As a little boy I always looked forward to special Christmas and birthday presents from my “Auntie Etta” – usually a book with a personal note inscribed on the inside cover, accompanied by the “x’s and o’s” of kisses and hugs. As with most small children it was about the gift and not the giver, but as I grew I learned that Aunt Etta was the sister of my Glasgow-born grandmother, Mary. Mary was the youngest of nine children – the last born and the last to die. Somewhere among my mother’s keepsakes is a Victorian-era picture of my grandmother’s school class, and even now she is easy to pick out among all of those dour turn-of-the-century Scot faces.

Mary immigrated with her husband John (born in Portree on the Isle of Skye) to the US in the 1920s. The ties to “the old country” remained, with letters and (later) an occasional phone call traversing the Atlantic. Even though she lived in the US for 50 years, and adopted US customs and attitudes, my grandmother never lost traces of her Glaswegian accent, her deep underlying faith, and her very practical but sometimes humorous Scot sensibility.

Long before the onset of identity politics, my mother (who is a British subject) and in turn myself were raised to be Americans, with an appreciation of our family’s Scot heritage. We still keep in touch with family there. Familial connections, personal sensibilities – my own and those inherited from my grandmother – and a sporadic atavistic desire to permanently return to the land of my forefathers drives me to pay attention to Scottish affairs.

Against this backdrop I’ll greet the news that Scots Gaelic can now be used formally in meetings between Scottish government ministers and European Union (EU) officials with mixed emotions. For me two competing forces – ethnic pride and practical, conservative revulsion at political correctness – come into play.

How many Scots Gaelic speakers are there? My guess is that the census quoted in the article over-reports the real numbers:

Culture Minister Mike Russell said: “This is a significant step forward for the recognition of Gaelic both at home and abroad and I look forward to addressing the council in Gaelic very soon.

“Seeing Gaelic spoken in such a forum raises the profile of the language as we drive forward our commitment to creating a new generation of Gaelic speakers in Scotland.”

According to the 2001 census, 92,400 people – 1.9% of Scotland’s population – use or understand Gaelic.

Of these people, 58,652 said they could speak it.

That’s slightly more than 1% of the population of Scotland. How many of the 58,652 are truly fluent in the language? Best guess is substantially fewer, mostly concentrated in the Outer and Inner Hebrides, including Skye.

According to the article “The agreement also allows for correspondence to EU bodies to be written in Gaelic. Responses will be offered in the language.”. How much correspondence will be in Scots Gaelic? In the end, is it just a feel-good EU bow to political correctness? In and of itself it’s symbolic and probably won’t help preserve the language, which is a legitimate and necessary goal. Of course it’s also another cog in the wheel for Scottish nationalists.

I never heard my Scot grandmother speak more than a few words of Gaelic. She knew that while the best of the past needed to live on, current circumstances and the future had to be embraced fully. Scots Gaelic must be preserved, but does every opportunity to reinforce its use have to be hunted down?

Anyway, Mary never drank Scotch but I’ve acquired a taste for Islay malts. Time for some while I ponder my ambiguity. Slàinte