Hallo, is mise Ashely agus tha mi à Halifax.

Hello, my name is Ashely and I am from Halifax.

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These were some of the first phrases we learned in Scottish-Gaelic class at Saint Mary’s University. I needed a language credit during my undergraduate degree, so I chose to learn the language of my ancestors. I expected to learn grammar and pronunciation of some painfully un-phonetic words. What I did not expect was that it would change the way I understood the world.

I had grown up adjacent to the language, but never properly immersed. I spent many summers on Cape Breton Island, where my mom grew up and where our MacDonald ancestors have lived for generations. We would drive to the Highlands listening to The Rankins, sing folk songs in Gaelic and marvel at bilingual road signs. Cape Breton is the only place outside of Scotland where the language is still spoken fluently. But Scottish-Gaelic is under threat.

Earlier this month, The Gaelic........

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