An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Gaidheal > Volume 35, October 1939--September 1940

Am Mart, 1940,
AN GAIDHEAL.
95
72 Victoria Street,
London, S.W.l,
29th January, 1940.
Sir,—With reference to a letter of mine which
you very kindly published, I received the attached
letter, which speaks for itself. I heartily commend
the suggestion to An Gaidheal.—Yours faithfully,
Murdoch MacDonald.
[Copy.]
P.O. Box 113,
Bloemfontein, 10/1/40.
Dear Sir Murdoch,—Pardon me trespassing on
your time, but I have just received the Badenoch
Record of 9th December, 1939, and I wish to con¬
gratulate you on your practical suggestion re the
teaching of Gaelic in Sunday Schools and Churches.
Out here the Dutch Reformed Church has given
powerful support to the Afrikaans language, and
it is fast becoming the dominant speech of the
Union.
Could not “An Comunn Gaidhealach” make a
small award to such churches and schools who still
have Gaelic services?
The Ministers of the Highlands seem eager to
drop Gaelic services.
The women should be inspanned and a league
formed of women who speak it and whose children
talk it. A distinctive badge or brooch should be
given to them.
Wishing you the best of luck in your endeavours.
Yours sincerely,
(Sgd.) A. MacBean.
THE GAELIC LANGUAGE AND DRESS.
8th February, 1940.
Sir,—The letter from Captain F. J. MacDonald
in your February issue is certainly to the point.
Not only is the Gaelic language (unlike the Irish
or Welsh) likely to disappear in the near future
as a spoken tongue, but even the dress recognised
as the only Highland military one is now in danger
of being discarded—all through apathy and lack
of national sentiment on the part of our country¬
men ! It is a sad assertion to have to make, but
one, nevertheless, only too true. Slowly but surely
our national distinctions are being discarded, or
taken from us, through sheer inability to hold our
own. One would have thought that the latest
interference with our Highland military garb would
have been strenuously opposed by An Comunnn
Gaidhealach and An Gaidheal, both by action and
in print, but apparently this is not so. “Stands
Scotland (and the Highlands) where it did?” The
answer is, unfortunately, most emphatically “No” !
To those who have worn the “Garb of Old Gaul”
in war and peace, and have any regard for it, the
present situation as regards the kilt and our High¬
land regiments is deplorable in the extreme. When
will Highlanders unite in defence of those things
they should hold most precious?—I am, etc.,
“Cabar Feidh.”
[Apparently “Cabar Feidh” does not read his
An Gaidheal, otherwise he would have known that
it is not a fact that An Gaidheal did not strenuously
oppose the latest interference with our Highland
military garb, as our issue for December will show.
The Executive of An Comunn Gaidhealach had this
matter twice before them, wrote to the War Office,
and got the reply that “it is the intention that
the wearing of the kilt for ceremonial and walking
out shall be resumed in peace.” We are quite
aware that “ged nach duine an t-aodach nach
duine e as aonais” and acted accordingly.—Editor,
An Gaidheal.']
GAELIC AND RUSSIAN.
Sir,—In reference to F. J. MacDonald’s letter in
your February issue, I was interested to note his
mention of the Russian language in comparison
with the Gaelic, having myself learnt Russian in
order to read its literature in the original during
the Great War.
Besides its wealth of consonantal combinations,
rendering it a beautiful, mellifluous spoken
language, the construction of Russian very much
resembles that of Gaelic, being loose and flexible
(the exact contrary to that of French, in which
there is only one correct way of rendering an
expression, viz., that fixed by the French Academy,
which quite possibly accounts for the French
'bourgeoisie being the most narrow and
conservatively minded in Europe) Before the Great
War the upper classes of St. Petersburg owed
their wide culture (the best of them) to the fact
that the classics of all other countries and their
best modern writings were translated into their
monthly journals, so that when they travelled they
went mentally equipped from their own to foreign
Capitals. Russian is definitely not a European
language, and it is in this non-European aspect
that it so resembles Gaelic.
I believe also that in possessing the word blagost
it is unique in having an expression to convey
exclusively the personal relationship existent
between man and God.—Yours faithfully,
F. Jean Kennedy.
95 Barcombe Avenue,
Streatham, S.W.16, 4/2/40.
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