Category: Gaidhlig

While recording natural conversational speech of fluent Gaelic speakers over the past couple of years, we have taken to also “scaffolding” these clips for the benefit of any Gaelic learners or non-speakers who wish to follow them as well. We now have a new “Shortcuts” page where these clips are collected together for ease of access!

How and why have we done this?

There is obviously a lot of talk about AI (Artificial Intelligence) these days, with plenty of excitement as well as concern over what the future holds for computer-assisted construction and deployment of “Large Language Models” (LLMs) etc, and where they might leave lesser-used languages like Gaelic. That said, the term “AI” itself lacks clear definition, and we have certainly been happy to use new technology to help capture and curate Gaelic and other languages since the very beginning of Island Voices, back in 2005!

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is our default construction of Clilstore transcripts for most of the recordings we make. Originally designed as a language learning aid (principally through its built-in dictionary look-up facility), Clilstore has proved equally valuable simply as an online platform for combining video recordings of authentic speech with verbatim transcripts. On our new “Shortcuts” page all the clips presented on YouTube are also made available on Clilstore. This will enable learners of Gaelic to match up the spoken and written word as they listen and read, and quickly check any unfamiliar vocabulary for translated meaning in an online dictionary. (Learners who find the real-time speed of fluent Gaelic speech challenging should also note the YouTube facility to slow video playback down without altering the pitch of the voice.)

Whether or not you consider Clilstore to be an example of AI, there is no doubting its place in automatic translation tools such as Google Translate. And we’ve been happy to incorporate that facility for the benefit of non-speakers of Gaelic when taking advantage of the Closed Caption (CC subtitling) option that YouTube offers. You can choose to either activate the CC button on our videos or leave it off. If you do use it, the subtitles will appear in Gaelic by default – a handy aid in itself for some – but you can also choose to get them auto-translated into other languages, including English. The results are not perfect – the software still has difficulty distinguishing between crofts and harps! – but it will give a pretty decent overall impression of the content of discussion.

As we know, there are plenty of non-speakers of Gaelic resident in the remaining Gaelic communities who are still interested in knowing what their neighbours, friends, or indeed other family members like to talk about. This kind of technology hints at new open access paths to community knowledge and local history without the need for Gaelic speakers to switch to their other language in order to pass on their own thoughts and feelings.

There’s a mix of speakers in the featured recordings. A good half have spoken Gaelic as their first language all their lives. Others learnt it after arriving in the Hebrides as young children, whether returning with family or being adopted into the community. And a couple of others, while also having a close family connection to the language, have taken the harder route to fluency, through active study as second language learners. In all cases we hope you will find they have interesting stories to tell!

You can find this shortcuts material here. Take a look and share with like-minded friends!

We are indebted to the UHI Language Sciences Institute’s CIALL project for its support over the last couple of years in enabling its production.