Talk:Scottish Gaelic

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Scottish Languages Bill

The Scottish Languages Bill is currently being considered. The first draft of the bill can be found at [1] .

The bill starts with "An Act of the Scottish Parliament to make provision about support for the Gaelic and Scots languages; to make provision about education in relation to Gaelic and Scots; and for connected purposes." So, that's "support" not "official language of Scotland".

It mentions "The Gaelic language has official status within Scotland." which appears to have no real meaning whatsoever. The official briefing[2] that accompanies the bill has an estimate of its financial cost over 5 years of £700,000. This is a particularly small budget for anything, let alone making a minority language a country's official language.

In short, if enacted, I cannot see that this bill will make any changes apart from allowing parishes with more than 20% of their population proficient in Gaelic to use the language more in local affairs. That falls far short of an official language. So I don't think the article will need to change in any great way if the bill is passed. There may well be some press comment when that happens which may be useful, but that's it.

For information, the deadline for the bill in stage 1 is 20 Sep 2024, as per [3]. Its progress can be followed at [4] ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 19:34, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling of program/programme

I am puzzled at User:Largoplazo's reversion [5]. The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) gives the spellings for British English. This is not a matter of using an American English spelling in an article with British/Scottish links (and which is flagged as being written in Scottish English). As per the OED, the spelling "program" is a perfectly valid spelling in British English, and I know of no authoritative source that says anything different applies for the Scottish version. Someone used "program" (in the article) in the meaning of an academic program a substantial while ago and the two instances in question here have the same meaning. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 22:16, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to some etymologists, "programme" originated in the Victorian era when people with a limited classical education presumed the word came from the French, when actually it is from Latin and Greek, which in an Anglicisation is "program". Not that this affects the points made above, other than explaining where the two spellings come from. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 22:21, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ThoughtIdRetired I don't know what the OED says (the website is paywalled), but most other definitions online explain that "program" in British English is reserved for computing. It is not a common spelling in other contexts. Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 22:45, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you see the notes under the etymology in the OED? The influence of French programme led to the predominance of this spelling in the 19th cent. The forms programme and program have since become established as the standard British and U.S. spellings respectively, with the exception that program is usual everywhere in senses relating to computing. Largoplazo (talk) 22:49, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of images

Many images have been added in the last few days. Can I suggest familiarisation with MOS:IMAGEREL, particularly in regard to "too many (images) can be distracting: usually, less is more"? Mutt Lunker (talk) 14:23, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You might bring this up on the editor's talk page - they appear to be new and may not check here. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:02, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]