“Not trying to shape anything”

This paper explores the language policy and planning (LPP) sphere related to Scottish Gaelic, which has been the source of sometimes contentious recent debate. Research carried out among elite protagonists in LPP and players in the Gaelic socioeconomic realm who should benefit most directly from LPP decisions indicate important ideological and legislative tensions exist between what is perceived to be successful on a broad, national level and the reality experienced by professionals employed to implement those decisions. Interviewees drawn from the elite LPP cohort acknowledge that they are often unclear about revitalisation goals, with uncertainty stratified at macro (national), meso (sectorally restricted) and micro (home–family–community–neighbourhood nexus) levels leading to a sub-optimal situation which mitigates against a truly meaningful increase in the use, and learning, of Gaelic by groups targeted by Gaelic LPP. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .