Scots Gaelic: an introduction to the basics

1 Background

Scots Gaelic belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The other Celtic languages are Irish and Manx (Isle of Man) which, with Gaelic, have a common ancestor called Gadelic; and Welsh, Breton (Brittany, France) and Cornish, whose common ancestor is Brittonic. Today Gaelic, Irish, Welsh and Breton, (and, just, Manx) survive as modern examples of the Celtic language which was spoken in many parts of Western Europe - as far east as the Danube - up to the time of the Roman Empire. It was the Romans who destroyed the Celtic languages in mainland Europe, and in their place we find today the Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian etc.) all derived from Latin. Thus the Breton language in France is not indigenous, but was taken there by settlers from Cornwall and Wales around the 5th century ad. Scots Gaelic itself came from Ireland at about the same time, though there were probably Gaelic speakers in Argyll and the South West for at least a century before that. For many centuries Gaelic and Irish were very similar, at least on a literary level (small though this was).

The point about the Indo-European family of languages, of which Celtic is one branch, is that most of the European languages of today (over 30 of them) go back to a common ancestor called Indo-European. Consequently, we can expect many Gaelic words to be related to, or cognate with, words in other European languages. On a more local level, Gaelic vocabulary obviously has many similarities with Irish, Welsh, etc.; but many learners of Gaelic may be unfamiliar with these languages, and so throughout this booklet a selection of Gaelic words is given with cognates in English.

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There are, of course, a large number of words in Gaelic which are simply taken from English, sometimes altered a little and spelt in the Gaelic way: e.g. botal for ‘bottle’, banca for ‘bank’ and so on. As a general rule they represent things outside the traditional Gaelic environment, such as words for ‘factory’, ‘hospital’ etc. and the machines found in them. This is especially true of modern scientific terms - television, car, rocket etc. In many cases Gaelic words have in fact been created for such words – x-ghath for ‘x-ray’, for instance – but most native speakers use the English word. Often they would not be familiar with the newly created Gaelic word, so that if one hears e.g. saideal for ‘satellite’ on the radio, it is usually accompanied by an English ‘translation’ – at least the first time round – to make it understood. However, efforts in Gaelic broadcasting to strive towards a Gaelic unadulterated by constant intrusions of English are a welcome sign.

This use of English words has, of course, the advantage of making Gaelic easier for a learner to understand, even if the words are in Gaelic dress, e.g. depeandadh for ‘depending’, or smocadh for ‘smoking’. In addition to the many English words in Gaelic there are many from Scots, often reflecting Scots pronunciation, e.g. gròiseid, ‘grosset’ (gooseberry), or saighdear, ‘soldier’.

However, the vast majority of Gaelic words are, of course, not borrowed from English, though many have cognates with English. Thus eaglais, ‘church’, needs only a moment’s thought before one sees the connection with ‘ecclesiastic’. Since it is much easier to learn vocabulary if one can see such connections, a list of words will be given at the end of each chapter, with cognates in English. It is often a question of not seeing the wood for the trees. English is unusual in that it is a language composed of two separate strata - 1, a Germanic one, the basis, and 2, a classical (mainly Latin) one. The latter is a more learned, artificial stratum. It is as if there were two languages within English, either one capable of being translated into the other. Thus ‘two-yearly’ (Germanic) = ‘biennial’ (Classical), ‘cogitate’ (Classical) = ‘think’ (Germanic) and so on.

Generally, of course, good written English combines the two strata although it is often possible to write predominantly in one as opposed to the other. Many Gaelic words, then, are cognate with the learned, classical word in English, as in the case of eaglais. Equally, many Gaelic words are cognate with an English word which is slightly removed in meaning from the immediate English translation, although the connection is usually clear enough. Here are some examples: