Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
(GÃ idhlig). It was developed from the
Welsh language
Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic languages, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales by about 18% of the population, by some in England, and in (the Welsh c ...
Wlpan
Wlpan is the name of an intensive Welsh course for beginners used by some Welsh for Adults courses in Wales. It began in the mid 1970s. Courses continue to be taught, in person and through the internet. The course teaches basic patterns in as s ...
courses, which were in turn developed from the techniques of Israel's
Ulpan
An ulpan (), plural ''ulpanim'', is an institute or school for the intensive study of Hebrew. Ulpan is a Hebrew word meaning "studio", "teaching", or "instruction".
The ulpan is designed to teach adult immigrants to Israel the basic language s ...
s (intensive schools for learning
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''Ê¿ÃŽbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
). The course aims to increase the number of fluent adult speakers.
The course starts with spoken language only, and reading and writing are only introduced once the students have gained some proficiency in the spoken form. The courses are available in many parts of Scotland.
By 2012, there were more than 150 accredited tutors across Scotland and 2,000 adults had taken up learning Gaelic using this method.
Ùlpan has been criticized for having a low completion rate despite receiving over £250,000 of funding from
Bòrd na Gà idhlig
(, ) is the executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government with responsibility for Gaelic.
A final report in 2015 reported that 64.9 percent of Ùlpan students’ expectations "had been met or exceeded", and over half (53 percent) of learners believed Ùlpan taught Gaelic either ‘well’ or ‘very well’.