Scottish Gaelic language

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Scottish Gaelic, or just Gaelic (Gàidhlig; SAMPA: /"gAlIk/) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. The branch includes Scottish and Irish Gaelic as well as Manx Gaelic, and is distinct from the Brythonic branch, which includes Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Scottish, Manx and Irish Gaelic are all descended from Old Irish. For this reason, it is preferable to refer to it as Scottish Gaelic or Gàidhlig to avoid confusion with the two other tongues.

Place names in their original Gaelic are becoming increasingly common on road signs throughout the Scottish Highlands.

Gaelic is the traditional language of the Gaels, the Celtic ethnic group now mainly in the Scottish Highlands, and the historical language of most of Scotland. As such, it occupies a special place in Scottish culture, and is recognised by many Scots, regardless of whether they speak Gaelic, as being a priceless part of the nation's culture, though others may view it primarily as a regional language. Gaelic has a rich oral tradition (beul aithris), having been the language of the bardic culture of the Highland clans for several centuries. The language suffered as the Highlanders and their traditions were persecuted, especially after Culloden and since the Highland Clearances, but despite lingering prejudices, the language is now achieving greater cultural and official recognition.

Scottish Gaelic may be more correctly known as Highland Gaelic to distinguish it from the now defunct Lowland Gaelic. Lowland Gaelic was spoken in the southern regions of Scotland prior to the introduction of Scots. There is, however, no evidence of a linguistic border following the topographical north-south differences. Similarly, there is no evidence from placenames of significant linguistic differences between, for example, Argyll and Galloway. Dialects on both sides of the Straits of Moyle linking Scottish Gaelic with Irish are now extinct.

Orthography

The Gaelic alphabet has 18 letters (the usual 26 except j, k, q, v, w, x, y, and z). The letters of the alphabet were traditionally named after trees: ailm (elm), beith (birch), coll (hazel), dair (oak), and so on, but sadly, this custom is no longer followed.

The letter <h> was not used in the traditional orthography, and lenition was instead indicated with a dot over the lenited consonant.

The quality of consonants is partially indicated by the vowels surrounding them. The vowels are classified as caol ("slender", i.e. e and i) or leathann ("broad", i.e. a, o and u). The spelling rule is

caol ri caol is leathann ri leathann

(slender to slender and broad to broad). This means that an interior consonant group must be surrounded by vowels of the same quality to indicate its pronunciation unambiguously, since some consonants change their pronunciation depending on whether they are surrounded by broad or slender vowels: e.g., compare the t in slàinte (/sla:ntSe/) and bàta (/ba:ta/).

In most cases, however, the rule has no effect on pronunciation. For example, plurals in Gaelic are often formed with the suffix -an. For example, bròg (shoe) and brògan (shoes); however, to comply with the spelling rule, taigh (house) must become taighean (houses).

In changes promoted by the Scottish Examination Board from 1976 onwards, certain modifications were made to this rule. For example, togte (rather than the traditional togta) is allowed.

Using the spelling rule, it is sometimes unclear whether a vowel has been introduced for its own pronunciation or for its effect upon a consonant. In cases where the vowel should be pronounced the fada is used in Irish to make it clear, but in Scottish Gaelic it represents the length of the vowel sound (with a few exceptions to distinguish syntax).

Unstressed vowels which are omitted in speech (see Pronunciation) can be omitted in informal writing. e.g.,

Tha mi an dòchas (I hope) > Tha mi'n dòchas

Once Gaelic orthographic rules have been learned, the written language can be seen to be quite phonetic. However this is not generally apparent to those who try to apply English spelling rules to try to decipher Gaelic pronunciations from text. Hence the widespread mispronunciation of Gaelic personal names, such as Seònaid when they are used by English speakers.

Pronunciation

Most letters are pronounced similarly to other European languages, although <t> and <d> and often <n> are given a dental pronunciation (in contrast to the apical pronunciation common in other languages), and non-palatal <r> is trilled.

The lenited consonants have special pronunciations: bh, mh is /v/ or silent; ch is /x/ or /ç/; dh, gh is / j\ / or /G/; th is /h/, /?/ or silent; ph is /f/. Lenition of l n r is not shown in writing.

<fh> is almost always silent, with only the following three exceptions: fhèin, fhathast, fhuair (and grammatical variations).

There are a few general features worth noting.

