Là na #Gàidhlig (Gaelic Twitter Day) received some pre-Christmas praise by Irish news agency Tuairisc.ie in a comparitive analysis of Scottish Gaelic and Irish Twitter use following the publication of MG Alba’s 2021 Strategy for Gaelic Media.
In the article by Maitiú Ó Coimín, the success of Là na Gàidhlig™(Gaelic Twitter Day) was contrasted against the habitual use of Scottish Gaelic on Social Media platforms like Twitter which was seen as worryingly low.
Fortunately, following several public consultations and group workshops which Social Media Alba ® was involved in over the past year, it is clear to see that MG Alba has taken on board our insight and comments which appear to be fully reflected in their Gaelic Media Strategy, Lèirsinn 2021.
This we believe should help to secure the revitalisation of the Gaelic language and keep it relevant and appealing to our Digital Natives currently going through Gaelic Medium Education and hopefully encourage them to continue using their Gaelic after secondary school.
The comparison on Twitter use, produced by scholar Dr Kevin Scannell, revealed that Gaelic Tweets are now being produced at approximately a rate of 1000 per week by 190 Tweeters.
Of these, around 21 accounts use Gaelic most at least 70% of the time.
It was also highlighted that once public Gaelic organisations are removed from the analysis, it reveals there are only 10 independent tweeters using Gaelic 70% or more. We are glad to say that Seumaidh ® is one of them.
Seumaidh ® iss ranked in position 26 of Twitter users and has tweeted in Gaelic 70.8% of the time.
Our Community Gaelic™ (@ScotsGaelic) and Social Media Alba ® (@socialmediaalba) accounts fared not too badly ranking in 44th place with 58.5% and 52nd place with 41.4% respectively.
You can have a look at and play around with the Indigenous Tweets database here, from where these results stem.
This is not the first time we’ve had an article written about Gaelic Twitter Day!
On the eve of Là na Gàidhlig™ last year, Tomaí Ó Conghaile wrote up a piece about the initiative in Nós magazine.
