ALL over Scotland you can find standing stones carved with symbols that no one understands any more, telling stories everyone has forgotten.

No one says that’s a reason to tear them down — they are part of the fabric of Scotland.

7 Sam Heughan occasionally speaks in Gaelic as Jamie Fraser in Outlander

But, somehow, when it comes to Gaelic, that’s a bit different. It’s a dead language, some claim. No one speaks it. No one ever spoke it round here. Why are we wasting all that money on bilingual road signs?

So let’s start at the beginning. It’s not a dead language.

Huge efforts have been made to stamp it out — in 1616 an Act of Parliament ruled that Gaelic should be “abolishit and removit” from Scotland — but it survives and it’s growing back.

Once upon a time, everyone spoke it round here — just ask Outlander star Sam Heughan, whose character Jamie Fraser is fond of a Gaelic phrase or two and has helped make the language known worldwide.

7 The Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis, where many natives speak Gaelic Credit: iStock - Getty

Even as recently as a hundred years ago, large parts of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire were still Gaelic-speaking.

You want to see bilingual signs? Have a look at the war memorial in Fortingall.

Anyway, many of our road signs are already bilingual.

Some people bristle when they see place names translated from English but, mostly, it’s the other way around. Locations were translated from Gaelic in the first place.

Auchenshuggle, in the east end of Glasgow, is Achadh an t-Seagall, or the field of rye.

Edinburgh suburb Craigentinny is the rock of the fox, and Crossmyloof, in Glasgow’s southside, is the cross of St Liubha.

Even deep down in the south-west, Galloway is Gall Ghaidhealaibh — the foreign Gaels.

Shona MacLennan is chief executive of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, the body charged with promoting the Gaelic language.

7 Auchenshuggle in Glasgow means 'field of rye'

7 While Edinburgh's Craigentinny is Gaelic for 'rock of the fox' Credit: Michael Schofield

7 Bilingual signs are common on train stations in Scotland Credit: Alamy

She admits she may almost understand why seeing “Polis” written on a police car gets some people’s backs up, but said: “There’s a feeling that Gaelic equals nationalism and nationalism equals Gaelic — but Gaelic speakers are as mixed politically as the rest of the population.

“The Conservatives started Gaelic medium education long before devolution. They also funded broadcasting. And then, under the Lib-Lab Executive, we had the Gaelic Language Act.

“People think the promotion of Gaelic is all a nationalist plot but, actually, it was three Unionist parties that began this work.

“The critics say it’s a dead language, not a modern language, because they catch the odd familiar word in the middle of the news and point out there is no Gaelic word for television or helicopter or pasta.

“But there is also no English word for television or helicopter or pasta. The English language has borrowed words for those things — so does Gaelic.”

Gaelic almost shrivelled away in the recent past and it was Gaelic speakers who did most to stamp it out, simply by depriving their children of the knowledge of the language.

All it takes is a single generation for the language to be lost. Shona insisted: “People were misled — there has been a strong legacy that Gaelic will hold you back.

7 Shona MacLennan, chief executive of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, insists the language is far from dead

7 Glasgow’s Gaelic School was the best-performing local authority school in the city

"You had to pull against that — the attitude that it’s only suitable for certain places and certain information and situations.

“You had to be really strong to go against that because the whole push was English, English, English! English was what was important, so it was claimed.

"But language is the words that express your culture and your philosophy. An Italian speaker would see the world in a different way to an English speaker and the same is true for a Gaelic speaker.

“There is no longer anyone who is solely a Gaelic speaker. They go between those two worlds but it’s normal.”

“People think the promotion of Gaelic is all a nationalist plot but, actually, it was three Unionist parties that began this work." Shona MacLennan

It’s not only normal, it is — literally — mind-expanding, according to Shona. And the results show in the network of Gaelic medium schools.

Glasgow’s Gaelic School topped the league table as the best-performing local authority school in the city.

More primary schools are springing up and kids are keen to join the resurgence.

Shona continued: “People say Gaelic schools get the results because they are packed with middle-class kids.

“Not in Glasgow they’re not. They have a really wide catchment area and children from all sorts of backgrounds.

“Immersive education does things for a child’s ability to learn. It used to be thought it would hold you back, as if there was only a certain amount of space in your head.

“But it’s been shown that by using another language, you make more space in your head.

“Kids who are bilingual have improved cognitive skills and their English skills are at least equivalent to, and quite often exceed, the skills of those who are educated in just English.”

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The massive success of time-travel drama Outlander here, in the United States and elsewhere has prompted VisitScotland to come up with a Gaelic tourism strategy.

They are looking to cash in on this new fascination with the language which people from overseas feel, even if we don’t.

Shona said: “Gaelic is one of the ‘Unique Selling Points’ of Scotland. There is an economic opportunity with Gaelic. And it goes worldwide.

“Gaelic is a normal part of daily life. That’s as it should be.”

andrew.nicoll@the-sun.co.uk

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