• Stress is usually on the first syllable: e.g. drochaid (/"droxatS/).

(Knowledge of this fact alone would help avoid many a mispronunciation of Highland placenames. e.g. Mallaig is /"malek/. Note, though, that when a placename consists of more than one word in Gaelic, that the Anglicised form can have stress elsewhere: Tyndrum (/tVin"drVm/) < Taigh an Droma (/t2i an "droma/).

• A distinctive feature of Gaelic pronunciation (which has influenced the Scottish accent — cf. girl /gVr@l/ and film /fIl@m/) is the insertion of epenthetic vowels between certain adjacent consonants, specifically, between sonorants (<l> or <r>) and certain following consonants:

tarbh (bull) — /tar@v/

Alba (Scotland) — /al@pa/.

Interestingly, this feature, which is common to the Celtic languages, also appears in Indian languages, from which it gets its name, svarabhakti. Since it only appears now in the westernmost and easternmost Indoeuropean languages (the extremities of the Indoeuropean sprachbund), this suggests that it occurred in Proto Indoeuropean but was lost in the centre where the languages have changed most.

• The letters <b>, <d>, and <g> are voiced in initial but unvoiced in medial and final positions:

duine — /dunj@/

bradan — /bratan/

balach — /bal@x/

Alba — /al@pa/.

For <p> and <t>, the rule is that they are pronounced in the usual (voiceless) way in initial position, but pre-aspirated in medial and final position (to an extent which varies between dialects):

cat — /kaCt/ or /kaxt/.

• Unstressed vowels at the end of words are not pronounced when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. For example,

duine — /"dunj@/

an duine agad — /an "dunj akat/

This gives spoken Gaelic a 'flowing' quality.

Grammar

Gaelic is an inflected language. Nouns indicate their relationships with a number of grammatical cases (nominative, dative, genitive, and vocative), and verbs are conjugated to indicate tense (simple tenses are past, future, and subjunctive; compound tenses are continuous present, past, and future), mood (indicative, infinitive, imperative), and voice (active, passive).

Gaelic has a number of interesting grammatical features:

• Verb-Subject-Object word order; a relatively uncommon typology among the world's languages.

• Prepositional pronouns: Gaelic combines pronouns and most prepositions into compound forms, such as agam (at me), agad (at you), ris (to him).

• Gaelic has no verb to have. Instead possession is expressed by saying that something is at a person:

tha taigh agam — I have a house (lit. a house is at me)

an cat aig Iain — Iain's cat (lit. the cat at Iain)

• Emphatic pronouns: A distinction is made between the ordinary pronouns, like mi and thu, and their emphatic counterparts, mise and thusa, etc., which express a contrast to other persons.

For example:

tha i bòidheach — she's beautiful

tha ise bòidheach — she 's beautiful (as opposed to somebody else)

Grammatical emphasis carries over into other situations:

an taigh aicese — her house

chuirinnse — I would put

na mo bheachd-sa — in my opinion

• "To be": Gaelic has two forms of the verb "to be": tha is used to ascribe a property to a noun or pronoun, whereas in general usage is is used to identify a noun or pronoun as a complement. ('Is' can be used to ascribe a description to a noun or pronoun, but generally this usage is restricted to ossified forms, e.g. 'Is beag an t-iongnadh' lit. 'Is small the surprise'

tha mise sgìth — I am tired

is mise Eòghan — I am Ewen.

It is, however, possible to use tha to say that one thing is another thing by turning it into a property:

tha mi nam Albannach — I am a Scot (lit. I am in my Scot)

Is e Albannach a th'annam — I am a Scot (lit. it's a Scot that's in me).

Articles

Gaelic has a range of definite articles but no indefinite article:

an taigh — the house

taigh — a house

The form of the (definite) article depends on the number, gender, case, and initial letter of the noun.

