There is something particularly exhausting about watching people treat languages they don't understand as though they aren't languages at all.
I've seen Gàidhlig dismissed as gibberish, mistaken for Gaeilge, described as broken Irish, and treated as though its spelling is nothing more than a collection of random letters. I've seen people make jokes about having a stroke trying to understand it. I've seen unfamiliar names treated as invitations to improvise, rather than something worth learning to pronounce.
I am learning Gàidhlig. I've also studied some Cymraeg. I'm not claiming to be fluent in either, but I care about them, and I care about the people who speak them.
This is personal in more ways than one. I had a brain bleed as an infant, developed hydrocephalus and have undergone four brain surgeries as a result, most recently in April 2026. So when somebody makes a joke about having a stroke because they cannot understand a language, it doesn't land as harmless wordplay. It is an especially unpleasant thing to hear, both as someone learning Gàidhlig and as someone with that medical history.
And yet these comments are often made as though the language itself is the problem. As though unfamiliarity is evidence of nonsense.
It isn't.
English isn't the measure of everything
A language doesn't need to look or sound familiar to an English speaker to be legitimate. Its spelling doesn't need to follow English conventions. Its grammar doesn't need to resemble English grammar. Its words don't need to be immediately recognisable.
English is not the default setting for human communication.
There are thousands of languages in the world, with different histories, structures, sounds and writing systems. Some use alphabets that English speakers rarely encounter. Some have grammatical features that English doesn't have. Some preserve sounds and distinctions that English has lost.
That doesn't make them lesser languages. It makes them different.
And when a language has survived generations of marginalisation, pressure to assimilate and deliberate attempts to suppress it, dismissing it as a keysmash is not an especially clever observation. It is another way of treating something unfamiliar as something that doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.
Celtic languages aren't interchangeable
One of the things that frustrates me most is how frequently people collapse Celtic languages into one vague category.
There isn't just one Celtic language. There are several, with their own histories and linguistic identities.
The languages commonly discussed today include Gaeilge (Irish), Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic), Cymraeg (Welsh), Brezhoneg (Breton), Kernewek (Cornish) and Gaelg (Manx).
They are related, but they are not interchangeable. Even within the Celtic language family, there are distinct branches. Gaeilge, Gàidhlig and Gaelg belong to the Goidelic branch; Cymraeg, Brezhoneg and Kernewek belong to the Brittonic branch.
Their shared history doesn't make them the same language, any more than the relationship between English and German makes them interchangeable.
You wouldn't expect somebody speaking German to understand English perfectly simply because both languages are Germanic. The same principle applies here.
Gàidhlig is not Gaeilge. Cymraeg is not Kernewek. Brezhoneg is not some peculiar spelling of Welsh.
They are languages in their own right.
You can learn them, too
Something else worth remembering is that these languages aren't inaccessible secrets. There are people, organisations and resources actively teaching them.
For Gaeilge, there are resources such as Bitesize Irish, Let's Learn Irish and Teanglann, which is particularly useful as a dictionary.
For Gàidhlig, I particularly recommend SpeakGaelic. It is a structured learning resource and a good place to start if you're interested in Scottish Gaelic.
For Cymraeg, the National Centre for Learning Welsh provides courses, while SaySomethinginWelsh offers another approach to learning.
For Brezhoneg, there are resources such as Desketa and Loecsen.
For Kernewek, Learn Cornish provides learning materials. Cornish also has different written orthographies, including the Standard Written Form and Kernewek Kemmyn.
And for Gaelg, you can look at Learn Manx and the Gaelgagh podcast.
You don't need to become fluent overnight. You don't even need to commit to learning a language. You could start by learning how to say hello, how to pronounce somebody's name, or how to recognise the language when you encounter it.
A little curiosity goes a long way.
These languages are being used now
Celtic languages aren't confined to historical documents, old recordings or language classrooms. They're being used in contemporary music, television, games and creative work.
I was genuinely surprised to discover Loch nam Madadh / Wolf Bay. A Gàidhlig horror series already combines several things I love: horror, Scottish Gaelic and werewolves. Werewolves are a major special interest of mine, so this was already an unusually perfect discovery. It also features Limonead.
Limonead, the performing name of Sinead Swann, is a Gaelic hip-hop artist from Tain. Her music brings Gàidhlig into hip-hop, pop and rap.
Gun Ghaol take things in a considerably heavier direction. They're a Scottish Gaelic metalcore band, and their collaboration with Limonead, Gabh Ceum Air Ais, brings Gaelic hip-hop and metalcore together.
