#an gàidhealtachd

[anarchotolkienist]

My first proper translation job and it's the fucking Labour Party.

[relnicht]

second-home-owners always get so apologetic and defensive when they have admit that their house in [place where you live which has a bit of a housing crisis as a result of second homes] is their second home lol, because they know everyone dislikes them. it's kind of funny to make them sweat and justify themselves and go through the whole "but I'm one of the good ones" bit

[scotianostra]

21st May 1872 saw the death in Bunessan on Mull of the Gaelic poet Mary MacDonald.

Mary is a  little-known Gaelic poet who wrote a classic!

The first thing to say is that Mary Macdougal Macdonald should not be confused with another Mary, who was born a MacDonald and became a MacPherson. That was Màiri Mhòr nan Òran or Great Mary of the Songs

Mairi Dhughallach was born at Brolas near Ardtun on Mull in 1789, though her exact birthdate was not known. Nor is there any Church of Scotland record of her birth and christening, for Mary was born into a Baptist family and she followed that faith devoutly all her life.

Her father was Duncan Macdougal, who was both a farmer and a Baptist preacher. The family all spoke Gaelic and Mary never spoke any more than a smattering of English. Instead, like other family members, she learned Gaelic poems, songs and hymns.

Mary married a crofter, Neil Macdonald, and moved to his croft at Ardtun – not far from Bunessan, the largest village on the Ross of Mull. I was unable to find any trace of children but it was remembered locally many years later that she sang while spinning, and at some point she began to write poems and compose hymns for use by her fellow Baptists.

Perhaps because she performed her works from memory, very little of her output survives, though she did once compose a satirical poem on tobacco to chastise her husband for his smoking.

Maddeningly we do not know when she composed her most famous work or the circumstances which brought it about. We do know that she wrote the hymn Leanabh an àigh and set it to a local tune. It was a beautiful lilting tune which some say was brought to Mull by a travelling Gaelic musician, and Mary’s Gaelic words were perfectly set to that tune.

The hymn appears to have been popular within the Baptist community but the hymn might never have been sung outside of the Gàidhealtachd had it not been for Lachlan Macbean (1853-1931) who was a Gaelic scholar and a journalist who for some time edited the Kirkcaldy-based Fifeshire Advertiser.

Macbean made it his task to gather Gaelic hymns and also published at least two books on learning Gaelic. The most successful were his Elementary Lessons in Gaelic (1889) and a Guide to Gaelic Conversation and Pronunciation (1895). He also published two collections of Gaelic hymns, The Sacred Songs of the Gael (1886) and Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands (1888). Mary Macdonald’s hymn, published 16 years after her death, was in the latter book and though it was not precise, Macbean gave us a beautiful translation, a hymn that is sung to this day.

Here is the Gaelic version of Leanabh an àigh, child of wonder.

Leanabh àigh, an Leanabh aig Màiri

Rugadh san stàball, Rìgh nan Dùl;

Thàinig do’n fhàsach, dh’fhuiling ’n ar n-àite

Son’ iad an àireamh bhitheas dhà dlùth!

Ged a bhios leanabain aig rìghrean na talmhainn

An greadhnachas garbh is anabarr mùirn,

’S geàrr gus am falbh iad, ’s fasaidh iad anfhann,

An àilleachd ’s an dealbh a’ searg san ùir.

Cha b’ionann ’s an t-Uan thàinig gur fuasgladh

Iriosal, stuama ghluais e’n tùs;

E naomh gun truailleachd, Cruithfhear an t-sluaigh,

Dh’éirich e suas le buaidh o ùir.

Leanabh an àigh, mar dh’aithris na fàidhean;

’S na h-àinglean àrd’, b’e miann an sùl;

’S E ’s airidh air gràdh ’s air urram thoirt dhà

Sona an àireamh bhitheas dhà dlùth.

Here’s the three verses Macbean left us:

Child in the manger, infant of Mary,

Outcast and stranger, Lord of all,

Child who inherits all our transgressions,

All our demerits on Him fall.

Once the most holy Child of salvation

Gently and lowly lived below.

Now as our glorious mighty Redeemer,

See Him victorious o’er each foe.

Prophets foretold Him, infant of wonder;

Angels behold Him on His throne.

Worthy our Saviour of all our praises;

Happy forever are His own.

Macbean also gave the hymn’s tune a name – Bunessan after the settlement close to Macdonald’s home, and within a few years it had become a popular Christmas carol.

After Mary’s passing on May 21, 1872, the co-author of the 1926 English hymn book Songs of Praise noted that Child in the Manger to the tune Bunessan had been include in the Revised Church Hymnary. Percy Dearmer loved Bunessan and for the second edition of Songs of Praise published in 1931, he asked English writer Eleanor Farjeon “to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune”.

