Celtic Languages V. SCOTTISH GAELIC STUDIES

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Celtic Languages V. SCOTTISH GAELIC STUDIES 594 Celtic Languages V. SCOTTISH GAELIC STUDIES By DERICK S. THOMSON, Professor oJCeltic, University of Glasgow In the ferment of debate in which Scotland indulged in the I97os, anticipating a Scottish Assembly at the least, a number of contributions have been made to the difficult question of how to give adequate recognition to, and achieve development of, Gaelic and Scots. The Scottish National Party produced an important statement on Gaelic which was publ. (in Gaelic) in Gairm, I04, 30I-I I ( I978). The Association for Scottish Literary Studies and Glasgow Univ.'s Dept of Extra-mural and Adult Education ran two conferences in I975 and I976, looking at Gaelic, Scots and English in Scotland. Papers from these conferences have been conveniently gathered together in Languages of Scotland, ed. A. J. Aitken and Tom McArthur, Chambers, viii + I 6o pp. These include 'The historical back­ ground' by David Murison, and two papers on Gaelic: (I) 'Gaelic: its range of uses', pp. I4-25, by Derick S. Thomson, and ( 2) 'The state of Gaelic language studies', pp. I 2o-g6, by Donald MacAulay. Kenneth M. MacKinnon, Language Shift and Education: Conservation of Ethnolinguistic Culture amongst Schoolchildren of a Gaelic Community, Hatfield Polytechnic, I 978, 25 pp., provides a very useful survey of Gaelic language­ maintenance and attitudes to Gaelic among school-children in the Isle of Harris. The survey was made in I972-74 and gives an updating, after a I 5-year interval, of the findings reported in the Scottish Council for Research in Education's Gaelic­ speaking Children in Highland Schools (I 96 I). In Gaelic in Scotland 1971, Hatfield Polytechnic, 1978, I 10 pp., Kenneth M. MacKinnon analyses the 197I Gaelic Census returns, giving tables and maps, and examines some sociological and demo­ graphic considerations arising from the returns. Aspects of earlier Gaelic demography are examined in C. W. J. Withers's 'The language geography of Scottish Gaelic', Scottish Literary Journal, Supp. 9, 4I-54, and Glanville Price's 'Gaelic in Scot­ land at the end of the eighteenth century', BBCS, 28:234-47. Withers provides a convenient summary, stressing correlations between language and class, and discussing briefly the effect Scottish Gaelic Studies 595 both of the early burghs and of post-1700 migration patterns; there are 4 pp. of maps. Price concludes his survey based on the Old Statistical Account, supplementing this in a final summary with information from the New Statistical Account; his com­ ments on the nature and mechanisms of Anglicization seem applicable also to the recent past and present. Girvan Mackay> 'Gaidhlig ann an Siorramachd Inbhir-Air', Gairm, 106:134-40,. gives a list with numerous examples of the Gaelic elements in Ayrshire place-names. John MacQueen, 'Pennyland and Davoch in South-Western Scotland: a preliminary note', SS, 23: 6g-74, prints a list of place-names containing the Gaelic elements peighinn, leth-pheighinn, fairdean, dabhach and ceathramh in S\V. Scotland, mainly Ayrshire and Galloway, and revives his earlier hypothesis that many of the roth-c. Gall-Ghaidhil settlers in Galloway came from Pictavia. Basil Megaw, in a note following MacQueen's art., refers to some Manx evidence, and suggests that pennylands and ouncelands may have been known in the Isles before Viking settlement there. W. F. H. Nicolaisen, 'Celtic place names in America B.C.', Vermont History, 4 7: 148-6o, demolishes place-names arguments ad­ vanced by Barry Fell as to a Celtic colonization in New England before the beginning of the Christian era. The fire-power employed seems excessive, but Fell's theories have won much uncritical acceptance. Bo Almqvist, 'Scandinavian and Celtic folklore contacts in the Earldom of Orkney', Saga-book, 20, 1978-79:8o-I05, is a pioneering look at the topic which draws attention to the hundreds of Gaelic personal and place names in the Orkneyinga Saga, and makes a number of suggestions concerning story motifs passing between the Gaelic and Norse cultures. M. Miller continues to throw interesting light on the Pictish king-lists, as in her paper, 'The disputed historical horizon of the Pictish king-lists', SHR, 58; in 'The last century of Pictish succession', SS, 23, 39-97, she argues that 'Pictavia was finally and legally extinguished in9o5j6, when the unification[with the Gaelic kingdom] was completed on the ecclesiastical side'. Kenneth D. MacDonald, 'The Rev. William Shaw­ pioneer Gaelic lexicographer', TGSI, so: 1-19, puts Shaw's Gaelic and English Dictionary ( 1780) into its contemporary context, describing it as 'a bare list of words and equivalents, at least as many Irish as Scottish Gaelic among them, and as .
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