An issue of "Our Gaelic Page" in The Highland News, 1897.

Learning Gaelic in 1900 : Highland News’ “Our Gaelic Page”

Over a century before the BBC’s Speaking Gaelic team were building a community of modern learners, the Highland News was doing the same with its regular feature Our Gaelic Page.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a chance language learning find in the BNA – the regular Gaoluinn Irish language lessons in The Irish Independent. I’ve spent some time this week on the trail for similar resources for Gaelic in vintage newspapers. Did anything like Gaoluinn exist in Scotland?

Our Gaelic Page

Well, around the turn of the 19th Century, it happens that The Highland News was publishing this regular page packed with language learning content. Although Our Gaelic Page didn’t consist of lessons in the sense that Gaoluinn did, it featured poetry, prose, song, a learner’s Q&A section, and even recent exam paper questions.

Its aims are clearly different from those of Gaoluinn – this a page for those with Gaelic, who want to maintain or improve it. But it offered a wealth of material for that end; in some ways, the content reminds me a little of the NRK podcast Språkteigen – discussion of language simply for the love of learning it.

Clàrsach nan Gaidheal

Its regular song section, Clàrsach nan Gaidheal – the Gaels’ Harp – is a great find for anyone interested in traditional music. Editions ran into the hundreds, each one offering background notes, lyrics in Gaelic and English, and even the music in the form of what I think are chords. Annotation like mn and r aren’t familiar to me, though, so if anyone has an idea about what they refer to, I’d love to hear from you!

An edition of the Gaelic song series, Clàrsach nan Gaidheal from The Highland News, 1898.

An edition of the Gaelic song series, Clàrsach nan Gaidheal from The Highland News, 1898.

Exam Reports

One of the more academic inclusions consists of exam reports from various places – sometimes Glasgow, sometimes as far as London. As well as the top performers’ names, we get, unusually, a rundown of all the exam questions, too. Newspapers as a repository of past papers is a brand new genre for me (and one I quite like, I must admit!).

That said, the exams take quite a different tack from the more communicative approach of today. This is Gaelic being taught much as Latin and Ancient Greek were – declensions and conjugations by rote. As much as I love that traditional take, perhaps treating the language as a written classic wasn’t the best strategy for reviving it in conversation.

Gaelic examination reports from The Highland News, 1902.

Gaelic examination reports from The Highland News, 1902.

Our Gaelic Page seems to have run from 1897 to 1902 – at least that’s what turns up in the BNA scans. But it’s certainly not the only focus for learners a century ago. Further searches turn up plenty of other evidence for an active, enthusiastic community at the time. Amongst the tidbits are reports from language societies, notices seeking teachers for adult classes, and ads for new reference books. Nothing new there – in fact, it’s heartening to draw a continuous line between learners then and now.

In any case, it’s a lovely glimpse into life as a language learning a hundred years back, as well as a great reading resource for this modern-day learner. I’ll doubtless be dipping into more of Our Gaelic Page over the coming months.

Alphabet Texts

Textual Time Machine: Turning to the past for motivating target language texts

Gary Barlow and Margaret Thatcher accompanied me on my language learning this week. This surprising turn of events was thanks not to celebrity friendships and psychic messages, but rather a lucky stumble across a treasure trove of motivating target language texts.

In truth, I was getting a bit tired of language learning textbooks. Dialogues about holiday scenarios and sanitised snippets of everyday life in the target language country weren’t sparking my fire at all. As such, I was struggling a bit to motivate myself to read.

Then, I happened upon the Icelandic media archive timarit.is.

Tantalising texts: balancing subject and level

It is not possible to overestimate the benefits of hitting upon just the right texts to motivate your language learning. There are two strands to bear in mind on that search, sometimes complimentary, sometimes conflicting: subject and level.

Subject is important to inspire you to read in the first place. For example, I’m not interested in race car driving at all. So trying to plough through an Icelandic magazine article on Formula One is going to turn me right off. Music or travel, on the other hand, and I’ll be hooked in – especially if the text contains some new information that will be interesting or useful to me personally.

Level is simply the complexity of the language. But level interacts with subject, at least in terms of motivation. If the subject matter fascinates you, even a very difficult text will be one you gladly pore over. And if you are familiar with the subject matter, guessing new vocab from context is a hundred times easier and less frustrating.

