Christopher Ivor Adam

CHRISTOPHER IVOR ADAM Prospects for the Cave of Gold: Scottish Gaelic in Contemporary Art

May 2025

Fine Art BA Hons Dissertation

DOI 10.20933/100001379

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Prospects for the Cave of Gold: Scottish Gaelic in Contemporary Art Christopher Ivor Adam

Le taing do mhuinntir Gàidhlig Dhùn Dè, sàr-sgoilearan agus nan caraidean dhomhsa.

Abstract Since 2021, three works of art have been made in Scotland by as many different artists – all younger than 40 – which incorporate Scottish Gaelic in diverse and meaningful ways. With reference to the work of theorists in language and art, namely Pierre Bourdieu’s Language and Symbolic Power (1991) and Roland Barthes’ Image-Music-Text (1977), the significance of experiencing this endangered language either sonically or visually through art is discussed herein.

The first artwork is Mairi Gillies’ multimedia sculpture Uamh an Òir (2021), inspired by an enduring Gaelic legend of the same name. Next comes ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023), a soundscape described by its maker Freya Macleod as ‘psychogeographic’. The final work is Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021), a film shot on the Isle of Skye by Andrew Black. It is after Gillies’ sculpture that this dissertation takes its title, Uamh an Òir (in English, The Cave of Gold). This golden cave symbolises the rich treasury of the Gaelic language, for centuries tethered to the Scottish landscape and now dimly obscured from the view of the many. These three young artists have prospected for its riches, spun its sounds, letters and legends into their art, and the prospects – that which we can anticipate – for this endangered language are transformed.

The double meaning of the titular ‘prospects’ is not accidental: Gaelic provides another way to experience and understand these artworks, and possibly more besides.

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Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents.................................................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures........................................................................................................................................................ iii Glossary of Gaelic Terms ...................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................ 1 Gaelic in Context ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Rationale ............................................................................................................................................................ 2 Research Objectives ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Structure ............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Literature Review ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Language and Symbolic Power (1991), Pierre Bourdieu ................................................................................... 4 Image-Music-Text (1977), Roland Barthes ........................................................................................................ 6 Uamh an Òir (2021), Mairi Gillies ......................................................................................................................... 7 The Pìobaireachd ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ [MacCrimmon Will Never Return] ............................................... 9 Further Analysis of Uamh an Òir (2021)......................................................................................................... 11 ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023), Freya Macleod ............................................................................................................... 19 ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) and Linguistic Equivalence ........................................................................................ 23 Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021), Andrew Black ............................................................................................... 26 Symbolism in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) ............................................................................................ 26 Song in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) ...................................................................................................... 30 Gaelic Text in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) ........................................................................................... 33 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................ 35 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................................... 38

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List of Figures Figure 1: Uamh an Òir (2021) (Gillies, 2021a) ...................................................................................................... 7 Figure 2: The transcript of ‘‘Cha Till Mac Cruimein’ as sung by Morag MacLeod in the 1970s’ (Blankenhorn, 2019, p. 380) ......................................................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 3 (above): ‘Cha Till Mi Tuille’ (Cannon, 1978a, pp. 20-21) ..................................................................... 13 Figure 4: Uamh an Òir (2021) (Gillies, 2021a) .................................................................................................... 13 Figure 5: Uamh an Òir (2021) with annotations (Gillies, 2021b) ........................................................................ 15 Figure 6: ‘Cha Till Mi Tuille’ (excerpt) with annotations (Cannon, 1978b, p. 20) .............................................. 16 Figure 7 (left): Uamh an Òir (2021) (excerpt) (Gillies, 2021a) ............................................................................ 17 Figure 8 (right): ‘Cha Till Mi Tuille’ (excerpt) with annotations (Cannon, 1978b, p. 20) ................................... 17 Figure 9: ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) exhibition label (V&A Dundee, 2023) ............................................................ 19 Figure 10: Installation of ‘Radical Gaels’ (2023) (Macleod, 2023a) ................................................................... 20 Figure 11: Audience engaging with ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) beside nearby exhibits (Macleod, 2023b) .............. 21 Figure 12: Opening scene (Dàn Fianais, 00:00:17) .............................................................................................. 26 Figure 13: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:00:37) ....................................................................................................... 27 Figure 14: Film still; the skipper’s song heard as dawn breaks over Skye (Dàn Fianais, 00:00:58) .................... 27 Figure 15: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:03:35) ....................................................................................................... 29 Figure 16: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:03:59) ....................................................................................................... 30 Figure 17: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:11:32) ....................................................................................................... 33 Figure 18: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:03:54) ....................................................................................................... 33

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Glossary of Gaelic Terms fèis (plural: fèisean):

A regional Gaelic arts festival, mainly for young people, with tuition in song, dance, drama and traditional music (Fèisean nan Gàidheal, 2024).

Gàidhealtachd:

The area of Scotland in which Scottish Gaelic is, or historically was, the vernacular speech; the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Lamb, 2025, p. 2).

The Royal National Mòd:

A Gaelic festival held annually and consisting of mostly of formal competitions in music, song, dance, drama and literature (An Comunn Gàidhealach, 2024).

pìobaireachd:

ùrlar:

A form of classical music for the Highland bagpipe, typically martial or funerary in character; a piece of bagpipe music (Cheape, 1999, p. 67).

The ground, or theme, of a piece of classical bagpipe music which is followed by variations (Gibson, 2002, p. 302).

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Introduction Gaelic in Context Scottish Gaelic, or simply ‘Gaelic’, is a Celtic language primarily spoken in communities in the Western Isles and Highlands of Scotland, with pockets of speakers in Glasgow, Edinburgh and eastern Canada. Originating from Old Irish – a language first recorded in Scotland around the fifth century CE (considerably earlier than the first evidence of English) – Gaelic is one of the oldest languages in Europe and thrived as the dominant tongue throughout much of Scotland for many centuries (Lamb, 2025, pp. 1-2). From the 18th century onward, a decline in Gaelic speakership began to accelerate, driven largely by the forced displacement of Gaelic-speaking settlements during the Highland Clearances, which persisted into the 1880s. A concerted drive towards thoroughgoing English monolingualism was pursued by official institutions in Gaelic-speaking areas until the 1970s, perpetuating the language’s erosion and further compounding its already perceived inferiority to English (McLeod, 2020, p. 32).