Gaeilge has its own contemporary musical representation in Chasing Abbey. The Irish trio combine traditional Celtic instrumentation with modern electronic production, using both English and Gaeilge in their music. Their album Cyber Celt explores Irish identity and contemporary culture.
These languages aren't confined to one genre, one generation or one idea of what Celtic culture should sound like.
Hollowfall: putting the languages into something new
This is something I've tried to put into practice in my own work, too.
I'm developing Hollowfall, a procedural dungeon crawler with a setting influenced by Scottish folklore. It has English, Gàidhlig and bilingual language settings, and I've been working on bringing both Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic into its characters and world.
The distinction between the languages matters enough that the game keeps their localisation separate. Gàidhlig has its own translation data, spelling conventions and accent rules. Gaeilge has its own, including its use of the acute accent, or fada. They aren't mixed together or treated as different spellings of the same language.
I've also documented where the translations come from and how confident I am in them. The Gàidhlig and Gaeilge localisation documents distinguish between phrases supported by sources, phrases constructed from verified components and anything that still needs a fluent speaker's review. I've explicitly asked speakers to correct the work before the translations are treated as finished.
I'm learning, and I'm not going to pretend that makes me an authority on either language. I'd rather acknowledge what I don't know and give people who do know the languages an opportunity to contribute.
There are two hidden characters in Hollowfall who make this particularly personal.
The first is a Wulver named Eòghann, a wolf-headed figure from Shetland folklore. He's a dedication to me. The second is Aodhán, a cat who lives beside a fire and speaks Gaeilge. He's a direct nod to my boyfriend.
They aren't interchangeable characters, and neither is their language. Eòghann has Gàidhlig greetings; Aodhán has his own Gaeilge dialogue. Both have been given a place in the game because these languages and the people connected to them matter to me.
The Wulver's appearance is deliberate, too. I've always had a major interest in werewolves, so a wolf-headed figure from Scottish folklore felt like a natural character to include. But I didn't want him to be just another wolf.
He holds a branch of yew.
That's because of my name. Ewan, or Eòghann in Gàidhlig, is often glossed as meaning "born of the yew", although the precise etymology is disputed. The yew is also a tree with a long-standing place in Celtic and British folklore, associated with age, endurance, death and renewal. Giving the Wulver a yew branch connects the character to the name he's dedicated to. It makes him a representation of several things at once: my interest in werewolves, my connection to Scottish folklore, my name and the tree that name is associated with.
It's a small detail, but it matters to me.
The game also draws on other Scottish folklore, including the Cailleach, the Bean nighe, kelpies and the Fortingall Yew. I'm not trying to present every popular story as unquestionable ancient history; the project documents its sources and acknowledges where folklore has a more complicated history.
Hollowfall is one example of what happens when you stop treating these languages as curiosities and start using them. They can be part of a character's identity, a game's interface, a piece of dialogue or an entirely new story.
They can belong in the things we make now.
What does it actually mean for a language to be dead?
People sometimes describe languages as dead as though that means they have no present-day relevance. But the distinction between a language no longer having a continuous native-speaking community and a language no longer being used at all is important.
Latin is a useful comparison. It no longer has a continuous community of native speakers in the way that English, French or Gàidhlig do. But it hasn't disappeared. It remains important in Catholic liturgy, the Holy See, academic scholarship, scientific nomenclature and historical study. People still learn it, read it and, in some cases, use it conversationally.
A language can lose its everyday native-speaking community without becoming meaningless or ceasing to be used.
And Gàidhlig certainly hasn't reached that point. It has speakers, learners, literature, music, television, education and communities actively working to keep it alive.
BBC ALBA is one visible example of that continuing presence. It broadcasts in Gàidhlig and provides contemporary programming for a living language community.
Calling a language dead because you personally don't encounter it very often says more about your own exposure than it does about the language.
Scots isn't Gàidhlig, either
While we're clearing up misconceptions, Scots deserves its own distinction.
Scots is a Germanic language, descended from northern Old English, particularly the Northumbrian variety. It developed through northern Middle English into a distinct language.
Gàidhlig is a Goidelic Celtic language.
They have different linguistic histories, structures and vocabularies. Scots isn't Scottish Gaelic, and Scottish Gaelic isn't Scots.
This distinction matters because even tools that are supposed to help people can get it wrong. Google Translate and other services have sometimes conflated Scots and Gàidhlig, which is frustrating when you're trying to work with either language.
