After the
Trotternish peninsula, the Sleat peninsula is the second strongest Gaelic-speaking area in Skye. In the 1901 census, 91% of the population was recorded as speaking Gaelic, with 10% recorded as Gaelic monolinguals. In the 2011 census, 39% of the population in Sleat were recorded as speaking Gaelic, with the highest percentage of Gaelic speakers in
Tarskavaig and Achnacloich (51%), and the lowest in
Armadale (27%). The local primary school,
Bun-sgoil Shlèite, is a designated
Gaelic-medium school. There was some local and national controversy in 2006 about the decision to change the status of the school from an English school with a Gaelic medium unit to a Gaelic school but in the end the
Highland Council opted for a compromise solution, designating the school as an all-Gaelic school but with an English-medium unit. Sleat is home to Scotland's only Gaelic-medium college,
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which provides university-level education in a number of subjects in Gaelic, and is the largest employer in the area. The Gaelic feature-length film,
Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, was largely filmed in Sleat and produced by
Christopher Young, a Sleat resident and partial Gaelic speaker. ==References==