Given its history, that today Gaelic is classified as ‘definitely endangered’ (UNESCO, 2010) may be unsurprising; fewer than 70,000 people in Scotland speak it, and an overwhelming 97.5% of its population have no skills in Gaelic whatsoever (Scotland’s Census, 2024). Its precarity has seen the language become increasingly politicised in recent years, with the issues of Gaelic Medium Education (Smith, 2020) and bilingual road signs (Hauschild, 2024) attracting criticism from prominent political and cultural figures.

Gaelic’s decline is sometimes justified by a belief the language is somehow ‘underdeveloped’ (McLeod, 2020, p. 44), despite it having given rise to a distinct and ancient tradition of oral poetry exemplified in Ranald MacDonald’s anthology of 1776 and in Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica (1891) (MacInnes, 2006, pp. 230-247). This remarkably rich tradition grounded a Gaelic cultural revival in the 19th century which saw 1

the establishment of the Royal National Mòd and regional fèisean, the continued survival of which vividly illustrate the modern vitality of Gaelic culture regarding poetry, dance, drama and traditional music.

Rationale Contemporary art is seldom articulated as integral to Gaelic culture – to the extent that MacDonald (2013, p. 94) claimed the Gàidhealtachd lacked even a history of art. The absence of this key marker of cultural status is the problem this dissertation seeks to address, one which is marked at this critical time in Gaelic’s history.

Now a minority language spoken by roughly 11,000 people in the Western Isles, Gaelic’s extinction throughout its traditional heartlands is likely within the decade (Ó Giollagáin et al., 2020). Yet over 500,000 learners have enrolled in Duolingo’s Scottish Gaelic course since the pandemic (The Chartered Institute of Linguists, 2023). That younger Scots overwhelmingly view Gaelic as vital to Scotland’s national heritage while Gaelicspeaking communities are collapsing encapsulates the nuanced climate as one of simultaneous desperation and hopefulness (Scholes, 2022).

I also began learning Gaelic in 2022, now using it in my artistic work and regularly practicing the language within a growing community of fellow learners in Dundee, well outside the Gàidhealtachd.

The artworks examined in this dissertation were all made since 2021, during this fascinating time of both optimism and pessimism for Gaelic. Their makers may epitomise these times in another sense: Macleod is a native speaker; Gillies, a fluent learner; and Black has little experience of the language. Their artworks offer valuable insights into three unique perspectives of Gaelic. Their study herein may illuminate why a new generation of artists are engaging with this endangered language, and whether Gaelic art yields the potential to become as celebrated a cultural tenet as other forms.

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Research Objectives This research aims to investigate how Scottish Gaelic is used in contemporary art. With reference to three specific artworks, it examines how the integration of this language into art can transform the physical works and the language itself. This study seeks to ascertain the significance of experiencing this endangered language in artistic contexts and considers the broader implications for Gaelic more generally.

Structure This dissertation begins with a review of Pierre Bourdieu’s Language and Symbolic Power (1991) and Roland Barthes’ Image-Music-Text (1977). Their theories on cultural capital and semiology are particularly relevant to Gaelic’s presence within galleries and the different sensory experiences of the language each artwork offers.

The first chapter analyses Mairi Gillies’ sculpture Uamh an Òir (2021), exploring how materiality can communicate the interconnection between traditional Gaelic myths and landscape. It covers how Gillies’ reference of preexisting Gaelic material, like pìobaireachd, shows the depth and multifaceted nature of cultural inheritance. The second chapter investigates Freya Macleod’s soundscape ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023), examining the sonic experience of Gaelic in art and the potential revelations of experiencing the world through the language itself. The final chapter considers Andrew Black’s film Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021), which uses symbolism, text and Gaelic song to convey the nuanced facets of Gaelic’s history and roles in modern society.

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Literature Review Although many sources are cited throughout, this dissertation is primarily framed by two key texts: Pierre Bourdieu’s Language and Symbolic Power (1991) and Roland Barthes’ ImageMusic-Text (1977).

Language and Symbolic Power (1991), Pierre Bourdieu In this work, Bourdieu (1991, p. 37) theorises that legitimacy is accrued to individuals through ‘cultural capital’, which rests on markers such as language. A significant way language can gain legitimacy is through its use within well-respected institutions (Bourdieu, 1991, pp. 45-46).

The arts organisations that commissioned Uamh an Òir (2021) and Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) – Tobar an Dualchais and ATLAS Arts respectively – undeniably function as ‘Gaelic institutions’, using the language in public and internal communication. Through Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital, Gaelic is validated as a language suited to contemporary art, bolstered by the credibility and prestige of these artistic institutions. Most significant of all is V&A Dundee’s commission of ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) for their exhibition ‘Tartan’. Gaelic’s inclusion into this highly regarded design museum, one of multiple Victoria and Albert sites across the UK, authenticates Gaelic’s use in the arts considerably.

However, V&A Dundee operates exclusively in English, reflective of how Gaelic is rarely, if ever, present in artistic settings outside the sparsely populated Gàidhealtachd. This is perhaps unsurprising given Gaelic is not an official national language, despite the Scottish Government’s stated intention to officialise it (Scottish Government, 2022). The language’s widespread absence from Scottish art institutions, though perhaps understandable,

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perpetuates a perception that it is somehow ill-suited to engaging with or articulating contemporary art.

In omitting Gaelic, arts organisations betray the possibility that the language has scant place in their ‘legitimate vision of the world’, something which Bourdieu (1991, pp. 238-239) asserts an institution’s use of language seeks to establish and impose. In these exclusively English-language settings, a Gaelic artwork may be ignored, its linguistic dimension making it seem inaccessible. Worse still, the ideas and meaning expressed through the language may themselves be discredited, appearing less substantial and convincing against the artistic authority of English.