Farjeon duly delivered her work, and Morning Has Broken has delighted children and adults ever since. In 1972, the singer Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam released his version as a single. Morning Has Broken duly became a worldwide hit and subsequent cover versions have been produced by the likes of Neil Diamond, Nana Mouskouri and Daniel O’Donnell, though whether they knew it was a folk tune from Mull and originated as Mary’s hymn is unlikely.

Mary Macdonald is commemorated by an obelisk near where she lived on the A849 road on Mull. The monument describes her as a “poetess” who was “born Brolas 1789” and who “died Ardtun 1872”. Below that inscription are the first lines of Leanabh an àigh, translated as “Child in the manger, infant of Mary”.

The video has the words in Gaelic with English below them.

[werewolfetone]

what's your issue with neil gaiman? other than people being hypocritical about treating him with reverence

For the most part I just find him vaguely annoying but also he did the thing where english millionaires buy a house in the Gàidhealtachd and act weird about it & price people out of their homes and I am incapable of completely forgiving that sorry + also he's said things about the french revolution that are really fucking stupid + also he has a tendency to say things that become later Less acceptable to this site and when asked about them retcon it & act like he never did it at all. Mostly though this is just me being annoyed with how his fans act re: putting him on a pedestal as someone who can Do No Wrong rather than a quarrel with him personally

[mali-umkin]

My mother has found a Gàidhlig CD in the local library of the little Northern French Town where she works, it's literally all the poems and ballads I have studied for the past two years. Every Wednesday she animates a group of art therapy at the hospital and she's in charge of the music, so she put it on and asked me for some more info. Her and all her patients adored it. I feel so emotional thinking a piece of Gàidhealtachd ended up in Northern France and all these people loved it

[misneachdalba]

AITHISG A' BHUIDHINN-OBRACH GHEÀRR-BHEATHA

English below.

Tha sinn a’ cur fàilte air an aithisg air cothroman sòisealta agus eaconamach don Ghàidhlig, a chaidh fhoillseachadh le Riaghaltas na h-Alba air 20 dhen Ògmhios 2023.

📝 Gàidhlig - https://shorturl.at/eBN49 📝 Beurla- https://shorturl.at/yCUV4

Tha an aithisg, a chaidh ullachadh le buidheann neo-eisimeileach de shàr eòlaichean air suidheachadh coimhearsnachdan na Gàidhlig, a’ sònrachadh chothroman far am faodar deagh bhuaidh a thoirt air cor a’ chànain air feadh na h-Alba.

Chaidh Prìomh Choimhearsnachdan Gàidhlig a ghabhail air sgìrean san robh a’ Ghàidhlig aig còrr is 20% den t-sluagh a rèir cunntas-sluaigh 2011, ged a tha an aithisg ag aithneachadh cho cugallach ’s a tha cor a’ chànain anns na coimhearsnachdan dùthchasach.

Tha i a’ toirt aire air na dùbhlain dheamografach shònraichte a tha nam bacadh ro bheothalachd nam Prìomh Choimhearsnachdan Gàidhlig agus a’ moladh raon farsaing radaigeach de phoileasaidhean a bhualadh air taigheadas, gnìomhachas, agus bun-structar.

Tha am buidheann-obrach a’ cur an taice “san fharsaingeachd” ri bhith a’ comharrachadh sgìrean Gàidhealtachd oifigeil, ged a tha iad a’ moladh barrachd soilleireachadh air a’ bheachd-phoileasaidh. Tha iad cuideachd a’ sònrachadh mar a dh’fhaodar feum nas fheàrr a dhèanamh de reachdas agus poileasaidhean làithreach, a leithid planadh ionadail agus measaidhean buaidhe nan eilean.

Bidh àrdachadh a dhìth anns a’ mhaoineachadh a gheibh leasachadh na Gàidhlig, agus tha sinn toilichte fhaicinn gu bheil am buidheann gu làidir dhen bheachd gu bheil àrdachadh a dhìth gach cuid anns na tha Riaghaltas na h-Alba fhèin a’ cosg agus ann am buidseat Bhòrd na Gàidhlig.

