A #Gàidhlig teacher of mine was a native speaker from Skye. He said as a child he turned round to his mother who only spoke Gaelic to him and said in English "I'm not going to speak that language anymore". His brother did the same. He said "children are little pragmatists"

He went back to #Gàidhlig later and it was a part of his life, but his brother never did and lost it. Children who speak minority languages - such as Gaelic or #Scots - are under immense pressure in our society and so will very often gravitate towards the dominant language

I think this kind of "push-back" thing is incredibly common when raising children with a minority language, or even any other language that's not dominant in the community.

I think this happens on a massive scale in Scotland, which is why so many people in this country can understand either Scots or Gaelic (such as in the Hebrides) but not speak the languages. They are used to being spoken to in one language and replying in English

I suspect too this is what happens with immigrant communities, in terms of intergenerational transmission of Polish, Italian etc. I'm sure there will be many people in Scotland who can understand Italian or Polish for instance, or Cantonese, but not speak the languages

We may see this with newer waves & groups of families from immigrant backgrounds in years to come. The examples I'm thinking of would be perhaps older people whose parents or grandparents were Scots-Italian, or Polish soldiers that came here during or after WW2

When we had Gaelic classes running in Rattray here in East Perthshire, we shared a room with a group that turned out to be a kind of group for bairns from Polish families. It was an all-Polish speaking environment that local families put together to keep their language going

It was lovely, it was almost like a playgroup or something, after-school, like. But that way they could speak to their families & relatives in Poland even though they were born and raised here in Scotland