Curiously, however, this is potentially beneficial to Gaelic art. In being the sole presence of the language, these artworks become distinguished, their intrigue amounting even to prestige. Due of their mutual unintelligibility and distinct orthographies, Gaelic and English seem more clearly to operate within two delineated ‘realms’ within galleries: English, the more authoritative and administrative; and Gaelic, when present through an artwork, the artistic, the imaginative. Thus, Gaelic may wield an ‘artistic capital’ due to this institutional exclusion. Its rarity within galleries can rarify the language with a kind of otherworldly mysteriousness with the effectiveness of any other artistic device. Gaelic feels not only suitable to expressiveness, but inherently given to artfulness; any message present in the artwork intensifies.

However, this can skew one’s understanding of an artwork with romanticised or misconceived notions about Gaelic and its history, a phenomenon McLeod (2020, pp. 40, 67) affirms is longstanding. The complex effects of this are discussed in detail regarding Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021).

Nonetheless, these artists have challenged the systemic dominance of English throughout contemporary art at risk of marginalisation and misunderstanding. Their

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conviction helps solidify Gaelic as a credible form of artistic expression, one which will be ever more recognisable throughout Scottish galleries, assimilating the language into a legitimate vision of the art world.

Image-Music-Text (1977), Roland Barthes This collection of essays explores the relationship between image, sound and text through semiotic analysis. In The Photographic Message, Barthes (1977, pp. 15-32) defines a ‘sign’ as constituting two parts: the ‘signifier’ and the ‘signified’. The signifier is the sign’s physical form (an image, sound or text) and the signified is the concept it represents. For these purposes, the signifiers are the three artworks, including their titles and related exhibition ephemera. What they represent, be it these artists’ intentions or otherwise, are the signified.

Importantly, Barthes (1977, pp. 21-22) claims that signifieds are intrinsically ‘historical’ in nature, which matters for artworks which incorporate Scottish Gaelic. The legacy of the language’s decline, its current uncertainty and political contentiousness cannot be wholly absent from these works and must in some way colour our understanding of them.

In his essay The Grain of the Voice, Barthes (1977, pp. 179-190) discusses how language is experienced differently when animated by a person’s voice when speaking or singing. Its various applications are expounded in detail regarding ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) and Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021), which both incorporate sonic experiences of Gaelic.

The following artworks are interpreted in reference to Barthes’ (1977, p. 148) argument in The Death of the Author, that the audience of any creative work is justified to freely interpret it upon completion, regardless of the intentions of its creator.

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Uamh an Òir (2021), Mairi Gillies

Figure 1: Uamh an Òir ([The] Cave of Gold) (2021); plaster, oils, peat soot, peat ash, spring water and gold; 92 x 122cm (Gillies, 2021a).

Gillies’ sculpture is a silent plane of fissured rock systematically arranged into squares without any visual or sonic trace of Gaelic save for the artwork’s title, Uamh an Òir. This refers to the long-established Gaelic legend of the cave of gold, which tells of a bagpiper named MacCrimmon who goes into a cave playing his instrument, never to return (Tobar an Dualchais, 2021).

Barthes (1977, p. 45) describes the text accompanying an image as a constitution part of its ‘iconic message’, an apt idea here. The titular Gaelic words transform our understanding of this artwork from an impenetrable, cryptic rockface into an expression of historical legend, permeating the work with a sense of this mythology.

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Gillies’ manifestation of the tale is more deeply understood when considering her material choices. Peat ash, peat soot and spring water are abundant and fundamental elements of the Harris landscape which are infused with gold. This magical trace of the golden cave suffuses the very landscape of Harris in this artwork, underscoring the deep importance of the myth to the Hebrides. It suggests the legend – represented by this gold – is, like peat ash or spring water, geological in both its ancientness and essentiality to the cultural fabric of the Gàidhealtachd; so too the Gaelic language in which it is told.

Indeed, spoken Gaelic is central to this sculpture’s creation. Inspired by an archived Gaelic-language field recording, Gillies travelled to a cave in Harris in 2021. The recording documented John Norman MacDonald (of Uig, Lewis) discussing how a local bagpiper hid his instrument in a nearby cave to save them from being destroyed by Calvinist islanders during the 19th century. This reminded Gillies of the mythic MacCrimmon’s disappearance into the cave of gold. Once in the Harris cave, Gillies created square plaster casts from the surrounding rock faces, later arranging them into a sixteen-by-twelve grid to represent the pìobaireachd ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ [MacCrimmon Will Never Return] (Tobar an Dualchais, 2021).

The legend is indeed linked to a musical composition sometimes called ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ [MacCrimmon Will Never Return], which originates from a pìobaireachd composition ‘Cha till mi tuille’ [I will never return] by Dòmhnall Bàn Mac Cruimein in the 18th century (Blankenhorn, 2019, p. 363-364). This composition was both sung and played on the bagpipes throughout much of its history because it belonged to an ancient tradition of Gaelic oral poetry, where the recounting of myth was intensely musical (MacInnes, 2006, pp.

169, 234). Due to its complex history, a more thorough exploration of ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ is offered later.

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Gillies was indisputably influenced by Gaelic words which spurred her process of creation. Emphasising this aligns with Merleau-Ponty’s (1964, p. 167) belief that an artist’s vision and their influences permeate their work, guiding our understanding of it so profoundly that it becomes inseparable from its overall meaning. The visual plane of Uamh an Òir (2021) is charged with the words which drove Gillies, and are in some ways present, even visible.

Although focusing on the artist’s intention somewhat undermines Barthes’ disavowal of its significance, the inherent mysteriousness of this sculpture pushes us to contemplate the motives of its maker. This is because an apparent code sits over its surface. Distinct fissures of rock repeat systematically throughout the grid, creating rhythmic patterns which may transmit a cryptic message. What may help explain these patterns is Gillies’ intention to represent the pìobaireachd ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ [MacCrimmon Will Never Return], which through Merleau-Ponty’s lens, may also be visible.

The Pìobaireachd ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ [MacCrimmon Will Never Return] In her essay ‘MacCrimmon’s Return: Traditional and ‘Bogus’ Elements in ‘MacCrimmon’s Lament’’ (2019), Virginia Blankenhorn discusses the complex history of this pìobaireachd and its related songs.

