Na h-Eileanan an Iar MSP Alasdair Allan is calling for Scottish Gaelic to be added to Duolingo, the world’s most popular online language learning service.

Duolingo’s 200 million worldwide users can choose to learn minority languages Welsh and Irish as well as fictional languages from Star Trek and Game of Thrones for free on the app, however there are no Scottish languages currently on offer.

In the first two years after the Irish language launched on Duolingo in 2014, 2.3 million people started learning Irish, averaging 3,000 new learners a day. Irish is reportedly one of the top ten languages on Duolingo.

Commenting, Alasdair Allan MSP said:

“Following the unbelievable success of the Irish language on Duolingo, particularly in America, it is easy to see the huge potential for Scottish Gaelic on this leading language learning app.

“Online tools like Duolingo make it both easy and fun to learn a new language and I would have warmly welcomed a resource like this when I was learning Gaelic.

“Adding Scottish Gaelic to Duolingo would boost the profile of the language and bring it to a vast new community of language learners, including the Scottish diaspora across the globe.

“I hope Duolingo agrees to add Scottish Gaelic to its services, opening the eyes its millions of users to this beautiful language that gives us a better understanding of Scotland’s history and culture.”