Gaelic can test the pronunciation and spelling of anyone who is not a native speaker. Boris Johnson is probably wishing now that he had never attempted it after a disastrous attempt to deploy his knowledge of the language while promoting whisky.
The foreign secretary was aiming to boost sales of one of Scotland’s greatest exports at an event in India when he made his ill-judged stab at the language spoken by about 60,000 Scots.
He was in Delhi to address Indian businessmen before the meeting with the country’s prime minister.
After struggling to pronounce the Scots Gaelic word for “water” — “uisge” — Mr Johnson decided to spell it out for his bemused audience. Unfortunately, he first spelt the word “uisce”, which is the Irish Gaelic for water. He then had another go, this time spelling it “uisceaugh”, which is not a word in any known language.
Finally, the foreign secretary pronounced the word “Gaelic” as “gaylick”, which refers to the Irish version of the language rather than the Scots “ga-lick”.
Advertisement
A spokeswoman for the SNP said: “Boris Johnson doesn’t have a clue when it comes to Scotland or the Gaelic language and, as usual, he wasn’t slow to demonstrate his ignorance.”
Donald MacNeill, chief executive of Comunn na Gàidhlig, an organisation that seeks to promote the Scottish Gaelic language, said: “It would have been good if Mr Johnson had been slightly better briefed about Scottish v Irish Gaelic and that he had worked on his pronunciation a bit more.”