As aforementioned, ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ most probably originated from ‘Cha till mi tuille’ [I shall never return], a pìobaireachd often credited to Dòmhnall Bàn Mac Cruimein supposedly composed before his death in 1746 (Blankenhorn, 2019, pp. 363-364).

It grew popular throughout the Gàidhealtachd principally through being played at funerals and the departures of emigrant ships, owing to its presumably funereal character (Blankenhorn, 2019, pp. 363-364). The first historical record of it (written by Peter Reid in

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around 1826) is designated ‘Cha Till mi Tuille – I return no more – A Lament play’d at Funerals’ (Blankenhorn, 2019, p. 389).

Over the ensuing centuries, this composition was consistently reimagined, and misinterpreted, by successive generations of musicians and lyricists. Many versions were written in Gaelic, Scots and English to melodies bearing varying degrees of similarity to the original. Blankenhorn (2019, pp. 383-385) lists 20 recordings from the archive of Tobar an Dualchais which derive from the original ‘Cha till mi tuille’ by Dòmhnall Bàn Mac Cruimein. Their arrangements vary from solo pìobaireachd to unaccompanied songs with various characters and lyrics in both Gaelic and Scots. Their titles range from ‘Cha till Mac Cruimein’ [MacCrimmon Will Never Return]; ‘Cumha Mhic Cruimein’ [MacCrimmon’s Lament]; ‘MacCrimmon’s Lament’ (listed in Scots, not Gaelic); and most significantly, ‘Uamh an Òir’ [The Cave of Gold]. Although Blankenhorn (2019, p. 383) acknowledges that references to the cave of gold legend in song are rare, she does provide the transcript of song sung by Morag MacLeod which does refer to the legend, shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: The transcript of ‘‘Cha Till Mac Cruimein’ as sung by Morag MacLeod in the 1970s’ (Blankenhorn, 2019, p. 380).

Further Analysis of Uamh an Òir (2021) Barthes (1977, p. 148) argues that written text is comprised of ‘multiple writings, drawn from many cultures’. Gillies’ artwork is similarly composed, and its ancient and cryptic appearance further reinforces the sense that it is infused with preexisting cultural material. One such influence is known, the pìobaireachd ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’, and in striving to represent it, Gillies charges her sculpture with the words sung by Morag MacLeod. Of particular significance are the lyrics ‘gun dùil ri tilleadh’ [without hope of returning] and ‘ged thilleas Mac Leòid cha bheò Mac Cruimein’ [though MacLeod may return, not alive shall MacCrimmon]. The sculpture’s leadenness helps communicate the finality of these Gaelic words, the irrevocability of death and gravity of hopelessness. Indeed, its dimensions of 92 by 122cm could be those of a small ledger panel or gravestone.

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Furthermore, each row of three squares becomes darker down through the sculpture.

These suggest geological layers, or perhaps the obfuscation of mythology into obscurity. It may represent the successive reinventions of the original tune itself, as layer after layer (version after version) is built on the last, it renders the foundational melody ever obscurer.

This may hold true because, in Barthes’ (1977, p. 148) view, every incantation of the tune Gillies intended to represent – all 20 cited by Blankenhorn – suffuse the artwork.

This progressive darkening is reminiscent of entering a cave, evoking a sense of the bagpipes echoing as they are played by the doomed MacCrimmon. The contrast between the vivid, sonorous energy of this idea and the resolute heaviness of the sculpture suggests that this sculpture is a kind of frozen music.

Yet, Gillies’ sculpture is innately silent. Therefore, a visual representation of pìobaireachd may be important to consider. Figure 3 shows the written score of ‘Cha till mi tuille’ – the palimpsestic composition by Dòmhnall Bàn Mac Cruimein – as it appeared in the April 1978 edition of Piping Times. It is shown alongside Gillies’ artwork in Figure 4.

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Figure 3 (above): ‘Cha Till Mi Tuille’ (Cannon, 1978a, pp. 20-21).

Figure 4: Uamh an Òir (2021) (Gillies, 2021a).

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When seen in their entirety, the visual planes are reminiscent of each other, enough to suggest that written notation inspired Gillies’ process of creation. Each is a landscape riven with fissures, scores and contours: one created by incalculable geological processes; the other by notes, grace notes and ornaments. Furthermore, both adhere to gridlines: the sculpture to five-line staves, segmented by vertical bar lines; and the sculpture to fifteen vertical and eleven horizontal lines, forming 192 squares.

However, the similarities are more profound even than this. Most pìobaireachd adhere to a formal structure, where the original melody (the ùrlar) is followed by variations which follow its ‘melodic contour and formal design’ (Dickson, 2009, p. 325). In Figure 3, the ùrlar occupies the top line (marked ‘I’) and seven distinct melodic variations follow, each written on a single horizontal staff labelled by a corresponding Roman numeral. Each variation revisits and develops the ùrlar in increasingly abstract forms, reinterpreting the original melody using ornaments and, occasionally, the inversion of scalar movement, reminiscent of classical counterpoint.

Upon scrutiny of Uamh an Òir (2021), a predictable arrangement emerges, highlighted in Figure 5. Squares distinguishable by their unique contours – as recognisable as characters in an alphabetic system, or notes in a scale – repeat down through every column.

This is not immediately apparent because Gillies has systematically rotated each row of three squares 90 degrees anticlockwise down through the piece.

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Figure 5: Uamh an Òir (2021) with annotations (Gillies, 2021b).

If Gillies’ sculpture echoes this pìobaireachd score, then each ‘character’ symbolises a halfbar. Moreover, this predictable rotation of squares may represent the processes of melodic reinvention present in the latter variations. The intensely complex nature of Gillies’ system – evoking the complexity of the subject itself – invites a more thoroughgoing analysis which cannot be fully conducted here.

Gillies finding visual counterpoint to the inner structures of ‘Cha Till Maccruimein’ is meaningful because pìobaireachd melodies themselves imitate Gaelic words so effectively that ‘remnants of Gaelic speech’ are clearly discernible in its rhythms (Dickson, 2008, p.

