A living language

Jackie Macadam explores how the Church of Scotland is keeping Gaelic alive in worship.

“GAELIC is a living language in Scotland,” says Roddy John MacLeod, Convenor of the Church of Scotland Gaelic group. “It’s our indigenous language, going back centuries in use. If Gaelic dies out in Scotland, it dies out across the world as a living community language, and that’s one reason it’s important that the Church does what it can to keep it in use although the ultimate motivation is not the survival of Gaelic but the continuation of worship and the propagation of the Christian faith through the medium of Gaelic.”

Roddy John was born on Skye and spoke Gaelic as his first language. He’s been pleased to see the growing interest in speaking Gaelic in Scotland and elsewhere. “There’s currently a huge demand for Gaelic education, that is education through the medium of Gaelic, and that shows that people – that parents – think of it as important, and as a good thing for their children to have.

“It’s a key to an important part of Scotland’s heritage, but in terms of keeping it alive – that means using it, teaching in it and encouraging interest in it.

“It’s really a national issue, not one that is just confined to the Highlands and Islands or the small part of Scotland where Gaelic is the daily language of the community.”

“ It’s really a national issue, not one that is just confined to the Highlands and Islands or the small part of Scotland where Gaelic is the daily language of the community.

The Gaelic group is exploring some exciting ways to create new Gaelic resources for use in homes, schools and churches throughout Scotland.

“We’ve linked up with a company called Go Chatter Media Ltd, who create and distribute Bible animation videos using Lego, and Gaelic versions of their Christmas and Easter videos have already been produced – and very well received – with others to come. Another very successful partnership has been with the Scottish Bible Society, in projects such as the production of a Children’s Bible. And, although it’s not an initiative of the Church of Scotland Gaelic Group, another exciting development, led by an American ministry called Faith Comes By Hearing and facilitated by the SBS, was the creation last year of the first digital audio recording of the New Testament in Gaelic.

“The Rev Hugh Stewart from Lewis has been very important in the work he’s doing to see Gaelic used in a variety of media. There’s an unmet need for materials in every format that are able to be used by children in school, at home and in Church.

“Sadly, Gaelic is not used much in Churches now. Most churches don’t have a Gaelic service anymore whereas it used to be the norm in Gaelic-speaking areas that all services were in Gaelic. It’s now a vanishingly small number who maintain a weekly service in Gaelic. We manage to do it here in Edinburgh at Greyfriars Kirk. There are other places who manage once a fortnight, others who hold one once a month and others less frequently. By that stage it’s very tenuous, but the hope is that some of these imaginative projects will spark an interest.”

One recent example of work to promote the Gaelic language has been the Gaelic Audio New Testament project.

“We worked with an American organisation, Faith Comes By Hearing, who are old hands at recording the Bible,” says Mairi Morrison, Gaelic co-ordinator for the Scottish Bible Society. “Their experience was invaluable.” Mairi is highlighting the work behind a new, audio version of the New Testament in Gaelic that the Scottish Bible Society has recently produced.

“I worked on the Gaelic New Testament Audio project last summer,” she says, “Which was two months of solid effort from volunteers and the team from Faith Comes by Hearing from America working first in Edinburgh and then up in Stornoway. It was launched in February at the Scottish Parliament and in Stornoway with a thanksgiving service and seems to have been received very well.”

The project was designed to be completed “by the community, for the community” and this was certainly achieved with around 50 volunteers and a few paid actors taking part.

“The audio recording used the 2017 New Gaelic New Testament,~ she explained. “It took 10 years to create, being translated from the original Greek by a team of volunteers from the Church of Scotland, the Free Church and the Roman Catholic church.

“Two people came over from the United States and stayed with us for two months,” she says. “They knew exactly where we were in the Bible at any time and were able to keep the volunteers and the actors informed about the context and what was coming next, so they could express the words they were reading in an appropriate way.

