An Echo in the Bone (Outlander, #7)

by Diana Gabaldon

“It’s been on the decline for a number of years. Much more so for the last ten, fifteen years. The Highlands are suddenly part of the UK—or at least the rest of the UK says so—in a way they’ve never been before, and keeping a separate language is seen as not only old-fashioned but outright destructive. “It’s no what you’d call a written policy, to stamp it out, but the use of Gaelic is strongly … discouraged … in schools. Mind”—he raised a hand to forestall Roger’s response—“they couldn’t get away with that if the parents protested, but they don’t. Most of them are eager for their kids to be part of the modern world, speak good English, get good jobs, fit in elsewhere, be able to leave the Highlands … Not so much for them here, is there, save the North Sea?” “The parents …” “If they’ve learnt the Gaelic from their own parents, they deliberately don’t teach it to their kids. And if they haven’t got it, they certainly make no effort to learn. It’s seen as backward, ignorant. Very much a mark of the lower classes.” “Barbarous, in fact,” Roger said, with an edge. “The barbarous Erse?” Menzies recognized Samuel Johnson’s dismissive description of the tongue spoken by his eighteenth-century Highland hosts, and the brief, rueful smile lit his face again.