331). Resultantly, Gillies has created a palimpsest of a palimpsest: the sculpture of pìobaireachd, and the pìobaireachd of Gaelic words. These successive impressions of the Gaelic lyrics transmit – like the echo of MacCrimmon’s bagpipes – a haunting ghostliness

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evocative of the very nature of myths themselves, even the language’s decline, and anchor the sculpture in the ancient tradition of Gaelic song more generally. Pìobaireachd is so tethered to singing that Gaelic speakers often use the verb seinn [sing] to describe playing the bagpipes, and not cluich [play] (MacDonald, 1995, p. 42).

Grace notes momentarily break the flowing melodic line to emulate the highly personal breaking of a singer’s voice. One such ornament is the mordent, the sharply rhythmic effect of which is created by the bagpiper rapidly alternating between the main note and an auxiliary note (Latham ed., 2011). They appear frequently throughout ‘Cha Till mi Tuille’. Two mordents are highlighted in Figure 6.

Figure 6: ‘Cha Till Mi Tuille’ (excerpt) with annotations (Cannon, 1978b, p. 20).

One square which is replicated and reorientated over the surface of Uamh an Òir (2021) bears similarity to the mordent. Figures 7 and 8 reveal their similarity.

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Figure 7 (left): Uamh an Òir (2021) (excerpt) (Gillies, 2021a) Figure 8 (right): ‘Cha Till Mi Tuille’ (excerpt) with annotations (Cannon, 1978b, p. 20).

Here, mordents – which denote a fleeting break in a singer’s voice – are represented as everlasting stone, suggesting how the emotional – and imperfect – (re)interpretations of songs and other material over generations comprise the beauty of Gaelic culture.

Gillies’ attempt to order the fractured landscape allegorically explains the role of language itself. One assertion of Boroditsky (2011) is deeply applicable here: ‘each [language] contains a way of perceiving, categorizing and making meaning in the world, an invaluable guidebook developed and honed by our ancestors’. Gaelic speech motivated Gillies to represent pìobaireachd (itself an echo of Gaelic words) which guided her perception of the cave’s surface; she categorised the landscape through Gaelic. In systematising the fissured cave wall, she employed a Gaelic lens to depict a pìobaireachd repeatedly misinterpreted by past generations, by ‘our ancestors’. The cave is a metaphor for the ‘present’: its ruptures the result of incalculable geological forces. Gillies used Gaelic to sift through and organise her inheritance, to understand her place in history itself.

Her artwork is proof that to endeavour to truly understand the past, though impossible, is beautiful, and that own our interpretations of it can transfigure our material

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present into expressions of yearning as indecipherable and canonical (and integral to the continuation of Gaelic culture) as the ancient legends which inspire them.

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‘Radical’ Gaels (2023), Freya Macleod Freya Macleod’s ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) is a ‘psychogeographic’ soundscape commissioned

by V&A Dundee for their exhibition ‘Tartan’.

Figure 9: ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) exhibition label (V&A Dundee, 2023).

Through speakers, a loom’s quiet whirring is heard first, then five individuals’ voices consecutively speak about tartan within the Gàidhealtachd. The loom is hypnotically sustained throughout. Macleod provides a button which, if pressed by the listener, immediately changes the language spoken by her subjects from Gaelic to English, and vice versa.

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Figure 10: Installation of ‘Radical Gaels’ (2023) in V&A Dundee; text on wall reads: ‘Brùth air a’ phutan gus an cànan atharrachadh. /Please press the button to switch between languages’ (Macleod, 2023a).

The nuanced consequences of V&A Dundee having commissioned this work, introducing Gaelic into their English-only gallery, are explored in the earlier Literature Review through Bourdieu’s argument that the institutional recognition of language impacts on its authority.

But, in being purely sound, this work’s distinctiveness is not only linguistic, but sensory. The inherent expansiveness of sound circumvents any argument that its inclusion in ‘Tartan’ is glib; Gaelic’s presence is more deeply felt.

Indeed, only disembodied Gaelic voices inhabit the exhibition space in ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023), playing on our instinct to connect them to some material source (Dolar, 2006, p. 59). Here, we attach their speech to the surrounding material, to the visual exhibition which tells of tartan’s history. The language becomes an accompaniment – a Gaelic lens – through which other exhibits, the institution and one’s own conscious experience can be mindfully considered. In naming her work a ‘psychogeographic soundscape’, Macleod invites a depth of introspection and thoughtfulness, too, of the voices themselves.

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Figure 11: Audience engaging with ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) beside nearby exhibits (Macleod, 2023b).

Macleod’s speakers seem to animate Gaelic, vindicating Dolar’s (2006, p. 131) claim that human vocalisation ‘disturbs’ language, giving an experience of more intense feeling than silent, written text. These individual voices – their unique timbres and innate performativity – contain a dynamic and elusive energy such that Gaelic seems truly alive in this soundscape.

Macleod provides space to appreciate the euphony of the language, inviting its appraisal almost as an aesthetic object. Given the widespread unfamiliarity with Gaelic as previously outlined, that the majority of those encountering Macleod’s work have no comprehension of her subjects’ Gaelic speech can be reasonably assumed; most will focus on the textural qualities of the language instead. This aesthetic appreciation might distance the language from the listener, who may regard it more like an artefact, diminishing its relevance.

However, this seems unlikely given the overall effect of ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023): by showing Gaelic in a living form, Gaelic is shown in its truest form. This resonates with Barthes’ (1977, p. 184) claim that, in being ‘given the wear of the language that had been living, functioning, and working for ages past’, spoken language fulfils ‘the clarity of 21

meaning’. This betrays a crucial and seldom acknowledged aspect of languages, that they themselves are historical in nature.

Macleod’s speakers, not only the forebears of a rich linguistic heritage, are enacting the continuation of the language, defying its perceived consignment by some into obsolescence by demonstrating its practice, and thus viability in society. The language is assured with a deep sense of human closeness intrinsic to the human voice, its depth expressive of one’s consciousness, even soul (Derrida, 1976, p. 20; Dolar, 2006, p. 71).

The profound connection between these speakers’ voices and their very selfhood makes Macleod’s decision to award the audience the power to change the language they speak even more significant. Relevant here is Barthes’ (1977, p. 182) characterisation of a voice’s ‘grain’ as ‘the materiality of the body speaking its mother tongue’, the intensely individual vocal texture, linked to one’s physicality, which transmits an innate sense of self.

