An Seotal is the initial stage of a Gaelic terminology project which will co-ordinate the creation of a number of on-line terminology databases for Gaelic-medium subject teaching in the secondary school. This will result in Inter-agency agreement on terminology use within education, all resource-production activity to agreed terminology standards, and the elimination of on-going terminology production burden on providers.

The project utilises an “Open-Source” CMS system to allow further terminology and education projects to benefit from the work undertaken. The resource will be of benefit to primary, secondary, tertiary and lifelong education providers, and other organisations such as broadcasters. Additionally, it will provide resources of benefit to collators of dictionaries and its principles will be adopted for use in further activity of a similar nature.

Co-ordinators

The project is being co–ordinated by Stòrlann Nàiseanta na Gàidhlig (The National Gaelic Educational Resource Agency) which was set up by the Scottish Executive in 1999, to provide a service to all sectors of Gaelic education and especially to co-ordinate the production and distribution of teaching materials in Gaelic.

The project officer is Chrissie MacRae who commenced work in August 2007.

Developers

Enterprise Management Consulting Ltd based on the Isle of Lewis have been contracted to develop the website, provide the content management system and create the database.

Aims and objectives

This project aims to create a database for terminology for the teaching of a range of subjects in the secondary school through the medium of Gaelic. This database will contain the following information:

• Terms in English and in Gaelic
• Other relevant lexicographical information, e.g. gender of nouns, plural and other forms
• The subject area(s) to which these terms relate
• Examples of usages where relevant