The Herald reports that efforts to double the intake to Gaelic-medium education in Scotland have met with a shaky start, with only 6% of the six-year target for pupils entering the first year of primary schools achieved in the first year.
The figures underline the scale of the task ahead if Gaelic — in the Middle Ages the first language of the nation — is not to vanish altogether. Scotland, of course, with its long history of multilingualism and utilitarian thinking based first on Protestantism and later on the real or supposed economic benefits of Union, has never shown the enthusiasm for cultural nationalism of Ireland, let alone Wales.
With luck, that is now slowly changing. Whether the turnaround will come soon enough to save Gaelic as a traditional community language, however, is by no means certain.