(i). For masculine, singular, nominative nouns use an, am, and an t-:

an cat (also for nouns which cannot be lenited)

am balach (nouns which begin with labial consonants)

an t-òran (nouns which begin with vowels)

(ii). When the noun can be lenited, a' is used in two cases:

a'chaileag (feminine nominative and dative)

leis a'bhalach (masculine dative and genitive)

(iii). For feminine, genitive singular it is na, and na h-:

na mara — of the sea

na h-Alba — of [the] Scotland

(iv). For plurals (nominative and dative), the situation is simpler. The article is normally na, but is na h- if the noun begins with a vowel:

na cait — the cats

na h-àireamhan — the numbers

(v). The form of the genitive plural (nan or nam) just depends on whether the noun begins with a labial:

nan cat — of the cats

nam balach — of the boys

Differences between Scottish Gaelic and Irish

Scottish Gaelic is similar to Irish, although most dialects are not mutually comprehensible. The closest is the dialect spoken in Donegal, as illustrated by the sentence "How are you?"

Scottish Gaelic — Ciamar a tha thu?

Ulster Irish — Caidé mar a tá tú?, also spelt Cad é mar atá tú?

Standard Irish — Conas atá tú?

However, there are some important differences. The most obvious orthographical difference is that the accent, or fada, is written as a grave accent in Scottish Gaelic, as opposed to the acute accent of Irish; hence the word for "welcome" is written as fàilte in Scottish Gaelic and in Irish as fáilte. Also, the negative participle in Scottish Gaelic is cha(n) eil whereas in standard Irish it is níl, (a contraction of chan eil), as illustrated by the sentence "I have no money" (chan fhuil is still a legitimate Irish form, though):

Scottish Gaelic — Chan eil airgead agam.

Standard Irish — Níl airgead agam.

Some words have "a" in Irish but "u" in Scottish Gaelic, for instance the word for the English language Béarla in Irish and Beurla. This is due to a spelling reform and standardisation which took place in Ireland under the auspices of the Irish government during the 20th century.

The most obvious grammatical difference between Scottish Gaelic and Irish is that in the former only remnants remain of eclipsis, meaning that Irish has two major mutations to Scottish Gaelic's one. In general, one could say that the grammar of Scottish Gaelic is slightly simpler than that of Irish, while its phonology is more complex, something that also has an impact on spelling.

Note that lenited consonants, which can be silent, glottal stops, or act to lengthen a vowel, are written in Gaelic but omitted in the corresponding Irish words when silent (in the same sense that the t in the English word often is "silent").

* Similar to Irish Gaeltacht

** In Gaelic, this means Brittany

Official Recognition

After centuries of official discouragement, Gaelic is achieving a degree of official recognition. As well as being taught in schools, including some in which it is the medium of instruction, it is also used by the local council in the Western Isles, Comhairle nan Eilean. The BBC also operates a Gaelic language radio station Radio nan Gaidheal (which regularly transmits joint broadcasts with its Irish counterpart Raidió na Gaeltachta), and there are also television programmes in the language on the BBC and on the ITV commercial channels, usually subtitled in English. The ITV franchisee in the north of Scotland, Grampian Television, has a studio in Stornoway.

However, a separate Gaelic language TV service, similar to S4C in Wales and TG4 in Ireland, has been under consideration. As in Wales, the showing of programmes in the language as regional opt-outs on the main channels has been regarded as inadequate for the 58,552 who speak it, and as an annoyance to some of the English or Scots speaking 5,003,459 who do not. In fact, this annoyance is largely assumed: the evidence is that at least one Gaelic television programme produced by the BBC attains viewing figures in excess of the number of Gaelic speakers that could view it in Scotland. No complaints are being received by the BBC about Gaelic-language television programmes on BBC TV channels, perhaps because subtitling them in English makes them equally accessible to non-Gaelic speakers.

Gaelic road signs are gradually being introduced throughout the Highlands. In many cases, this has simply meant adopting the correct spelling of a name but, even here, anti-Gaelic prejudice has had to be overcome. Most non-Gaels are unaware of the extent to which anti-Gaelic prejudice and sheer racism are prevalent in Scotland. Newspaper columnists regularly mock Gaelic language and culture, propagating stereotypes in a way which would be unimaginable for other groups, and openly call for all funding to be cut.

The Ordnance Survey has acted in recent years to correct many of the mistakes that appear on maps. They announced in 2004 that they intended to make amends for a century of Gaelic ignorance and set up a committee to determine the correct forms of Gaelic place names for their maps.

Historically, Gaelic has not received the same degree of official recognition from the UK Government as Welsh. With the advent of devolution, however, Scottish matters have finally begun to receive greater attention, and a draft Gaelic Bill has now been published by the Scottish Parliament.