“As I was the only person in the SBS team who spoke Gaelic, I became a kind of go-between. We soon realised that the larger roles, like Jesus and Paul, were going to involve a great deal of studio time, so we employed six actors to play the principals. We have made it, not just a straightforward ‘reading’ of the NT, but more of a dramatised reading. For instance, Jesus, who is played by an actor called Eoghann MacDonald from Benbecula, spent around 67 hours in the studio, recording the words of Jesus, so in effect, you’ll hear Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount, rather than it being read in the third person. Each ‘character’ has their own distinct voice and narrators are used to keep the flow.

“Some of the team of 50 volunteers, in Edinburgh and in Stornoway, spent two or three days recording pieces; others could only give us half an hour. It’s been an amazing experience and a joy to work on.

“There were also two proof listeners at every session who were reading along with the speaker to ensure that the accuracywas there.

“We really couldn’t have done it without the tireless work of our volunteers in Stornoway and Edinburgh – we are so grateful for their time and dedication,” she says.

“We finished recording, one month in Edinburgh and the second in Stornoway, at the end of August last year and launched in February with an event at the Scottish Parliament followed by a thanksgiving service held in Stornoway”.

Another project involves a small company in England who use animation as a medium to connect.

Go Chatter Videos is a Christian media ministry that serves and equips churches around the world with quality video content and they’ve been working with the Church’s Gaelic Committee to produce content for children that can be used in schools, at home or in any setting. They’ve been using Lego videos to spread Bible stories for some time, but their work with the Church of Scotland has allowed the production of original animated Lego films in Gaelic as a first option instead of an afterthought. Key in the role is teenager Joshua Whitehouse. “I’ve just always been fascinated by Lego,” he said, “so much so that as I grew older, I began to enter competitions and interact with the massive Lego community that exists online.”

During lockdown, Joshua, who was living in South Africa at the time, reckoned he would like to create some stop-motion Lego films for the use of his church.

“The first was a very basic Palm Sunday scene and to my delight, it went down really well,” he said.

“ Now, happily, this year the Church of Scotland is one of our biggest backers, and there will be more translations this year using both Gaelic and Scottish accents.

Over the next couple of years of lockdown, he made a further five animations, all equally well received.

“One of my second-cousins was working for Go Chatter at the time and saw some of the Lego animations I had made. At the end of 2021 Go Chatter reached out to me and said that as it was Easter in four months’ time, would I be interested in creating an Easter stop-motion with them?”

It was quite a challenge for Joshua, who was 17 at the time, as it took around two and a half to three months to create the animation, from start to finish, juggling schoolwork too.

“After finishing the Easter stop-motion, I realised I didn’t want to go to university straight after school, and instead wanted to carry on creating these videos.”

Dan Rackham (who set up and runs Go Chatter) offered Joshua the chance to come to England and work with them for a gap year initially, which has since turned into a full time job.

“Since the Easter Story, I’ve produced the Christmas Story, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and David and Goliath, using Lego stop-motion. (that’s where the scene is photographed, then fractional movements are made to the characters and backgrounds and photographed again, so that when the photographs are run together at speed, the motion becomes fluid and the characters appear to move).”

The Church of Scotland became involved after spotting the Christmas Story on YouTube and it was shared among lots of churches.

“The Gaelic Committee suggested that we translate the video into Gaelic and they stepped up to find the money to do so. Now, happily, this year the Church of Scotland is one of our biggest backers, and there will be more translations this year using both Gaelic and Scottish accents.

“We are hoping to do The Good Samaritan, David and Goliath, the Paralysed Man, Jonah and the Whale (which is very challenging due to the difficulty of making the movement of the waves!) as well as Lazarus and the story of Ruth.” Joshua says.

“The videos are proving to be very popular. The English version of the Easter story was used in over 1000 churches across the UK and the Christmas Story was used in even more, at over 1200 churches.

“The Gaelic versions have been distributed to around 500 churches in Scotland, but really, they are suitable if you want to watch them at home with your children, with your elderly parents, with a group of youngsters or even just as a family. We’re really pleased at how well-received they’ve been. It’s great to know that so many youngsters are enjoying the work we are doing.”   

The Gaelic Bible can be accessed on the Scottish Bible Society’s resources site at www.scottishbiblesociety.org/resources/gaelic-bible and is available for free.