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The most noticeable indicator of a Gaelic revival is the erection of bilingual road and rail signs throughout much of the Highlands. To the place-name enthusiast this is manna from heaven! Many names have had their Gaelic origins revealed. What was obscure and meaningless is now accessible. Semantic revelations have strengthened a sense of place and cultural identity, which, though sourced from the past, embraces the entire Gàidhealtachd. If we did not know the Gaelic spelling of Acharacle, for example, which is Àth Tharracail, we might mistake a field (achadh) for a ford (àth), and misunderstand the reason for the siting of the settlement near the narrow outflow of Loch Shiel (Loch Seile) and the significance for settlement history that it remembers a Norseman called Torcuil.

Most of the verification of the names on the bilingual signs has been undertaken by Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba (AÀA) - Gaelic Place-names of Scotland, the national advisory partnership for Gaelic place-names, based at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (SMO) on the Isle of Skye (An t-Eilean Sgitheanach). SMO, now part of the University of the Highlands and Islands, was initiated in the humble setting of an old stone barn by Sir Iain Noble in 1973. He had bought the estate of Fearann Eilean Iarmain in Sleat (Slèite) from the impoverished Lord MacDonald. What started as a Further Education Establishment is now the Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture in Scotland. As Noble said at the time, this was the first new institution of its kind since Columba founded Iona Abbey.