Gaelic is not a language commonly heard in the United States, but one Adna and Centralia College graduate has made it her mission not only to learn the dying language, but help revive it.
“It’s such a beautiful language to me because I’m a huge history person … This was spoken, like, hundreds of years ago, and it’s so cool to be a part of that,” said Anna Jones, who, at 21 years old, is preparing to fly to Scotland this fall to start a five-year master’s degree program in teaching and Gaelic, also known as Gàidhlig, at the University of Edinburgh.
The program Jones is joining had just five graduates last year, and Jones suspects she might be the first international student to enroll.
“I'll be becoming a teacher but also learning Gaelic to be fluent in it, and then when I graduate, I can be a Gaelic medium teacher, so I'll be teaching in Gaelic in the Highlands,” Jones said.
Jones started learning Gaelic, a Celtic language with a rich history and cultural significance in Scotland, during a family trip to Scotland when she was in eighth grade.
“I’ve always loved languages and I was like, ‘Oh, this is cool, I can learn a little bit,’” she said, recalling how she and her family stayed with a Scottish resident in his house in the Highlands. That resident’s daughter was a Gaelic singer, Jones said, “and I was amazed by that.”
Jones brought one of the daughter’s CDs home to listen to, which helped Jones maintain an interest in Gàidhlig as a language. She later learned through an ancestry DNA test that she has Scottish heritage herself, which further increased her interest in the language.
“I liked Gaelic but as I got older, I realized it was a dying language,” Jones said.
Census records from 2022 show roughly 57,600 people, or about 1% of Scotland’s population, said they could speak Gaelic — a decline from the 59,000 speakers recorded in the 2001 census.
Aside from a community of about 2,000 Gaelic speakers in Canada, the language is not well-established outside of Scotland.
A Gaelic revival movement is underway in Scotland, and Jones hopes her involvement in the University of Edinburgh program will put her in a good position to aid that effort.
“I want to be part of the cause that helps bring it back because I’m a language person and I was like, ‘not only will I get to be a teacher, but also teach in Gaelic.’ I just thought that’d be such an amazing experience,” Jones said.
Jones will start out taking classes at the University of Edinburgh’s campus, but will do a year-long Gaelic immersion on the Isle of Skye as part of her five-year program.
“My student teaching is at a Gaelic medium school, which is so crazy,” Jones said.
Jones graduated from Adna High School in 2020 and earned her associate’s degree from Centralia College as a Running Start student.
She leaves for Scotland on Aug. 30, with her program officially starting Sept. 18.
