This was not his first time flexing his linguistic powess on stage that day.

The young man from Tain had already earlier been placed fourth in his reading of a poem. Later in the day he would compete in conversation, traditional singing, and reading a story, all in Gaelic, all as part of the Royal National Mod.

But at 10.30am he focussed on the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 38. At verse 19 he read how Jesus commands his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations”. It is a passage known as The Great Commission, a call to proselytise.

Coming from the yet unbroken voice of a 12-year-old, on a day when thousands of young people descended onto Oban all speaking fluent Gaelic, and at an event where a 20-something Dutch woman was crowned Gaelic learner of the year, it appears that this ancient language has been making some disciples

of its own.

“Twenty years ago hundreds of kids would come on the Monday, the day for beginners, learn one song, sing, go away and not do anything else,” said Anne Lorne Gillies, an adjudicator at this year’s Mod, former gold medal winner in 1962, and recently appointed Gaelic ambassador of the year by the Scottish government.

“On the Tuesday, by contrast, which was for experienced speakers, you would have 50. But this year the hundreds were on the Tuesday. They were talking in Gaelic to each other on stage and to their parents. That is an obvious and very tangible difference.”

Since it was founded in 1892 as an annual celebration of Gaelic culture, the Mod has acted as a barometer for the health of the language. The two are as entwined as the dancing patterns on a Celtic cross. And if this year’s event is anything to go by, Gaelic has undergone its own great commission.

From the 2000 competitors under 18 that thronged the streets around Oban’s horseshoe harbour early last week, to the demure adult choirs that took their place on Friday, the final day, organisers are claiming record numbers. Some 8000 people have attended events over the eight days.

3000 people have competed. The number of young people taking part has nearly doubled in ten years.

On Tuesday alone there were 54 competitions in 15 venues. This festival of piping, clarsach playing, and poetic readings is worth £1.5 million to the local economy. The BBC is here with 55 staff, screening live programmes every night on the Gaelic-medium channel BBC Alba for the second year running.

“We’ve come a long way in a short space of time,” said John Morrison, the Mod’s chief executive, who estimates he has spent more time in front of TV cameras this year than away from them. “It’s a great time to be a Gael. There is a confidence at this year’s Mod.”

He, like everyone else you spoke to in Oban last week, puts this boom down to a variety of factors: cross-party political support, the establishment of Bòrd na Gàidhlig to champion the language, greater visibility in the media, and most of all, Gaelic-medium education, where pupils are taught subjects in Gaelic.

“That is what is starting to feed it,” he said. Currently 62 schools around Scotland offer it, with demand ­especially high in Glasgow.

“It’s quite unreal at times,” said John Macleod, 58, the president of the Mod. “There are so many coming through the system now, learning Gaelic, it is giving us a problem in how to accommodate them all in this national event. It’s a wonderful problem though.”

The government recently announced £1.5m to promote the language in schools to meet demand, after reports concluded that pupils in Gaelic-medium education attain higher marks across the board. More than 2200 primary pupils are currently in the Gaelic system. The aim is to increase that to 4000 in primary one alone by 2021.

For the older generations at the Mod, this is an amazing historical turn around –and one they believe is long overdue.

“It is redressing a historical imbalance,” said Macleod, who grew up on Lewis. “When I went to school I had to learn some English phrases before I went. Gaelic was my home language, the language of the community, church, recreation, of everything except school. Government regulation has left us with a very difficult situation for us to recover from.”

For decades, like the language, the Mod was ignored by the state, supported only by the churches and a few universities. Before BBC Alba, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, or Gaelic-medium education, the Mod was one of the language’s few vital organs.

“It is an indomitable survivor,” said Gillies. “The winds of change could have blown it away, but for a long time coming to a Mod was the last refuge for Gaels outwith their own communities.”

Now, backed by millions of government pounds, Gaelic is stretching beyond its traditional heartlands in the west of Scotland and the islands. Once more the Mod reflects this, in the young, blonde, Dutch form of the Gaelic Learner of the Year.

Originally from the southern part of Holland, Inge Birnie, 29, was shamed into learning Gaelic four years ago by Postman Pat.

“When I first came [to live in Scotland] I watched a lot of day time TV and I felt so embarrassed that I couldn’t understand Postman Pat in Gaelic,” she said. “There must be kids five years old who can understand this and I can’t. How embarrassing is that? Maybe coming from the Continent you are more inclined to think: ‘If I don’t know a language I’ll go and learn it.’”

Birnie had just moved to Aberdeen to study applied physics at Robert Gordon University. She began doing a distance-learning programme in beginners Gaelic through Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye.

“It began as a hobby but then kind of got out of hand,” she said. Soon she progressed onto doing a degree. She now teaches physics at Speyside High School and hosts lunch time classes for school kids who are “surprisingly into Gaelic”.

She said her award for Gaelic Learner of the Year should serve as a wake-up call to native Scots and their relationship with the language. “Most people don’t expect a Dutch person to win a Gaelic award,” she said. “It’s been quite nice but it maybe shows up some Scottish people. If a Dutch person can come and win this

award for learning their language, why can’t they?”

It is not just the official voices of the Mod – the chairs, judges, or competitors – that are painting a bullish picture. It is felt on the streets and pubs of Oban too, places immune to spin and PR sheen. All are full of kilts and musical instruments. The air is thick with Gaelic chatter.

Allan Roderick Morrison sits in one pub resplendent in his muted green tweed suit, clipped beard, and scholarly glasses. A mandolin takes up one seat opposite the 57-year-old, a guitar the other. Like many Gaels of his generation his parents talked their native language down, seeing it as an impediment to advancement in a world dominated by English tongues. After lecturing at the University of Durham he is now semi-retired, and living in Glasgow.

“It is fabulous being a Gael at the moment,” he said. “It’s really turned around. I walk down the street with a skip in my step, marvelling to myself because I’m fortunate enough to speak Gaelic.” All three of his children go to the Gaelic school in Glasgow.

The Mod has changed too, he said. In years gone past the competition was rigid, formal, and occasionally nasty. “There was lots of cheating,” he said. “People claimed to be fluent in Gaelic so they could compete in competitions when they couldn’t even count to 10.” But now the Mod is less stuffy, he said. Fringe events in surrounding bars and venues

began in 1993 and have boomed in recent years.

Other things haven’t changed. A suitcase is conspicuous by its absence in Morrison’s belongings. “I haven’t any accommodation,” he said with a wink. The famous party spirit lives on. He plans to see the popular ceilidh band the Vattersea Boys until 6am before getting the first train to Glasgow at 8am.

If the flourishing of Gaelic-medium education can be seen in the younger generations at the Mod, so can the legacy of Gaelic’s “downgrading” in the education system for older generations. Like looking at strata in a cracked rock or tree rings, the different historical events in the language’s recent history are evident in the different age groups competing for the gold medals.

“You can see the atrophy of the wonderful, older native Gaelic speaker in the competitions,” said Gillies. “You can sense that, especially in the premier awards this year. In the traditional singing competition there was a very small entry

this year.”

Tellingly the final concert on Friday night in the Corran Hall is only half full. Youthful faces are few and far between in the audience and on stage as choirs from Dingwall and Lewis sing their bittersweet airs in a setting that struggles to get beyond the atmosphere of a Sunday-school prize giving. The Mod’s baby boom has yet to percolate from the packed Tuesday through the rest of the week. But for a language that has been spoken for thousands of years, Gaelic can wait a generation for its new disciples to grow up.