The natural texture of a person’s voice (its ‘grain’) will naturally differ when speaking another language. Altering this, as Macleod allows, utterly transforms a most profound personal expression.

That Macleod deliberately withholds any visual trace of her subjects may limit the appropriateness of this idea, because our perception of these speakers’ physicality, something Barthes asserts is manifestly changed through a voice’s ‘grain’, is disabled. Instead, the physical exhibition commands our attention, distancing Macleod’s voices from their personhood.

Nevertheless, Macleod grants the audience the momentous power to interfere with each speakers’ very essence – their voice – and the power to do so infinitely often, by simply pressing a button. When pressed, the linguistic change is immediate and unmarked, almost unnoticeable. The contrast between the gravity of this power and the ease and detachment with which it can be done underscores the supreme power of the English-speaking default,

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and how the actions – or inaction – of wider society will have a lasting impact on whether Gaelic is heard at all. By making its audience guilty of whether Gaelic is heard (or not heard), ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) confers responsibility onto society for the survival of this endangered language, that used as the speech – the deepest expressions, in many senses – of others.

‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) and Linguistic Equivalence In presenting Gaelic alongside English, Macleod has, knowingly or otherwise, presented a significant issue concerning linguistic equivalence. At around seven minutes into the recordings, a male weaver in Lewis is talking about tartan. In the English version, he says: “This is Black Watch tartan...it goes black, blue, green...” (Macleod, 2023c).

In the Gaelic version, he avoids an exact translation, saying instead: “Seo Black Watch tartan…le dathan dorch’...” (Macleod, 2023d).

This translates to: “This is Black Watch tartan…with dark colours…”

However indeliberate it may have been, the speaker’s avoidance of directly translating the English “black” [dubh], “blue” [gorm] and “green” [uaine] into Gaelic – instead saying “dathan dorch’” [dark colours] – points to a problem of untranslatability encapsulated perfectly in the title of Sharon MacDonald’s essay ‘‘A bheil am feur gorm fhathast?’: Some Problems concerning Language and Cultural Shift’ (1999). MacDonald explains how gorm – conventionally ‘blue’ in English – was often historically used to describe verdant shades of both blue and green (A bheil am feur gorm fhathast? translates by contemporary standards to ‘Is the grass still blue?’) This is because the Gaelic colour spectrum ‘was divided differently from the English, and colour terminology rested not only on the criterion of hue’ (MacDonald, 1999, p. 186).

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The highly specialised and singular nature of Gaelic cultural classifications, including colour, bears direct significance to the weaver’s words in ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) because ‘bilinguals change how they see the world depending on which language they are speaking’ and rely on language to distinguish between patches of colour (Boroditsky, 2011). In speaking Gaelic, the weaver communicates using words which have been historically misaligned to what have become regarded as their approximate English equivalents. Their misalignment indicates how either language imparted two irreconcilable ways of seeing and understanding the material world onto their speakers: not only did gorm not mean ‘blue’, but what gorm meant didn’t conceptually exist in English.

Therefore, when the button is pushed in ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023), what changes goes beyond these individuals’ personal expressions as discussed earlier, their own sensory experience of the world shifts. Colours look different to them.

Switching between these linguistic ‘lenses’ in Macleod’s soundscape is emblematic of a broader phenomenon described by MacDonald (1999, pp. 189-190), that a distinctly Gaelic way of seeing is being rapidly replaced with an English one. This shift is surely more advanced today than when MacDonald’s claim was made, as the number of native Gaelic speakers, those most likely to practice an intrinsically Gaelic way of seeing, has declined (Ó Giollagáin et al., 2020).

However, the weaver’s linguistic disparity may prove a Gaelic way of seeing is not extinct. His avoidance of direct translation may be understood as an act of resistance to the dominant English mode of perception, perhaps even a defiant one.

On balance, the casual nature of his speech makes this implausible. In fact, his delivery is so relaxed it feels almost unconscious, which could help prove that this is a true example of a Gaelic way of seeing in practice, so mentally ingrained that it happens

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unthinkingly (possibly affirmed by Macleod’s description of her work as ‘psychogeographic’).

Her speaker’s linguistic discrepancy is undeniable. That evidence of this radically different way of experiencing the world is betrayed in a monologue so casual may mirror Macleod’s placement of ‘Radical’ in quotation marks. The irony is that for Gaelic speakers, these vastly different lenses are second nature, proving how multifaceted the practice of this endangered language is. Macleod’s title is in English, and a Gaelic way of seeing is only radical from the literal point of view of English speakers.

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Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021), Andrew Black Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) (henceforth referred to as Dàn Fianais) is a film by Andrew Black which artfully portrays some inhabitants of Skye and Lochalsh. Gaelic song intersperses the accounts of locals, who discuss the island’s history and uncertain future.

In placing Dàn Fianais before its English translation, Black vindicates Bourdieu's (1991, p. 60) claim that artists have the power to challenge conventional linguistic hierarchies. Through this title, Black consciously subverts the societal dominance of English and accrues Gaelic with increased authority, a decision whose defiance is underscored by the word fianais [protest] itself.

Symbolism in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) The film begins with a wide-angle shot of a lamb, shown in figure 12, lying motionless on some heathland at dawn.

Figure 12: Opening scene (Dàn Fianais, 00:00:17).

The following shot at Figure 13 shows the lamb closer and more clearly dead.

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Figure 13: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:00:37).

The established sense of peacefulness remains undisturbed when the voice of AN SGIOBAIR [the skipper] is heard, who sings in English about the resistance of islanders through the violent Highland Clearances as dawn continues to break over the island.

Figure 14: Film still; the skipper’s song heard as dawn breaks over Skye (Dàn Fianais, 00:00:58).

After singing, he says: “I’m not very good at the English [lyrics],” (Dàn Fianais, 00:01:51) a subtle reminder that the Clearances pitted English-speaking authorities against Gaelicspeaking communities, and that this singer, and the whole island, are the inheritors of its linguistic legacy.

