelic titles than other library services, averaging 1.8%, but they are catering to a population of 34.10% Gaelic readers.
It is at each library service’s discretion how the spend their acquisitions budgets on books, they face no political meddling and this is the state they have arrived at, taking the minoritised language taxpayers’ money, spending almost all of it on English-language books.
“oh no, we accidently spent all the money and now there’s not enough to buy Gaelic books, sorry, it looks like your language is dying off and no one knows why.”