One of the most important decisions in relation to the revitalisation of Gaelic that Thomson ever made was to write in Gaelic, and to write in Gaelic about everything he wanted to. In his own view, it was purportedly not a decision governed by artistic necessity, but a political choice influenced by nationalist motives:

The quiet musicality, rich sensuousness and careful work with sounds in Thomson's poetry may challenge the author's own conviction, and his assured and sensitive command of the language and awareness of its possibilities are also revealed in his translations into Gaelic.

Thomson comments on the choice of language in ‘The Role of the Writer’, where he notes that ‘one often senses, among writers in such a situation, a feeling of communal responsibility and pride in the work they are doing. The role of the writer acquires some extra-literary characteristics.’ As Macura points out in relation to the nineteenth-century revival of the Czech language, ‘the mere use of Czech as a literary artistic language, as a language of “high” literature, was a polemic against the opponents of literary Czech, it should win and persuade readers, and also refute and discredit the arguments of the opponents’, and a similar case can be made for Thomson's writing, both creative work and journalism.