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Both images – that of the lamb and those in the song – are presented so serenely that their inherent violence is almost unnoticeable. This tension between brutality and gentleness is naturally arresting and its placement at the beginning of the film makes it feel deliberately symbolic.

This dead lamb is already redolent of the Christian symbol of the sacrificial lamb, whose Biblical significance matters especially to Gaelic. The first Gaelic book to be widely disseminated was the Bible and the zealousness with which it was preached developed Gaelic language rhythms profoundly, such that the sound of modern Gaelic mimics its biblical history (MacInnes, 2006, p. 104). The lamb’s role in Christianity is often sacrificial and bloody (Am Bìoball Gàidhlig, Marcus 14: 14:12), evocative of an altogether more secular aspect of Gaelic history connected to lambs: the Highland Clearances.

The introduction of sheep farming followed the often-brutal clearance of Gaelicspeaking settlements throughout the Gàidhealtachd. This history is told in John McGrath’s play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1974) and one line captures the magnitude of the resultant suffering over the island: ‘we in Skye have put up with just about every indignity a human being can suffer’ (McGrath, 1974, p. 18).

Black’s lamb may embody this violent upheaval because its being dead corrupts its connoted innocence; its embodiment of springtime renewal is thwarted by its morbidity, suggesting that Skye’s own development was itself severely and cruelly impeded. Both this lamb and the skipper’s song are borne out of violence, and the lamb’s pertinence to Skye’s history suffuses this already charged symbol with the decline of Gaelic across the island, establishing it from the very start of the film as its incarnation. Its potency and religious aspect suggest that Black himself has happened across a parable, or the aftermath of one, almost by chance as he encountered the lamb, which reflects the almost Biblical sense of morality through which the Clearances are often viewed (Prebble, 1963 p. 57, 92).

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However, Black’s lamb is completely serene, firmly consigning the island’s bloodiness to history – distant, almost unimaginable from its tranquil present. A new dawn breaks over Skye. Importantly, Black has introduced a language of symbolism and transformed the lamb’s image into a vessel of Skye’s Gaelic history.

This theme of loss continues when a local explains how traditional methods of land conservation have declined.

Figure 15: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:03:35).

His words accompany blurred footage of the soaring landscape, shown in Figure 15, giving it dreamlike quality: proof that the loss conveyed through Black’s symbolism has relevant echoes in modernity.

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Song in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) Black returns to the lamb’s image some minutes later, when two living ones occupy the frame as we hear a Gaelic song, as shown below.

Figure 16: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:03:59).

Paired with music, the lambs appear more lyrical, almost ‘magical’, making us imaginatively recall their previous capacity as symbols of Skye’s Gaelic history (Barthes, 1977, p. 180).

This is confirmed by the choir’s song, ‘Chaidh a’ Chuibhle mun Cuairt’ [The Wheel Has Turned], which recounts how Dunvegan Castle on Skye declined under the rule of a chief who disapproved of the arts (MacNiven, 1970). Its lyrics compound a sense of loss; further encouragement to read this scene as a historical tableau (Barthes, 1977, p. 39).

This Gaelic song is also expressive in a subtler way. Barthes (1977, p. 181-182) described the voice of a Russian bass as transmitting something from ‘deep down in the Slavonic language’. Although speaking specifically of solo singers, its relevance here is undeniable: this song shows Gaelic in a highly lyrical and poetic form, implying its existence among a musical canon and tradition of choral singing. It demonstrates the language’s capacity for aesthetic refinement in transmitting a tale of a community’s hardship with

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artistry and clarity, something begotten, in part, through a song’s natural tendency to draw out the truest ‘diction of the language’ (Barthes, 1977, p. 182-183).

Choirs understandably encourage clear diction of their singers to ensure uniformity and overall musicality. However, this prevents the language from being communicated naturally. Over-enunciation can distort both musical and linguistic expression, creating an affected and stuffy veneer that, as Barthes (1977, p. 182-183) notes, and may undermine the linguistic depth present in singing. This problem applies only partially here because this choir is audibly amateur; that different voices emerge is evidence this choir is not ruthlessly pursuing uniform diction. Rather, we hear the warmly intimate sound of a Gaelic community choir, spanning young and old voices, from which it could be comfortably assumed that Gaelic, too, is a community language of practice. However, the problem of diction exposes the fundamental tension here, namely that Gaelic is rapidly diminishing as the default language in many island communities, including Skye (Ó Giollagáin et al., 2020). Dàn Fianais (2021) exemplifies this: Black’s subjects seem to use English as their default community language.

This song (which mourns the historic decline of the musical arts) being the singular audible presence of Gaelic in an otherwise English film alludes to a perhaps surprising facet of the language’s use through music: it reflects how Gaelic is regularly sung by ‘tartan-clad choir members’ who can ‘often speak almost no Gaelic’ (McLeod, 2020, p. 331). McLeod does not claim this is the only way the language exists chorally, but his statement reveals how Gaelic can become a kind of sentimental ‘material’, which when sung in these choirs can become an empty vessel for nostalgic feeling all the easier because there is often no comprehension of the Gaelic lyrics, helped too by the natural euphony and often sentimental subjects of the songs themselves.

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Gaelic performs that role here. The now living lambs are further animated by the heartfelt song, strengthening their symbolic dimension and implying how collective sentiment about the past persists with a strength of emotional feeling – is literally alive.

For several more minutes, the scene is carried by the song which modulates, becoming more heightened. Wistfulness lapses into sentimentality; the darkening weather feels like pathetic fallacy. After the lambs finally saunter out of frame, both image and music are abruptly cut. Suddenly, the footage is handheld; the filmmakers cough and stumble around, their English accents all thoroughly dispelling the lyricism of the previous scene.

This sudden roughness renders Black’s idyll almost unreally saccharine by comparison, like a daydream, further underscoring its symbolic function. Indeed, this sharp stylistic contrast implies that purely in this lyrical state, Gaelic grows more distant from, and less applicable to, the real world. In becoming rarified with sentimental feeling through song, its use in everyday settings can become unhelpfully romanticised, the more sinister consequences of which are subtly expressed in Black’s scene.

