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The Spread of a Word: Scail in Scots and Sgaoil in Gaelic

Donald E. Meek

in Perspectives on the Older Scottish Tongue

Gaelic does not yet possess a dictionary comparable to the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST). If such existed, it would readily illuminate the number and range of usages of words found ... More

Gaelic does not yet possess a dictionary comparable to the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST). If such existed, it would readily illuminate the number and range of usages of words found in Scottish Gaelic also attested in Scots. The Historical Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic (HDSG) in Glasgow University was intended to fill this gap, but the project failed to produce any significant published output. Nevertheless, an archive of paper slips (HDSG-A) was compiled. This chapter takes evidence for the use of the verb scail in Scots mainly from the DOST, and that of the use of sgaoil in Scottish Gaelic largely from the HDSG-A. It shows that the two languages share a comparable range of idioms based on what appears to be the same verb.Less

Dictionaries of Scottish Gaelic in the century of Ossian

John Considine

in Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post-Medieval Europe

Curiosity-driven fieldwork lexicography was associated with the collection of popular lore and folksong as early as the sixteenth century. This association became particularly strong in the case of ... More

Curiosity-driven fieldwork lexicography was associated with the collection of popular lore and folksong as early as the sixteenth century. This association became particularly strong in the case of Scottish Gaelic. The first printed wordlist of the language, published in 1741, was the work of a Gaelic poet very much in touch with traditional heroic poetry (his dictionary was ultimately based on one by John Ray); after the publication of the Ossianic poems in the 1760s, the fieldwork lexicography of Gaelic was inevitably entangled with the question of whether speakers of Gaelic were aware of the supposed orally transmitted originals of these poems. It was arguably in this context that curiosity-driven lexicography first entered the world of Romanticism.Less

A Double Man in a Double Place: lain Crichton Smith

in Poetry and Displacement

This chapter examines the work of Scottish Anglo-Gaelic poet Iain Crichton Smith. Smith's poems are as wide-ranging in their preoccupations as the lives of those Lewis people, sailors, émigrés, ... More

This chapter examines the work of Scottish Anglo-Gaelic poet Iain Crichton Smith. Smith's poems are as wide-ranging in their preoccupations as the lives of those Lewis people, sailors, émigrés, exiles, who fetch up at the ends of the earth. They address Apartheid as well as Gemütlichkeit, and indeed in two poems called ‘Against Apartheid’ explore the relation between the two. Yet central to the work of this most rooted of poets is a vision of global displacements, those of the external world reproduced within the self, at the deepest levels of the psyche.Less

Narrative Techniques in Irish and Welsh, II: The Riddling ‘Watchman Device’

Patrick Sims‐Williams

in Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature

With particular reference to Togail Bruidne Da Derga and Branwen this chapter discusses the narrative technique called the ‘Watchman Device’. It is illustrated from Homer, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, ... More

With particular reference to Togail Bruidne Da Derga and Branwen this chapter discusses the narrative technique called the ‘Watchman Device’. It is illustrated from Homer, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, the Shahnama, the Mahabharata, Laxdœla saga, Thithreks saga, the Bórama, Táin Bó Cúailnge, Serbian and Scottish Gaelic ballads, and even Kenneth Grahame. The Irish and Welsh examples have undergone the influence, perhaps independently, of the ‘Slavic Antithesis’ of Chapter 4 and of international landscape riddles. Riddles from around the world are compared and the relationship beween riddle, metaphor, kenning, and myth is discussed.Less

Edward Lhuyd, travelling lexicographer

John Considine

in Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post-Medieval Europe

Edward Lhuyd conducted fieldwork in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, and Brittany between 1697 and 1701. In its course, he investigated antiquities and studied natural history; he also made and ... More

Edward Lhuyd conducted fieldwork in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, and Brittany between 1697 and 1701. In its course, he investigated antiquities and studied natural history; he also made and acquired wordlists, sometimes with the comparison of languages in mind. These included an Irish–English classed wordlist made by translating the English words in a dictionary of John Ray’s into Irish (Lhuyd had almost certainly seen a Scottish Gaelic wordlist made on the same principle), which led Lhuyd to an epoch-making insight into the structure of the family of Celtic languages; a wordlist of Scottish Gaelic; wordlists of Cornish and of the English dialect of Cornwall; comparative wordlists of Breton and its closest relatives; and a wordlist of Manx.Less

Edward Lhuyd’s Glossography

John Considine

in Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post-Medieval Europe

Edward Lhuyd’s Glossography of 1707, the published result of the programme of research which had included his lexicographical fieldwork, brought together a whole set of pioneering lexicographical ... More

Edward Lhuyd’s Glossography of 1707, the published result of the programme of research which had included his lexicographical fieldwork, brought together a whole set of pioneering lexicographical achievements: the first comparative wordlist of Welsh, Irish, and the languages most closely related to them; the first Breton–English dictionary to be printed; the first Irish–English dictionary to be printed; the first printed record of the differences between dialects of Scottish Gaelic, and the first appearance in print of any specimen of Manx. It did not immediately impose the highest standard of rigour on the study of the Celtic languages—it was followed by the fanciful wordlists of Paul Pezron—but it was a major pioneering contribution to the comparison of languages.Less

Curiosity-driven lexicography in the sixteenth century

John Considine

in Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post-Medieval Europe

This chapter surveys the sixteenth-century lexicography of seven weakly codified languages noticed in Conrad Gessner’s Mithridates (1555). Basque was the subject of short medieval wordlists and of a ... More

This chapter surveys the sixteenth-century lexicography of seven weakly codified languages noticed in Conrad Gessner’s Mithridates (1555). Basque was the subject of short medieval wordlists and of a series in the sixteenth century, more than one of them interested in its history or its place in the comparison of languages. Croatian appeared in printed wordlists, which reflect both the effects of Ottoman expansion in southeastern Europe and the ongoing relationship of Croatia with its western neighbours. There are exceptionally interesting wordlists of modern Greek as a language of diaspora, with notes on informants. Irish and Scottish Gaelic were very sparsely studied, as was Scots. Wordlists of Lithuanian include one which demonstrates its affinity with Latin; Latvian is more sparsely documented; Old Prussian, of which there is a medieval vocabulary, was the subject of an ideologically motivated sixteenth-century wordlist. A number of records of Russian appear to be purely curiosity-driven, as does at least one of Turkish.Less

Introduction and Background

S. J. Hannahs

in The Phonology of Welsh

This chapter situates Welsh phonology both historically and with respect to its Celtic sister, Breton, and its Celtic cousins Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Beyond the historical background a brief ... More

This chapter situates Welsh phonology both historically and with respect to its Celtic sister, Breton, and its Celtic cousins Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Beyond the historical background a brief sketch of the sociolinguistic position of modern Welsh is given, followed by an overview of the structure of the book as a whole.Less