Category: Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig)

Polyglot Gathering Berlin 2015

By Simon

I got back from the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin about an hour ago. I took the train all the way from Berlin to Bangor, via Cologne, Brussels, London, Crewe and Chester, leaving Berlin just before 7am this morning, and arriving in Bangor just after 9pm this evening. On the way there I also travelled by train, though I had to stay in Brussels for one night, and continued the next day. It cost slightly more than flying (only about £20 more) and took a bit longer (about 2 hours – more on the way there), but I saw so much more, and went through parts of France and Germany I hadn’t been before, and visited Belgium for the first time. The engineers on German railways started a 5-day strike today, and I was worried that my trains might not be running. Fortunately they did run, and were more or less on time.

The gathering was bigger than last year with about 350 participants from many countries. There were many people there I knew from last year’s gathering, and from the Polyglot Conference in Novi Sad, and I met lots of new people. I had conversations in all the languages I know well, and most of the ones I know less well. There was a Breton speaker there, though I didn’t get to talk to him, as well as speakers of Welsh, Irish, Cornish and Scottish Gaelic. Like last year, there were plenty of Esperanto speakers, and I had quite a few conversations in Esperanto, which I brushed up a bit beforehand. There were a number of people who had studied sign languages there, including BSL, ASL, Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebarentaal / NGT) and Slovak Sign Language (Slovenský posunkový jazyk / SPJ), and the Slovak signer demonstrated how she interprets songs in SPJ, which was fascinating to watch.

The talks and lectures were really interesting, and I went to quite a few introductions to languages, including Northern Sami, Navajo, Arabic, Hebrew, Milanese, Gottlandic, Finnish, Greek and Basque. I don’t intend to learn any of these languages just yet, but it was fascinating to find out more about them. My own presentation, on the History of Writing, was well received, and I got lots of positive comments.

Some of the polyglots at the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May 2015
Some of the polyglots at the Polyglot Gathering – from right to left: Richard Simcott, Alex Rawlings, Christopher Huff, Jimmy Melo, and me – between us we speak at least 20 or 30 languages, to varying degrees.

The evening activities included a polyglot games evening, an international culinary festival – I took some Welsh cakes and bara brith, which were popular – a book fair, a polyglot game show, a concert with the multilingual French singer JoMo, who sang in 25 different languages, and an international cultural evening, at which I sang a Scottish Gaelic waulking song (Ceud soiridh soiridh bhuam) and one of my own songs – A Hen in My Hat (in 5 languages). After the cultural evening there was a little Irish and Scottish music session – I had a couple of tin whistles with me, and a few other people had instruments.

So now I’m back in Bangor and will start to catch up with the work I couldn’t do while away due to time constraints and internet connection issues.

Blwyddyn newydd dda!

By Simon

Bloavezh mat / Šťastný nový rok / Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi i gyd / Einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr / Happy New Year to you all / Bonne année / Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh / Blein Vie Noa / Bliadhna mhath ùr / Blydhen Nowydh Da / С Новым Годом / Срећна Нова Година!

Happy New Year!

By Simon

Bloavezh mat / 新年快樂 / Blydhen Nowydh Da / Šťastný nový rok / Gelukkig Nieuwjaar / Happy New Year / Bonne année / Einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr / Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh / Felice anno nuovo / 新年おめでとうございます / Blein Vie Noa / Feliz Ano Novo / С Новым Годом / Bliadhna mhath ùr / Срећна Нова Година / ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! / Gott nytt år / Blwyddyn newydd dda, and so on!

Polyglottery

By Simon

Novi Sad Catholic Cathedral

Yesterday morning I met up with other conference participants and after a bit of a wander around the city, we had lunch then went to the opening ceremony a reception. In the after we had a little guided tour of Novi Sad seeing some interesting buildings, including the Catholic or Orthodox Cathedrals, and the fortress. There are some rather attractive buildings here, wide, pedestrianised café-lined streets, some nice parks and generally a relaxed kind of atmosphere.

In the evening we all went to a restaurant about 4 or 5km from the city centre for dinner. I walked there with a few others, and the rest went by bus or taxi. We had a nice dinner with lots of polyglot chat, then some people started dancing, and others carried on chatting.

Novi Sad town hall

Today there were lectures and talks on a variety of topics including sound symbolism, the magic of metaphors, language coaching, and acting and humour in a foreign language.

