Isles MSP Alasdair Allan is calling for Scottish Gaelic to be added to Duolingo,
the world’s most popular online language learning service.
Duolingo’s 200 million
worldwide users can choose to learn minority languages Welsh and Irish as well as
fictional languages from Star Trek and Game of Thrones for free on the app.
However there are no Scottish languages currently on offer.
In the first two years
after the Irish language launched on Duolingo in 2014, 2.3 million people started
learning Irish, averaging 3,000 new learners a day. Irish is reportedly one of the
top ten languages on Duolingo.
Alasdair Allan MSP said: “Following the unbelievable
success of the Irish language on Duolingo, particularly in America, it is easy to
see the huge potential for Scottish Gaelic on this leading language learning app.
“Online
tools like Duolingo make it both easy and fun to learn a new language and I would
have warmly welcomed a resource like this when I was learning Gaelic.
“Adding Scottish
Gaelic to Duolingo would boost the profile of the language and bring it to a vast
new community of language learners, including the Scottish diaspora across the globe.
“I
hope Duolingo agrees to add Scottish Gaelic to its services, opening the eyes its
millions of users to this beautiful language that gives us a better understanding
of Scotland’s history and culture.”
Call for Gaelic to be included on language app
16 April 2018