Tha sinn air togail fhaighinn bho mholaidhean na h-aithisg, a tha faisg air cuid de na nochd anns a’ mhanifesto againn fhèin a dh’fhoillsicheadh ann an 2021. Nam biodh poileasaidh Gàidhealtachd stèidhichte air a’ mhodail ann an Èirinn air a chur an sàs, bhiodh sgìrean ionadail anns na h-eileanan, agus lìonraidhean Gàidhlig ann an àitean eile, a’ faighinn:

Plana Gàidhlig ionadail gach 7 bliadhna air a dhealbhadh le proifeiseantaich agus a’ choimhearsnachd,

Co-dhiù £150,000 sa bhliadhna airson am plana a chur an gnìomh anns gach sgìre Gàidhealtachd,

Co-dhiù 1 oifigear leasachaidh do gach Gàidhealtachd airson taic a chumail ri gnìomhan ionadail (a bharrachd air oifigearan òigridh aig CnaG agus oifigearan Gàidhlig aig buidhnean eile a tha ann mar-thà),

Inbhe nam Planaichean Cànain agus dreuchd nan Oifigearan Leasachaidh air an stèidheachadh ann an lagh,

Taic, goireasan agus eòlas bho bhuidheann cho-òrdanachaidh Gàidhealtachd, stèidhte sna h-eileanan,

Co-dhùnaidhean mu phrìomhachasan agus buidseatan nas fhaisge air a’ choimhearsnachd le co-obrachadh eadar buidhnean ionadail.

Tha sinne am beachd gum biodh aithneachadh sgìrean Gàidhealtachd oifigeil na dheagh cheum a thogadh air obair a tha cuid a sgìrean Gàidhealach a thoirt air aghaidh, a leithid an Eilein Sgitheanaich agus Ghabhsainn Leòdhais. Bhiodh e cuideachd a’ daingneachadh na h-obrach ann an reachdas, a’ toirt tèarainteachd agus inbhe do na phlanaichean ionadail agus do dhreuchd nan oifigearan. --------------------------------

The campaign group Misneachd welcomes the report on social and economic opportunities for Gaelic, published by the Scottish Government on 20 June 2023.

The report, prepared by an independent group of top experts on the situation of Gaelic communities, specifies opportunities where a positive impact can be made on the state of the language throughout Scotland.

The Key Gaelic Language Communities were defined as areas where Gaelic was spoken by more than 20% of the population according to the 2011 census, although the report recognises the precariousness of the language's situation in the native communities.

It takes into account the specific demographic challenges that are an obstacle to the vitality of the Key Gaelic Communities and proposes a wide range of radical policies pertaining to housing, business, and infrastructure.

The working group supports "in general" the designation of official Gàidhealtachd areas, although they recommend more clarification of this policy concept. They also specify how better use can be made of current legislation and policies, such as local planning and Island Impact Assessments.

An increase will be needed in the funding received by Gaelic development, and we are happy to see that the working-group strongly believes that an increase is needed both in what the Scottish Government itself spends and in the budget of Bòrd na Gàidhlig.

Misneachd as a group have been greatly encouraged by the report's recommendations, which are close to some of what appeared in our own manifesto published in 2021. If a Gàidhealtachd policy based on the model in Ireland was applied, local areas in the islands, and Gaelic networks elsewhere, would receive:

A local Gaelic plan every 7 years designed by professionals and the community,

At least £150,000 a year to implement the plan in each Gàidhealtachd area,

At least 1 development officer for each Gàidhealtachd to support local activities (as well as youth officers at CnaG and Gaelic officers at other existing organisations),

The status of Local Language Plans and the role of Development Officers established in law,

Support, resources and expertise from the Gàidhealtachd co-ordinating body, based in the islands,

Decisions about priorities and budgets closer to the community with collaboration between local organisations.

Misneachd is of the opinion that the recognition of official Gàidhealtachd areas would be a good step to build on the work that some Gaelic areas are already undertaking, such as the Isle of Skye and Galson in Lewis. It would also consolidate this work in legislation, giving security and status to the plan and the role of the officers.

[studyscrasic]

Langblr Reactivation Challenge 1.2

Write a list of goals you have for your target languages. Make both long term and short term goals. An overall goal could be to have the ability to talk with native speakers with ease and a smaller goal would be to finally learn that difficult grammar point that’s been plaguing you for ages. How will you achieve them?

Going to go language by language here which may get a bit lengthy since I'm very much a "dabble in many things at once to keep up my interest in them all" kind of guy.

Norwegian

Continue reading at least a few Norwegian-language articles a week in order to keep my vocabulary up (and expand it)

Get to the point where I can understand (native level) Norwegian podcasts as another input method

Finish both the Duolingo and Clozemaster courses for Bokmål

Start studying some Nynorsk and a specific dialect of my choice alongside the Bokmål I already know to increase my comprehension of how real Norwegian is actually spoken

Find an adult-level book I'm interested in and read it in Norwegian

In general, as I am already at a high-ish B1 level, I want to see if I can get to B2 even though I no longer have the structure of a university class, and at the very least would like to do my best not to lose my comprehension and speaking abilities.