Alba has more than one linguistic tradition. Recognising one doesn't require erasing the others.
Fàilte gu Alba
There is something particularly meaningful about seeing Gàidhlig recognised in public life.
The Scottish Languages Act 2025 gave Gàidhlig and Scots recognition as official languages of Scotland, with provisions for their promotion and support. That recognition matters, particularly given the history of suppression and marginalisation that both languages have experienced.
One of my favourite examples is the bilingual welcome signage when travelling north from Sasainn into Alba.
Fàilte gu Alba.
Welcome to Scotland.
It's a simple phrase, but it carries a lot of meaning. It makes Gàidhlig visible in a place where it belongs. It reminds people that Alba has a language and a history that don't begin and end with English.
I like seeing it. I wish there were more opportunities to encounter Gàidhlig in everyday life.
Gàidhlig isn't broken Gaeilge
I've encountered people who describe Gàidhlig as broken Gaeilge, or suggest that it is somehow an incorrect version of Irish.
That is not an accurate way to understand the relationship between the languages.
Gàidhlig and Gaeilge are closely related Goidelic languages. They share a common ancestor, but they have developed independently over centuries. They have different pronunciations, grammatical conventions, vocabulary, dialects and orthographies.
Neither is a corrupted version of the other.
There are similarities, and learning one can sometimes help you recognise patterns in the other. But that doesn't make them the same language.
I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting this attitude represents Gaeilge speakers generally. It doesn't. Both languages have experienced marginalisation, and both deserve respect. People who speak Gàidhlig can also make dismissive comments about Gaeilge. The problem is the attitude, not an entire language community.
We should be able to celebrate the relationship between these languages without insisting that one is subordinate to the other.
I've experienced this my entire life
Part of why this subject resonates with me is that language and identity aren't abstract concepts in my life.
My name is Ewan. In Gàidhlig, I use Eòghann. They're not two separate identities. They're the same name expressed across two languages.
'S e Eòghann an t-ainm a th' orm.
My name is Ewan.
I've had to explain my name more times than I can count. People mispronounce it, misspell it or simply decide to use something else. I've even been called Samuel, my middle name, despite not going by it.
I'd genuinely rather somebody tried to pronounce Ewan and got it wrong than ignored my first name entirely.
There's a difference between making an honest attempt and deciding that somebody else's name isn't worth the effort.
The same principle applies to languages. You don't have to know everything about Gàidhlig to show it basic respect. You don't have to pronounce every word perfectly. You don't have to understand every grammatical rule.
You do have to recognise that it is a language, that it belongs to people and that it deserves the same consideration you'd give any other language.
A name isn't an invitation to improvise
Names are often the first thing we learn about another person. They are also one of the first things we can choose to respect.
If somebody tells you their name, use it. If you're unsure how to pronounce it, ask. If you get it wrong, listen when they correct you.
Don't substitute another name because it's easier for you. Don't assume that a name is a mistake because it doesn't look familiar. Don't treat someone's language or identity as an inconvenience.
This isn't about expecting everyone to know every language or every name in the world. Nobody can do that.
It's about being willing to learn.
Unfamiliar doesn't mean unintelligible
I understand that Gàidhlig can look unfamiliar to someone who has only ever encountered English. Its spelling conventions are different. Its pronunciation isn't always obvious to an English speaker. The same is true of Gaeilge, Cymraeg, Brezhoneg, Kernewek and Gaelg.
But unfamiliarity isn't evidence of nonsense.
A word you can't pronounce isn't a keysmash. A language you can't understand isn't gibberish. A name you've never encountered isn't an invitation to replace it.
There are histories behind these words, communities behind these languages and people who use them every day.
You don't need to understand a language to respect it.
These languages deserve to exist without explanation
I don't think people should have to justify the existence of their language every time somebody unfamiliar with it encounters it.
Gàidhlig doesn't need to prove that it is a real language. Gaeilge doesn't need to defend its spelling. Cymraeg doesn't need to make itself more accessible to English speakers to deserve recognition. The same applies to every other language that gets dismissed because it doesn't fit somebody's expectations.
If you're interested, learn something. Pick a language and explore it. Listen to its music. Watch a programme. Read something written by a speaker. Learn how to say hello, or how to pronounce someone's name.
And if you already speak one of these languages, keep using it. Keep teaching it. Keep making things in it. Keep giving it a place in the world.
These languages aren't relics. They aren't collections of random letters. They aren't broken versions of something else.
They're languages. They're living parts of people's identities, histories and communities.
And they deserve to be treated that way.