Empty Melbourne streets during lockdown.
It’s mid 2020.
Melbourne, Australia is in the middle of one of what would be many strict lockdowns to try and control Covid-19. ‘S e Maraiche a th’ annam ach bha mi gun obair an uair sin. I am a seafarer but I was unemployed then. Bha tìde gu leòr agam I had lots of time and nowhere to go.
‘S e pàrcaire a th’ annam cuidheachd agus tha mi air a bhith ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig fad bliadhnaichean. I’m a parkour practitioner too and I’ve been learning Gaelic for years. I decided to use all that time to work on the things I enjoy or wanted to improve, amongst them Gaelic and parkour. Travel restrictions limited movement to within five kilometres of home; With parkour I was able to explore that space in the name of exercise. With zoom and time on my hands (3am classes!) my Gaelic improved in leaps and bounds but conversation outside the classes was still very limited. I also realised I didn’t have vocabulary to talk about something I enjoyed doing almost daily - parkour. Cha robh sgeul air. It didn’t exist.
Some classic indoor training.
Bha pròiseact ùr agam! I had a new project!
Rinn mi liosta I made a list of the types of movements I was training and tried to put those ideas into Gaelic. My dear friend Seonag Midseil/Joan Mitchell (‘S e Leòdhasach a th’ innte. She’s from Lewis.) looked over my list but we both realised I needed context. What does an arm jump, cat hang, kong, cat pass or climb up mean to people who don’t do parkour? So Kel Glaister – friend, parkour coach extraordinaire at Melbourne in Motion and overseas member of the Scottish Parkour community – put my list and I in contact with Nina Ballantyne, Gaelic learner and one of the directors of Parkour Outreach. Working together, the list has now morphed into a genuine opportunity to use Gàidhlig in its homeland and beyond: the Pàrcair na Gàidhlig project.
Cleachd i no caill i! Use it or lose it!
Why learn a language? People have many reasons. Most want to use it in some way, especially to speak it. I first heard Gaelic as music when I was living in Dùn Èideann (Edinburgh) and I fell in love with it. Here in Australia, the community is a strong one but small, comprised mostly of learners. As a seafarer in Australia, the Gaelic vocabulary for my occupation is rich but my chances to speak it day to day are few; I’ve yet to work with another speaker or even another learner.
Eden leading by example, outside and jumping!
That’s why this is so exciting. To be part of creating, in Gaelic, a space for parkour where it can be used to train, to play and to connect and participate, in a wider speaking and learning community.
Suas leis A’ Ghàidhlig. Up with Gaelic.
Trobhadaibh ‘s leumaidh sinn! Let’s go and jump!
Pàrcair na Gàidhlig launches in mid-August, with Gaelic terms for key parkour words, concepts and phrases; a Gaelic parkour lesson plan for GME teachers; and videos with pronunciation tips to follow. Keep an eye on @parkouroutreach social media channels for details.
Le taic bho Bhòrd na Gàidhlig
With support from Bòrd na Gàidhlig