The Revival of Scottish Gaelic Through Education By Michael McIn ...

of this study. The purpose is to give us perspectives from which to view the struggle of minority languages, which continues from the observations of the first chapter on the shrinkage of the Gaelic language and culture and the general dying off of languages (Crystal, 2000). This section also explores the specialness of languages—how each language contains a specific and unique worldview as enunciated by the Whorfian hypothesis (Whorf, 1938, 1956), and how this specialness expands the value of languages beyond the utilitarian concerns put forth by Crystal (2000) regarding what he foresaw as an impending die-off of the world's languages. Beyond this viewpoint, I explore the corollary evidence of the existence of language culture and address the question, What is the linkage between language and culture? I go on to examine the evidence for a linkage between language and identity—both personal and cultural. In addition, I describe how minority language policies are grounded in documents related to the international community's current stance on the rights of minority peoples, as expressed in treaties, conventions, declarations, and international agreements. These conventions are, in many ways, preceded by the ethical arguments for the rights of minority peoples to maintain and express their cultures and languages, advanced by such writers as Fishman (1976, 1989, 1991), Gramsci (1971; as cited in Foley, 1999), and Freire (1970).

In the chapter at the end of part I, I explain the methodology used in approaching and analyzing the research and findings in this book. By drawing on a constructivist view of knowledge and taking guidance from various writers who have diverged from a view of scholarly writing that pretends to objectivity, I describe the constructivist framework that informed the researching and the writing of this book.

Part II examines how the educational system of the Gaelic revival movement is serving as vehicle for the advocacy for minority languages and marginalized cultures, the assertion of ethnic rights, and the engineering of social change. The major emphasis of the naturalistic research will be composed of the examination of documents connected with Gaelic education, both formal and nonformal, involving both children and adults. The chapter opens with a study of some present efforts to