William Shatner, Savanto de la Gaelaj Lingvoj?

…de la Cape Breton Post:

Gaelic, as a language, is facing its mortality on two fronts: it could lose its place in our modern world, and the last generation, both here in Cape Breton and in Ireland and Scotland, who grew up in a Gaelic culture are disappearing.

The documentary that was screened at Empire Theatre's Sydney Cinema Ten, Is Mise An Teanga ("I Am The Tongue"), makes its clear that Gaelic will not go gently into that dark night…

…The writer of the documentary, Kevin Anderson, was present at the screening and, after it screened, spoke to the audience and genially answered their questions….

…And, Anderson also acknowledged that there is debate between more traditional Gaelic speakers and younger, more innovative, users of Gaelic. One Irish poet, Anderson joked, called these newer strains of Gaelic "Esperanto".

Which brings us to how William Shatner can help save Gaelic.

William Shatner stands alone in cinematic history as having acted in two films that featured two different artificial languages: Incubus, which used Esperanto, and Star Trek: The Search for Spock, that introduced Klingon (And let us pause for a second and consider how un-endangered Gaelic would be if Kiingons spoke Gaelic). So, Shatner is used to promoting non-mainstream languages. He has cool appeal and recognition that cuts across generations and he has already made a movie in Cape Breton (The Third Walker).

A Gaelic language film set in Cape Breton with William Shatner on its own might put Gaelic in the mouths of Terrans everywhere.

And I would bet real money that somebody somewhere has already rendered into Gaelic the phrase, "Beam me up, Scotty."