Inverness businesses urged to put Gaelic first

INVERNESS companies are being encouraged to invest in bilingual signs — with Gaelic as the dominant language.

Gaelic development agency Comunn na Gàidhlig operates a bilingual signage scheme providing up to 60 per cent or a maximum of £2000 towards the total costs of new signs or marketing materials.

The scheme raises the profile of the language and has used £94,000 to help 148 projects across the Highlands and Islands in the last seven years, including around 10 in the Inverness area.

Signs have been changed at Crown Vets, the Castle Tavern and the menu was altered at Royal Highland Hotel to incorporate Gaelic. It is also advising Asda on how it can use the language on its signs during the construction of its first Inverness store in Slackbuie.

The organisation’s chief executive Donald MacNeill believes businesses would benefit from such investment, even if their staff do not speak Gaelic.

“We would like to see more organisations from Inverness coming forward to take advantage of the scheme,” he said.

“In the last year demand has been lower, but still more than we can accommodate and the general economic situation might have a bearing on that, but with the way times are maybe businesses want to stand out from the crowd and maybe bilingual signs will give them that unique selling point which is slightly different to their competitors.

“The quite simple rule for the scheme is that Gaelic and English get the same design prominence with Gaelic taking priority either above or to the left of English.”

An independent study of its work since 2004 by Inverness-based Reference Economic Consultants shows that 91 per cent of projects felt the signage was a good use of their own resources.

Findings will be presented to the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on Gaelic, at Holyrood today.

The work will be used to try and attract more funding for the scheme, which dates back more than a decade and costs £35,000 per year and is supported by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. It has enough money for the next 12 months, but hopes to negotiate a new deal with HIE and will approach Bòrd na Gàidhlig — the two other bodies who helped pay for the study.

John Watt, HIE’s director of strengthening communities is delighted businesses and organisations are happy to invest in the scheme.

“We are convinced that Gaelic is at the very heart of communities across this area, but also that we should take advantage of the economic opportunities it offers,” he said.

The scheme is only open to private or community organisations and does not relate to signage for public bodies or road signs.