Gaelic Words in Caithness Scots

Gaelic Words in Caithness Scots By: Alasdair B. MacMhaoirn Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Slèite, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, Alba (Scotland) Abstract: This paper presents an investigation of borrowing between Gaelic and Caithness Scots. It also evaluates the use of Gaelic words referenced to Caithness within Gaelic areas south and west of Caithness. As a result of this investigation a number of features emerged. Firstly, there are a high number of Gaelic words present in Caithness Scots. Secondly, the borrowing appears to have been one way as there didn’t appear to be much borrowing from Caithness Scots into local Gaelic. Thirdly, an intriguing question arose, although out with the focus of this study, that the language boundaries apparent from terrestrial place names may not be coincident with the boundaries of names of features pertaining to the sea. Overall the evidence suggests that there was a high degree of linguistic interaction between the Scots and Gaelic populations in Caithness. Keywords: Caithness, Gaelic, Scots Gaelic Words in Caithness Scots. This paper will investigate the presence of Gaelic loanwords in Caithness Scots. It began owing to a very simple observation. As a Gaelic speaker familiar with local Gaelic and Gaelic-English speech spoken in the Rogart area and on the north coast the author has often noticed Gaelic words in Caithness Scots, although they are not frequently recognised as such by the speakers themselves in Caithness. The consequence of this observation was to investigate the presence of Gaelic loanwords to be found in Caithness Scots. As a result of this investigation number of features emerged. Firstly, there are a high number of Gaelic words present in Caithness Scots. Secondly, the borrowing appears to have been one way as there didn’t appear to be much borrowing from Caithness Scots into local Gaelic. Thirdly, an intriguing question arose, although out with the focus of this study, that the language boundaries apparent from terrestrial place names may not be coincident with boundaries of names of features pertaining to the sea are considered. This investigation of Gaelic loanwords will begin with a discussion of the methodology employed and sources utilized. There will then be a broad look at the topic of Gaelic loanwords in Scots in general and the focus will then return to Caithness itself and the historical division of the Gaelic and Scots speech communities within the area. This will be followed a detailed look at the evidence revealed by recordings of representatives of different speech communities between the years 1982 to 2004. Then a compilation of Gaelic loanwords will be presented and, finally, a look at Gaelic words described as pertaining to Caithness will be investigated for loanwords from Scots into Gaelic as formerly spoken in Caithness. The overarching impression is of two interacting cultures side by side and both coming under enormous pressure from English. The methodology employed in this study was firstly to work through the lexis of Caithness Scots compiled by Mr Iain Sutherland of Wick, Caithness which was based upon recorded interviews complied over 22 years by Mr Sutherland with representatives of different speech communities throughout Caithness. Selections of the actual recordings themselves from which the dictionary was compiled were then reviewed. In order to investigate a possible contrast between the Scots and Gaelic speech communities recordings were targeted which came from speakers from north and eastern areas of the county where Caithness Scots was strong and the southern and western boundaries where Gaelic was formerly spoken. The recordings are available at the Caithness Archive Centre, Wick, Caithness. They were donated by Mr Sutherland who is an habitual speaker of his native Caithness Scots as well as an author of a number of historical books and plays. Based upon these recordings as well as his own extensive knowledge, Mr Sutherland complied and published, A Caithness Dictionary[CITATION Sut \l 2057], to record the spoken language of Caithness Scots. It is important to note that owing to the distinction between literary and spoken Scots, as explained below, the list reflects everyday spoken language and not literary language, as Mr Sutherland explains in his introduction, …all the words were spoken at one time or another, and I have heard nearly all of them over the last 20 years, used by the 70 or so people with whom I made tape recordings when I was preserving the different accents of Caithness. There were about 50 different accents that I could detect, now alas surviving only among the elderly. More than just language, Mr Sutherland’s work has provided researchers with a varied and wide ranging set of material encompassing language, history, tales and legends, place names, sea related names, and descriptions of ways of life now gone. The