The song’s swelling modulation hints at the propulsive and self-exaggerating nature of this nostalgia, its inability to be contained. Making us understand the neutral weather as pathetic fallacy exemplifies how sentimentality can seep into and colour our perception of unrelated things, the dark consequences of which are mirrored in the climactic darkening itself. The song being abruptly cut short exposes how using Gaelic as a vehicle for reverie is insufficient and evanescent: it flattens the complexity of the language, unfairly charging it with historical or political biases. For the language to become nothing more than a vessel for our own romantic notions about history, its true complexity must be ignored. To invest Gaelic with such notions of the past is to wilfully ignore and misunderstand its present.

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Gaelic Text in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) While Gaelic is heard only once in Dàn Fianais (2021) the language regularly appears on title cards, an example of which is shown at Figure 17, which divide the film into chapters.

Hand-painted letters show titles which encapsulate the spirit of the upcoming segment with the Gaelic over the English.

Figure 17: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:11:32)

The hand-painted black text lends the words and language personal intimacy, but also recalls some graffiti on the back of a road sign seen near the start of the film.

Figure 18: Film still (Dàn Fianais, 00:03:54).

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Both contain two sections of black, hand-written text in a rectangle. Ignoring the graffiti’s message, their resemblance gives Black’s Gaelic text a spirit of authentic, community protest, a sense of institutional exclusion. Indeed, the road sign itself communicates political disagreement, with Gaelic road signage an issue commonly cited by opponents to Gaelic’s development (McLeod, 2020, p. 156). The formality and nostalgia of the choir is dispelled, and Gaelic is presented with more relevance. Black’s text alludes to a growing confidence and energy among a new generation of speakers to broaden the stylistic remit of Gaelic, exemplified in the song ‘Daftaidh’ by Glasgow-based rapper Hammy Sgìth (2021), itself a reflection of an increasing boldness among artists working in minority languages across the British Isles, best personified by the Belfast-based Irish-language rap group Kneecap, whose strong and often provocative antiestablishment and antiimperialist message may yet embolden Scottish Gaelic artists further.

Overall, Black represents Gaelic with a realism rarely found in art: both its function as an emotional, nostalgic vessel, and its capacity for dissent. These two uses of the language perhaps reveal two competing visions for it, one purported more by fluent speakers, the other

by Gaelic singers happy to not learn the language. The dual title Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) suggests that by uniting the lyric and defiant strands of Gaelic through art, protest can be lyrical, and lyricism, defiant.

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Conclusion This dissertation has explored Scottish Gaelic’s role in contemporary art and the linguistic and artistic consequences of its inclusion. My analysis of three specific artworks has shown how this endangered language can transform both itself and the art it informs or comprises, creating new and meaningful ways of Gaelic expression which may challenge preconceptions of the language. This research has considered the broader significance of encountering Gaelic in artistic contexts at this pivotal moment in its history. By highlighting the work of three young artists – each with a unique relationship to the language and working in different mediums – I have demonstrated how strengthening Gaelic’s role in contemporary art revitalises it in new, exciting ways.

Mairi Gillies conveys the impossibility of truly understanding the past in Uamh an Òir (2021), and through representing an often-misinterpreted Gaelic pìobaireachd, demonstrates that in trying to decode the echo of history, we ourselves are woven into it, even creating legends of our own. This historical echo resounds through the living texture of speech in Freya Macleod’s soundscape ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) which captures the seldom acknowledged and profound idea that to speak Gaelic may be to live in it. Gaelic is encountered in Dàn Fianais/Protest Poem (2021) by Andrew Black through song and text to express Gaelic’s nuanced role in modern Scotland as both an expression of historical nostalgia and a franker tool of modern protest.

This research offers some original contributions to a severely under-researched field of study, and while not exhaustive, open routes for further exploration. Noticeably absent from discussion is the thorough investigation of Gaelic visual culture in Window to the West (Bateman and Purser, 2011), the sheer extensiveness of which would demand more space than available here to explore its applicability to contemporary Gaelic artworks. Moreover, the issue raised in ‘Radical’ Gaels (2023) of linguistic equivalence is a constantly developing 35

field, and perhaps Poncarová’s recent book Derick Thomson and the Gaelic Revival (2024) may hold more contemporary relevance to Macleod’s soundscape.

Together, these artworks reaffirm art’s integral significance to Gaelic culture, no less important than other, more widely recognised forms, and herald a bright future for Gaelic art and its criticism, consigning MacDonald’s (2013, p. 94) assertion that Gaelic culture lacked a tradition of art into history.

To disagree with MacDonald (2013, pp. 110-111) further, I believe there has been a tendency by contemporary artists to use Gaelic as a nostalgic instrument, such that much Gaelic art avoids truly brave experimentation and rather conforms along predictable and sometimes remote historical themes. The reason why is contained in Uamh an Òir (2021), which mythically transfigured the Gaelic landscape to express the richness – and perhaps daunting weight – of Gaelic’s traditional legacy. The resultant pressure to honour Gaelic tradition may explain, even forgive, the widespread impulse to recast past material.

However, Gaelic is evolving now at an unprecedented rate, with an ever-growing and enthused speakership extending well outside its heartlands, inviting new possibilities for its existence within the arts and beyond. One of these new speakers is Saoirse McIntee, who I met through events for Gaelic learners in Dundee. McIntee (2025) framed the problem thus: ‘There has been a self-imposed self-consciousness pervading Gaelic artists over being perceived as working in a purely traditional idiom, which they implicitly see as the only legitimate form of Gaelic artistic expression. They trap themselves in the cave of gold.’

I am not advocating to abandon tradition, to forgo the cave’s riches, but rather to reassess this self-consciousness about tradition within the Gaelic arts. With assurance and intelligence, these young artists have navigated a delicate balance: they embrace experimentation while remaining anchored in familiar Gaelic themes. Their art draws on history – sometimes

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intensely so – yet Gaelic emerges renewed, sharp and vividly alive. It is through such bravery – a willingness to step beyond the cave – that artists will experiment further in the language, making not only Gaelic art with growing confidence, but new traditions of their own – traditions which can sustain and reimagine the language’s future.

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