So far I’ve had conversations in about 10 languages and spoken bits and pieces of maybe 10 others. In some cases this was only a few words (all I know), in others it was a bit more. There are even two guys here who are learning Scottish Gaelic, one of whom also speaks a bit of Manx, and another who is learning Irish.

Da mad math

By Simon

In Welsh and Cornish the usual word for good is da [daː], while in the other Celtic languages words for good are: Breton – mat [maːt˺], Irish – maith [mˠa(ɪ)(h)], Manx – mie [maɪ], and Scottish Gaelic – math [ma]. I’ve wondered for a while whether there were cognates in Welsh and Cornish for these words.

Last week I found that there are: mad in Welsh and mas in Cornish. The Welsh word, which means good, seemly, lucky, appears in the phrase: a wnêl mad, mad a ddyly (one good turn deserves another), but isn’t otherwise used, as far as I can discover. The Cornish word doesn’t appear in the Cornish dictionaries I’ve checked so I think it is probably not used any more.

These words all come from the Proto-Celtic *matis (measure), possibly from the Indo-European mē (measure, consider) [source], which is also the root of the Irish word meas (judgement, opinion, respect) [source], and possibly of the Welsh meddwl (to think), and the English mete (measure).

Neo-eisimeileachd / Unthirldom / Independence

By Simon

As there’s an independence referendum in Scotland today I thought I’d look at a few relevant words in Scottish Gaelic and Scots:

Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) Scots English
reifreann [rʲɛfərʲɛn̪ˠ] referendum referendum
rneo-eisimeileachd [n̪ˠʲɔ eʃɪmələxg] unthirldom independence
neo-eisimeileach [n̪ˠʲɔ eʃɪmələx] unthirlit independent
bhòt [voʰt̪] vote vote

Etymologies
– neo-eisimeileachd: from neo- (un-), from Irish neamh-/neimh-, from Middle Irish nem, from Old Irish neb-, neph-; and eisimeil (dependence, obligation), from Middle Irish esimol [source]

– referendum: from the Latin referendum (“that which must be referred” or lit. “thing brought back”), from referre (to bring or take back), from re- (back) and ferre (carry) [source].

– independent: from in- (not, opposite of) and dependent, from French indépendant, from dépendant, the present participle of dépendre (to hang down; to depend), from Latin dependentem, from dēpendēo (to hang down/from; to depend on) from pēndēre (to droop, to hang (from), to slope, to slant) [source]

– vote: from Latin vōtum (promise, dedication, vow; determination, will, desire; prayer), a form of voveō (I vow/promise; dedicate/devote to a deity; I wish/desire.), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁wogʷʰ-. [source]

Independence in Scots is either independence or unthirldom, a word I found on Spawk. It also appears on Wikipedia, along with unthirlt (independent) in the sentence:

“Scots unthirldom is the poleetical muivement that thinks Scotland shoud poleetical sinder itsel frae the Unitit Kinrick, an become an unthirlt kintra wi ane govrenment an a sovereign pairlament.”

(Scottish independence is the political movement that thinks Scotland should politically separate itself from the United Kingdom, and become an independent country with its own government and a sovereign parliament.)

– unthirldom and unthirlit come from unthirl = land outside the Sucken* or Thirl** of a particular mill; the dues paid to a mill for the grinding of corn grown on land not restricted to it [source]

– unthirlit also means not enslaved or subjugated (to another)

* Sucken [′sʌkən] = the lands of an estate on which there was an obligation to grind corn at a certain mill, or the totality of the tenants of such lands [source]

** Thirl [θɪrl] = To lay under a certain obligation or restriction, specifically in Scots Law: to bind the lands of an estate or their tenants by the terms of lease to have the grain produced on the lands ground at a certain mill, to astrict the grinding of corn [source].

Churches and Cells

By Simon

Today I discovered that the Welsh word llan (church, parish), which is used mainly in place names, such as Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, has cognates in the other Celtic languages: lann in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish and Manx, and lan in Breton. These words all come from the Proto-Indo-European root *lendʰ- (land, heath) [source].