I really want to visit Norway someday and get the chance to use my skills in context, but who knows if/when that will happen.

German

Finish both the Duolingo and Clozemaster courses for German

Also work through a textbook -- maybe the Routledge ones since I like their structure and focus on grammar

Start attempting to read articles in German regularly, maybe once a week? I need to figure out where to find ones that interest me.

Work with some of my friends who are native speakers/fluent in German to translate the pile of family letters and other documents I am now in possession of -- a cool heritage and history experience but also an opportunity to learn more German!

Right now I am probably A2ish in German and I would really like to get it up to the C1 level or higher. Being truly fluent is the dream as it's one of the languages I would most like to get to that point in since it has career uses for me (there are a lot of incredible historical science books and documents written in German).

Scottish Gaelic

Finish the Duolingo, Clozemaster, Learn Gaelic, and Speak Gaelic courses (a lot, I know, but some of the best resources I have!)

Someday I'd really like to take an actual Gaelic course, whether it's through Sabhal Mòr Ostaig or Love Gaelic distance learning or (this would be the dream) a study abroad option.

Start attempting to join Gaelic-language chats in the Celtic language Discord server I'm in so I can practice speaking/listening but also engage with Gaelic culture more.

I would love to get my Gaelic language skills to the point that I could start trying to facilitate chats and even lessons here where I live in the US where there is definitely a Gaelic/Scottish diaspora but limited options to engage with the culture and language (B2-C1 level?). Also someday I really want to travel to the Hebrides Gàidhealtachd area and use my Gaelic among native speakers.

Irish

Maybe finish the Duolingo Course, it's not my favorite, but definitely finish the Clozemaster one.

There's a Celtic cultural center where I live that sometimes offers Irish classes and I would really like to take one at some point, as well as try to meet up with the other Irish speakers in the area to talk sometime!

Similar to Gaelic, I want to join the Irish chats in the same Discord server I mentioned, too.

Also similar, to Gaelic, I dreams of traveling to a Gaeltacht area in either the Munster or Connacht area (I have family heritage/history in both areas, hence my interest in them specifically). I don't know what level my goal is in Irish, but fluent enough that speaking Irish in a Gaeltacht area would be possible and fulfilling.

Yiddish

This one's the least defined for me. The Jewish community where I live doesn't have so much connection to really traditional Yiddishkeit (although I wouldn't mind helping change that). I don't know who to practice it with, but I'd like to get to the point where I can sing/perform Yiddish music for my synagogue confidently and understand it, and maybe make zines and things in Yiddish to share with the broader Jewish Internet.

I do want to finish both the Duolingo and Clozemaster courses as a more defined goal.

I think it would also be really fantastic to get to the point where I can read interesting commentary on Jewish texts that was originally written in Yiddish.

[celtic-cd-releases]

https://www.musicplockton.org/

https://www.facebook.com/plocktonmusic/

https://open.spotify.com/album/77EJTEUgukL6Zj1dCnxyz7

[obscureoldscotspoems]

Excerpts from A Very Civil People: Hebridean Folk, History and Tradition (2000, John Lorne Campbell; Edited by Hugh Cheape) 

Father Allan McDonald’s Diary for March 1898

The diary was kept in Gaelic during this month. This is a translation by John Lorne Campbell and was published in Gaelic in Gairm (1952-3) 1-2.

March 1st (Tuesday) ... I have no reason to complain when I need not move from the fireside. It is the poor fishermen who are out on the bare back of the sea, wet and frozen, in this windy weather, with incessant sleet squalls and hail stone about their ears, who are to be pitied. If only they had a fair chance, but they are ill-met and ill-clothed in every way. After all it is little profit they make though the fish are plentiful around the coast. May God send them a sufficiency of it and may He preserve their lives to them.

 It is often said that the Gael lacks diligence. I would like to see the people who most frequently make this charge confined for a while to a sea island without any sustenance except what they could win by their own diligence from the sea in the kind of weather we have at present. I am very much afraid none of them would be alive to tell the tale within a week. Whatever is wrong with the Eriskay man, not even the person who dislikes him most can truthfully say that he lacks diligence.

...