Textual Time machine

Enter timarit.is. It is a grand, online collection of digitised newspaper and magazine media by the National and University Library of Iceland. This incredible service makes accessible publications that stretch back decades, fully readable and downloadable in PDF format.

Now, you might well chuckle at my first searches. A whole world of information at my fingertips, and my first selection was anything but highbrow. I grew up during the boyband explosion, so anything that whips up nostalgia around that will pique my interest. So that settles it: what had Iceland to say about Take That in years gone by?

That’s the trick though: don’t shy from your geekiest interests. Be shameless! Dig around and find some material to explore and reminisce over. The whole point is to connect, to personalise, to enmesh your learning into your life – even the cheesy parts. There certainly was no shortage of vintage cheese on offer here, like this cutting on “Gary Goldboy“:

Tímarit (mbl.is)

Gary Barlow, 1996 (timarit.is)

Sometimes the time machine can throw some real zingers of historical nuggets your way, too. I happened across the following (probably apocryphal) story of said popstar moaning about the cost of beer in Berlin in 1996. Celebrity gossip ages quite well, it seems – still served with an eye-roll and a heap of scepticism.

Beer outrage (timarit.is)

Beer outrage, 1996 (timarit.is)

Our history – their eyes

Popsters aside, I am also a bit of a news and current affairs junkie. When I get fed up of the current dirge (which happens a lot lately), I turn to the recent past. Exploring political history, especially what happened in your own lifetime, can be an enlightening exercise.

Trawling the pages of timarit.is reveals an unusual passion: reading about my own country through the eyes of another. I spent a good few hours typing in the names of figures associated with big political events, then seeing the Icelandic take on them through archived, authentic texts.

Callaghan or Thatcher? They decide today! (Timarit.is)

Callaghan or Thatcher? They decide today! 1979 (timarit.is)

The marvellous thing about timarit.is is the sheer depth of chronology. Facsimiles go back to the turn of the 20th Century. I leapt from Thatcher, to Wilson, to Attlee, reading excitedly each Icelandic take on a turning point in my country’s history. Fascinated is an understatement.

Target language culture?

But just a moment: British bands and British politicians? It’s all a bit Anglocentric, so far. However, you can use these as a springboard for tropes closer to your target language. After reading about Thatcher, for example, I searched for the phrase ‘first woman’ in Icelandic. Which other trail blazers would pop up? Well, I wasn’t disappointed. I learnt all about Iceland’s – and the world’s – first female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

Vigdís voted president! (Timarit.is)

Vigdís voted president! 1980 (timarit.is)

Of course, I have my own target language country fascination already: Eurovision. And there is no shortage of material there! I can’t explain how enthralled my inner nerd becomes when reading about the songs that I obsessed over for years as a superfan. Simply magical.

Eurovision Iceland 1992 (timarit.is)

Eurovision hopefuls for Iceland in 1992, feeling ‘well rehearsed’ (timarit.is). See here for the resulting live performance!

The fact that all this material is downloadable in PDF format is invaluable. I can simply load them onto my iPad (I use GoodReader for PDFs) and study them on the go.

Other languages

Timarit.is is a truly golden resource. As an Icelandic learner, I am beyond lucky to have open access to such a library. But where does this leave learners of other languages?

Sadly, while there are paid archives like the German http://www.genios.de/presse-archiv/, free materials like timarit.is are hard to come by. Perhaps Iceland’s size has made the task of collating and gaining rights for so much material a little easier than elsewhere. Still, even on paid-for sites there is some useful information.

The archive of German publication Spiegel is a good example. You can search editions back to 1946, although you must pay for the full issues. However, the cover thumbnails are intriguing in themselves as pieces of social history. They also contain a fair bit of useful target language in the form of headlines and subtitles.

Spanish news outlet ABC also offers its Hemeroteca (newspaper library) for information time travellers. I found this article on Spain’s first Eurovision victory, by Massiel back in 1968, particularly charming!

With a bit of Google search grafting, there should be something to find out there for all learners.

Archive sites are goldmines for language learners searching something a bit different to read. Do you have a favourite or recommended source of texts? Share them in the comments!