Another word church-related word that is used mainly in Irish and Scottish place names is kil(l), as in Kildare (Cill Dara), Kilkenny (Cill Chainnigh) and Kilmarnock (Cill Mheàrnaig). It means church or graveyard and comes from the Irish cill (cell (of a hermit), church, burial place), from the Old Irish cell (church), from the Latin cella [source] (a small room, a hut, barn, granary; altar, sanctuary, shrine, pantry), which comes from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱelnā, which is made up of *ḱel- (to cover) and a suffix -nā.

The Welsh word cell (cell); the Scottish Gaelic cill (chapel, church yard, hermit’s cell); the Manx keeill (church, cell); and the Breton kell (cell) all come from the same root.

The more commonly-used words for church in the Celtic languages are: eglwys (Welsh), eaglais (Irish and Scottish Gaelic), eglos (Cornish), iliz (Breton) and agglish (Manx). These all come from the Latin ecclēsia (church), from the Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía – church).

High Stones

By Simon

A photo of Harlech castle and town

I spent yesterday in Harlech [ˈharlɛx] with a friend looking round the castle, exploring the village and wandering along the beach. We wondered where the name Harlech comes from, so I thought I’d find out. According to Wikipedia, there are two possible sources: from the Welsh ardd (high; hill) llech (stone) or from hardd (beautiful) llech (stone). Apparently it was referred to as ‘Harddlech’ up until the 19th century in some texts, so the second derivation might be more likely.

The word ardd is not used in modern Welsh – high is usually uchel and hill is bryn. There are cognates in the other Celtic languages: arth (hill) in Cornish; arz (high) in Breton; ard (head; ascent; incline; high; height; senior; advanced) in Irish; àrd (high, lofty, tall; great; loud; chief, eminent, superior, supreme) in Scottish Gaelic; and ard (high, towering, tall, big, loud, height, high place, fell, incline) in Manx.

These all come from from the Proto-Celtic *ardwos (high), from the Proto-Indo-European *h₁rh₃dh-wo- (high, steep), which is also the root of the Latin words arduus (lofty, high, steep, tall, elevated) and arbor (tree, mast, javelin), the Ancient Greek word ὀρθός (orthós – straight), the English word arduous, [source].

Brushing up languages

By Simon

Last week in Scotland I tried to speak Scottish Gaelic as much as possible, and had a number of good conversations. At first though, I was adding quite a lot of Irish Gaelic into the mix, which works sometimes as the two languages are close, but not always. Last year I had a month between my visits to Ireland and Scotland, so had time to get my brain in Scottish Gaelic mode before going to Scotland. This year I only had a week, which wasn’t really enough. By the end of the week in Scotland my Scottish Gaelic was coming back.

Sometimes words that are spelt the same but pronounced differently in the two languages trip me up: for example man is fear, which is [fəuɾˠ] in Irish, and [fɛr] in Scottish Gaelic, which sounds like the Irish word for hay/grass, féar [feːɾˠ], which is feur [fiər/fjɔːrʲ] in Scottish Gaelic – not to be confused with fior (true, genuine, real) [fiər].

Do you need a while to brush up languages you don’t use very often? How do you go about it?

I generally listen and read a lot, and practise speaking to myself. Last year I also wrote something on my other blog every day in the language I was focusing on.

Waulking and Walking

By Simon

My Gaelic Song course is going well and I’m really enjoying it. There are thirteen of us in the class – most are from Scotland or of Scottish origin, and there are also a few from other countries like the USA and Germany. Some speak Gaelic well, others know a bit, and those without any Gaelic are finding the pronunciation somewhat tricky.

One type of song we’ve learnt is the waulking song. The word waulking refers to the practise of fulling or milling tweed cloth, or pounding the cloth against a board with the hands or trampling it with the feet in order to shrink it and make it water proof. In Scotland, and among Scottish settlers in Nova Scotia, waulking was accompanied by rhythmic songs known as waulking songs (òrain luaidh) which helped people to coordinate their work. Traditionally it was women who did this work – men also did it in Nova Scotia – and one person would sing verses, and everybody who sing the vocables – nonsense syllables that fit the tune. The verses were often improvised.

There are some examples of waulking songs in the songs section of Omniglot.

The word waulking comes from the Old English word wealcan (to roll, toss); from the Proto-Germanic *walkaną (to twist, turn, move); from the Proto-Indo-European *wolg- < *wel- (to bend, twist, run, roll), which is also the root of walk, and of the Latin word valgus (bent, bow-legged).