subject of loanwords and other remodelling of languages has been studied widely and has included some research on the relationship between Gaelic and Scots [CITATION McC95 \l 2057] [CITATION OBa97 \t \l 2057] and a lot of work has focussed upon phonology[CITATION Pőd96 \l 2 2057]. It has been pointed out frequently that there is a division between spoken and literary Scots with the result that spoken Scots contains many more loanwords from Gaelic than literary Scots[CITATION McC95 \l 2057], however it is notable that even the writing of Robert Burns contains some Gaelic[CITATION Dor91 \l 2057]. The distinction between spoken Scots and literary Scots language is emphasized strongly. The picture that emerges, however, is unmistakeably that of a vital, productive and enduring influence exerted by one language on the other: a far cry from literary Scots and the dialects that are its principle sources[CITATION McC95 \l 2057] The recordings in Caithness certainly seem to support this view. In recent years the progress of the status of Gaelic throughout Scotland has been received very well, and Gaelic medium education is offered throughout Scotland, from Caithness to the central belt. Such progress however, has not been without its critics. With respect to the north of Scotland this has been evident, even at an official level, not only with regard to Gaelic education but particularly with regard to Gaelic signage. Negative comments range from personal opinions, a waste of money, to historical assertions that, “Gaelic was never spoken here.” Personal views about spending money are, as implied, personal, but the historical place of Gaelic in Caithness deserves and has received thorough refutation, even if the, “Gaelic was never spoken here”, proponents don’t seem to have accepted the evidence. In this respect one can only wonder, as one researcher has asked, how such hostility can exist in face of clear evidence[CITATION Sti08 \l 2057]. Place name evidence as well as historical accounts make it clear that among the parishes in Caithness the north eastern parishes of Bower, Canisbay and Olrig, were Scots speaking while Gaelic was strongest in Reay and Latheron, and also Halkirk[CITATION Duw15 \l 2057]. Owing to well-known social, political and economic pressures Gaelic use declined quickly in the twentieth century, and by the time of Mr Sutherland’s recordings in the Gaelic parishes in the 1980s informants could not name single living speaker native to Caithness, although they remembered speakers alive in the 1950s[CITATION SUT2 \l 2057]. It may also be said, sadly, that Caithness Scots is facing a similar situation, although on a later timescale. In the introduction to his dictionary Mr Sutherland sadly wrote: This is an illustrated dictionary of words and expressions which were in common use in the county of Caithness until the latter third of the twentieth century when the introduction of television, on top of a century of persecution by the teaching profession, finally killed the language off. I regard the process as irreversible, and have produced this book more as an obituary than anything else; to tell what it was like to those who will never have either the pleasure of using it, or the privilege of hearing it in the wonderful variety that used to exist from Reay to Sarclet, or Stroma to Berriedale. Unfortunately for Caithness Scots, or any other variety of Scots, as yet there are no modern programmes of revival such as Gaelic has achieved. 3 As mentioned earlier, recordings were chosen from strong Scots speaking areas and also from areas were Gaelic was formerly spoken. In this way it was surmised that the speakers would be expected to exhibit the greatest differences in language. Speakers were chosen from John O’ Groats, Whaligoe and Wick to represent the Scots areas, while the Gaelic areas were represented by speakers from Latheron, Dunbeath, and Reay. The recordings themselves are generally of good quality, considering they have been transferred from cassette to disk, and the interviewer, Iain Sutherland, was expert in raising numerous points of information and through his own deep knowledge of own language he added to the study simply by being himself. The first recording reviewed was of a native of John O’ Groats, which of course is in the far north east of the county[CITATION SUT1 \l 2057]. The man interviewed had been a fisherman and he had a lot to say about tides, way of life, historical incidents and folklore. He also named features pertaining to the sea such as rocks, tides and channels, mostly west from John O’ Groats toward Hunna. Among the names he mentioned, three stand out as Gaelic or possible Gaelic names. They are: Chailleach: This was a rock the fisherman pointed out to the interviewer. It occurred in a sentence simply as, “that is the chailleach…”. The initial a’ of the article in Gaelic was left off, but the lenition remained.

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