The key provisions of the Bill are:

• Recognising in legislation Gaelic as a language of Scotland
• Establishing the Gaelic development body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, on a statutory basis to promote the use and understanding of Gaelic
• Requiring Bòrd na Gàidhlig to prepare a National Gaelic Language Plan for approval by Scottish Ministers
• Requiring public bodies in Scotland to consider the need for a Gaelic language plan in relation to the services they offer.

Following a consultation period, in which the government received many submissions, the majority of which asked that the bill be strengthened, a revised bill was published with the main improvement that the guidance of the Bòrd is now statutary (rather than advisory).

The Education Act of 1872, which completely ignored Gaelic, and led to generations of Gaels being forbidden to speak their native language in the classroom, is now recognised as having dealt a major blow to the language.

The first solely Gaelic medium secondary school will open in Glasgow in 2005 (several Gaelic medium primary schools and partially Gaelic medium secondary schools already exist).

In Nova Scotia, there are somewhere between 500 and 1,000 native speakers, most of them now elderly. In May 2004, the Provincial government announced the funding of an initiative to support the language and its culture within the province.

The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of Gaelic.

The Columba Initiative, also known as Iomairt Cholm Cille, is a body that seeks to promote links between speakers of Gaelic and Irish.

Place names

Aberdeen — Obar Dheathain

Dundee — Dùn Dèagh

Edinburgh — Dùn Éideann

Fort William — An Gearasdan

Glasgow — Glaschu

Inverness — Inbhir Nis

Perth — Peairt

Stirling — Sruighlea

Stornoway — Steòrnabhagh

Personal Names

Gaelic has a number of unique personal names, such as Donnchadh, Dòmhnall. Some names were borrowed from Norse: Somhairle, Tormod. There are also distinctly Scottish Gaelic forms of names with cognates in other European languages: Eòghan, Iain, Catrìona, Anna.

The vocative form of some Gaelic names has given rise to various Anglicised forms:

Seumas (James) -> Sheumais -> Hamish

Màiri (Mary) -> Mhàiri -> Vairi

The most common form of Gaelic surname is, of course, those beginning with mac (son (of)), such as Mac Gille Eathainn (MacLean). The female form is nic, so Catriona MacFee is properly called in Gaelic, Catrìona Nic a'Phì.

Several colours give rise to common Scottish surnames: bàn (Bain - white), ruadh (Roy - red), dubh (Dow - black), donn (Dunn - brown).

Loanwords

The majority of Gaelic's vocabulary is native Celtic. There is a number of borrowings from Latin, especially in the religious domain (eaglais, Bìoball), Norse (eilean, sgeir), Scots (briogais) and, in common with other European languages, neologisms tend to be formed from Greek and Latin roots (telebhisean). A worrying trend for some Gaelic speakers is the increasing use of English words within a Gaelic grammar. Verbs like "watch-igeadh" (watching) and "catch-eadh" (catching) are commonly used on Leòdhas (Lewis).

Going in the other direction, Gaelic has influenced Lowland Scots (gob) and English, particularly Scottish Standard English. Loanwords include: whisky, slogan, brogue, jilt, clan, strontium, as well as familiar elements of Scottish geography like ben (beinn), glen (gleann) and loch. Irish Gaelic has also influenced Lowland Scots and English in Scotland, but it is not always easy to distinguish its influence from that of the Scottish variety.

Source: An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, Alexander MacBain.

See also

• List of Goidelic languages
• Gaidhealtachd
• Not to be confused with Lowland Scots, the Germanic language of Lowland Scotland
• The Mòd, the preeminent Scottish Gaelic cultural festival.
• Languages in the United Kingdom

External Links

• Scottish Parliament (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/gaidhlig/)
• Scottish Gaelic Broadcasting Committee (http://www.ccg.org.uk)
• BBC Scotland - Scottish Gaelic homepage (http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/)
• BBC Scotland - Beag air Bheag (http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/) Scottish Gaelic for beginners
• Comunn na Gàidhlig (http://www.cnag.org.uk/)
• Iomairt Cholm Cille/The Columba Initiative (http://www.colmcille.net/)
• Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/)
• Scottish Gaelic - English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Scottish-english/)
• Goidelic Dictionaries (http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/search.html)
• AmBaile.org - Home of Highland Gaelic culture (http://www.ambaile.org) With some nice online games for Scottish Gaelic learners

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