My thoughts on Gaelic to a tee, Brian,
Well done. Can we more of your sensible comments>

standing outside pubs will not be tolerated after 11pm at night.

Won't affect me as I'm usually face down in the gutter by 10pm.

Good piece, but Bord na Gaidhlig will continue to push for the street signs and they will come. I agree with the bit about education being important, but again a balance has to be struck here. Bord na Gaidhlig sought to exclude English medium children from Sleat Primary school (Isle of Skye) - how would such a policy be received in Din Eidyn?

Not very often I agree with anything you say...but I agree to an extent on Gaelic..
But....the government gave gaelic equal status with english..so whats wrong with gaelic street names...I am from fife and have just started a gaelic course and can't wait until I can speak some of our language.

our language is english
one nation, one language, one people

"...the government gave gaelic equal status with english..."
They specifically avoided doing that. The wording of the bill was "equal respect" because they were worried that "equal status" would create the legal risk of everything having to be done in both languages regardless of demand.

"Edinburgh is a lively, successful, and cosmopolitan city. With a population of 457,830 and growing (expected to be larger than Glasgow's in 30 years)"

Aye, dream on, ya muppet. Edinburgh will always be Scotland's second city. You'd love to be officially bigger than Glasgow but it ain't gonna happen. Edinburgh is full of Brian Monteith types, hence why Scotland despises little Edinburgh!

awww Joe,Jealousy is such a bad thing ;-)

Glasgow's REAL population is around 1.7million.

10. Yes Andy, and that should be officially recognised by having a proper city boundary, not having our biggest city administered by 7 seperate local authorities.

Glasgow's "real" population is about 600,000 and shrinking. Deal with it, please!

"Every year requests are made in the Scottish Parliament for us to add so-called "Scots" to our signage. ... There are even those that would have slang Scots words such as Embra and Glasgae on our road signs. This isn't smart. It's stupid."

It's more than stupid: the vast majority of so-called "English" placenames in Scotland are actually Scots names already, or at the very least Scots renderings of a Gaelic name. The "English" name "Lake of Menteith", for example, can't be English. As my teacher always said: "I before E, except after C". And just try asking an Englishman to pronounce Auchterarder!

However, as to your point about Gaelic signs being pointless, I disagree. The visibility of Scots Gaelic is essential in building a public confidence: while the establishment continues to "hide" Gaelic, it continues to imply that Gaelic is not expected in the public sphere. It takes a lot of courage for a person to use a "hidden" language in public.

While reluctant to get involved in a purely Scottish debate, I feel the following observations from a speaker of both English and Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic) might be of some relevance. At the time of Irish Independence the status of Gaeilge was as the status of Scots Gaelic is now. After 1922 the language was granted official status and placenames and street signs were displayed in both languages. Since the 1970s it has been official policy to have placenames in Gaeltacht areas displayed "as Gaeilge" only. The result of this is to have extraordinary anglicisations of old Irish names consigned to history. Inverin has become "An Indreabhán" again and Spiddal has reverted to "An Spidéál". For speakers of Irish these original versions have deep meaning. The English translations are meaningles phonetic renderings. Only one town, Dingle (An Daingean), in the Kerry Gaeltacht, continues to resist the name changes. Over 3000 places have accepted the Irish form. In English speaking areas all placenames and street names are still in both forms - English usually in bold and Irish in italic. While these measures did not succeed in restoring the Irish language they did spark a revival in English speaking areas. There are now 158 and 36 Irish language medium primary and secondary schools respectively, with 40 residential summer colleges for teenagers. From little acorns.....

I am sick and tired of ignorant people with nothing better to do than moan at gaelic. for example, Jim Taylor of Edinburgh's comment "why not learn a useful language". I for one am very proud of being bilingual in both gaelic and english. Suas leis a Ghaidhlig.