 I read Gaelic every day. To tell the truth reading it on these gloomy days has been a third of my life -- but I must admit that I have written only a little of it for some time -- at any rate out of my own head. I daresay I was not diligent enough at carefully collecting and writing down every fragment of verse and poetry, anecdote or story I heard, in the books in which I kept everything of that kind, but it is a year, or two, or three, or four perhaps since I tried to compose even a single verse of a hymn in Gaelic. No wonder it is pretty rusty for that. But how I envy the people who can speak fluent well-pronounced Gaelic, as fluently and sweetly as the lark (druideag) singing, and as sweet  as the honey which the buzzing bee sucks from the flower blossoms (didhean : yellow flower) in autumn! It can’t be helped. In spite of diligence, practice in youth is better. That is where I lost -- brought up in a village half Lowland and half Highland (Fort William / An Gearasdan) without as much as even the Paternoster, let alone any schooling in Gaelic, but shut up from dawn till dusk in an English-language school -- in a Latin and Greek school if you like -- while the language which was most expressive and most natural to us was forbidden. The effect of that is there -- the twist English put in my mouth then is still there and will remain. In consequence of it I will never have been completely at ease in Gaelic, and though I hate it with heart and with spleen, my Gaelic will always have the harsh stammering unpleasant accent of the English speaker which a tongue-tied, stiff-worded English education has left in my head.

[theplantqueer]

btw i have pink wheels n long hair now.

[anarchotolkienist]

i haven’t found this answer anywhere so i thought you would be a good source, but would places like argyll and bute that were recently still gaelic speaking still be considered part of the gàidhealtachd or is it only places that are >50% gaelic speaking in the modern day?

So the term Gàidhealtachd in modern Scottish Gaelic has no official definition, as it does in Irish, and it can be used both as a description of those places that are still Gaelic-speaking to a higher degree (i.e. the outer Hebrides, Trotternish in Skye, Tiree, and northern Islay - maybe somewhere like Gearrloch in northern Ross, or Acheracle, still counts in a generous estimate, which still has the oldest generation and some younger folk). The other use is to use it as an estimate of the traditional Gaelic-speaking region, for hundreds of years before the plantations and the Clearances - in other words, the Highlands and Islands, from Cowal in the South to Caithness in the North, and from Perth in the East to St. Kilda in the West. You hear both in day-to-day use.

I prefer to use the second definition casually - to me, it's a land claim, it's saying that all this land is ours by right, and it was stolen from us by lowlanders to be settled under brutal and genocidal circumstances, which is true of that whole region, not just the bits where Gaels cling on still today.

However, when discussing languge policy and the (promised, but probably not forthcoming - you see, giving specific rights and support to support the specific and unique needs of Gaelic communities in the islands is 'discrimination' against people like me who speak it in other places, according to the bunch of fucking morons who apparently run Gaelic policy in Scotland) establishment of a recognized, legal Gàidhealtachd, I recognise that the actually existing linguistic situation on the ground is what needs to be taken into account, and therefore support something like the first list I gave there.

Perhaps it would also be good to have a strategy that is different from that for places, like Argyll, that within living memory were majority Gaelic-speaking, as their needs clearly are different from the remaining Gàidhealtachd as well as the diaspora concentrated in Glasgow, but I am not holding my breath. Again, we can't even seem to get recognition of the distinct situation and needs of the Gaelic-speaking islands, getting recognition for those parts of the Gàidhealtachd that lost the language and culture through great violence seems even more far-off

[mallorykeen]

Ok so Percy Jackson AU where camp half blood is a Gaeltacht and all the demigods are half Irish instead of half god

that would be so cool (for anyone who's unfamiliar, according to google, bc i was too, being scottish, it's a place where the primary language spoken is irish)

send me asks

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Pay to hear him talk about a travel guide through the West Highland Way (Slighe Na Gàidhealtachd An Iar) that he dictated to a ghostwriter and wants to become a NY Times bestseller ✍️ without writing this book?. If we have a whole shelf full of travel guides that help anyone not only to organize trips but to find inspiration when we need it and these books appear on social networks or the YouTube channel and are free for you to use whenever you want.

His book 📕 is nothing new, where something different can be found. So if he wants to talk about his journey and inspiration, he didn't learn much, today he's known as a ‘love bomber’ in RAYA, who can control and manipulate you.

[catgriosaich]

saoil a bheil facal anns a’ chuimris coltach ri gaeltacht / gàidhealtachd... tha fhios agam gu bheil facal coltach ri sin sa chòrnais, oir tha stèisean-rèidio ann le an t-ainm “radyo an gernewegva”: rèidio na còrntachd. tha sin glè inntinneach dhomh oir, mar tha fhios aig a h-uile duine, chan eil còrntachd ann an-dràsta. ach bha còrntachd ann. agus b’ urrainn dha bhith a-rithist.

[mali-umkin]

Damn I've just learnt (yep, year 3 in Celtic here) that Gàidhealtachd/Gaeldom has a French equivalent, which is Gaélie. It is so simple and yet so pretty I love it