On Gaelic, & other languages around the Scottish Seas, publ on the 03/08/2026

Below are some example sentences to illustrate the general structures of Scottish Gaelic. 

1. Chì sinn an eunlaith ag itealaich anns an adhar - “we see (will see) the birds flying in the sky”. Broken down this means chì - future tense form of faic - “to see”, sinn - “we”, na h-eunlaith - “the birds”, na - nominative plural definite article, eunlaith - birds, a collective noun, ag - “in the process of” (before vowels), itealaich - “flying”, verb-noun of itealaich - “to fly”, , anns an adhar - “in the sky”, anns an - “in the” (roughly meaning), an adhar - prepositional form of an t-adhar - “the sky” (nominative form). 
2. Tha eachdraidh na h-Alba glé inntinneach, nam bheachd-sa - “the history of Scotland is very interesting, in my opinion”. This can be broken down as: tha - “is/are/there is/there are”, eachdraidh - “history”, Alba - “Scotland”, eachdraidh na h-Alba - “history of Scotland”, glé - “very”, inntinneach - “interesting”, beachd - “opinion” or “idea”, nam bheachd - “in my opinion”, -sa - emphatic suffix to indicate “self”, so nam bheachd-sa - emphases that the opinion is my own self(s). 
3. Bidh mi a’ coiseachadh air a’ chladach gach madainn - “I will be walking every morning on the shore”; this can be broken down as: bidh - “there will be/will be”, future form of bi - “to be”, mi – “me”, a’ - “in the process of”, coiseachadh - “walking”,  verb-noun form of coisich - “to walk”, air a’ chladach - “on the shore, from air - “on”, plus the prepositional form of an cladach - “the shore”, thus air a’ chladach - “on the shore”, gach - “every, each”, madainn - “morning”.
4. Cha robh sinn a’ leughadh móran leabhraichean anns an taigh againn - “we were not reading many books in our house”; which can be broken down as cha - negative particle, robh - affirmative interrogative past form of bi - “to be”, also used after the negative particle cha, sinn - “we”, a’ - in the process of, leughadh - “reading”, verb-noun form of leugh - “to read”, móran - “many” or “a lot of”, leabhraichean - “books”, nominative plural of leabhar - “book”, anns an - “in the”, taigh - “house”, againn - “at us”, thus anns an taigh againn - “in our house”. 
5. Bha iad a’ seòladh dhachaidh anns’ a bhàta mhór - “they were sailing home in the big boat”; which can be broken down as bha - “was/were/there was/there were”, past tense form of bi, iad - “they”, a’ - “in the process of”, seòladh - “sailing”, verb-noun form of seòl - “to sail”, also meaning “a sail”, dhachaidh - “home”, anns a’ bhàta - “in the boat”, from the nominative definite form am bàta - “the boat”, with a’ bhàta mhór being the prepositional form of am bàta mór - “the big boat”. 

1. Barra dialects: the Barra dialects have a unique prosody and musical intonation which differs from that of other dialects, furthermore, there are a number of important differences in grammar, vocabulary and phonology, although Barra Gaelic remains largely mutually intelligible to speakers of other Outer Hebridean dialects. 
   
   
2. Eriskay dialects: Eriskay dialects differ from those on Barra, to my knowledge, in the absence of the đ sound, with the “slender r” typically being a slightly palatal r, for example in the words muir - “sea”, and . Unlike Barra Gaelic, Eriskay Gaelic occasionally has a broad velarised L followed by a w for the broad velarised L sound, which is generally more common in Argyll Gaelic dialects, but also occurs on Harris, and sporadically in parts of eastern Scotland and elsewhere, including in some words on South Uist. 
   
   
3. South Uist dialects: South Uist dialects can be very distinct from other Outer Hebridean dialects in terms of their prosody or rhythm, something which I have discussed elsewhere. On the level of phonemes, South Uist Gaelic contains fewer distinctions than Barra Gaelic. Below are four examples of South Uist Gaelic vocabulary (written in standard Gaelic spelling), with explanations and comments after each word:
   I. beairt - meaning a “fishing line” on South Uist, elsewhere meaning a “loom” or “plough” among other things, the “fishing line” meaning seems to be found in a few places other than South Uist too. 

   II. dùrd - meaning a “word” on South Uist, in other dialects this word tends to more generally mean a “syllable” or a “hum” or some kind of indistinct sound. It is tempting to see a relationship between this word and the Old West Norse word orð - “a word”, English “word”, Lithuanian vardas - “name” etc, although it is also possible that this word is connected to Gaelic thuirt or duirt - “said”, although I find the latter possibility less likely. 
   III. cnap - a “shoal of fish”, in other dialects, this word tends to mean a “mass of”, a “lump of” or “large amount of” something, or a gust of wind, or a “thud” among other meanings. It is interesting that in South Uist Gaelic, the word seems to specifically refer to a large amount of, or more specifically, to a shoal of fish here.
   IV. lorc - a South Uist Gaelic word I have discussed in another way elsewhere, it means “a hand”. In other dialect. In other dialects, what seem to be variants of this word pop up, meaning “foot”, or “staff” or “wrinkle”. I have postulated before that this word (or rather the specific “hand” meaning of it) could connect to Proto-Uralic *lOlkV, meaning a “foot”, “paw” or “hand”, which makes sense given some of the semantic meanings in Gaelic. As I discussed elsewhere, another South Uist Gaelic word might also be connected. 

Notes:

1. In the dialect spelling, bh represents [v] and mh represents a [v] preceded by nasal vowels. 
2. Where mh is not pronounced at all, or where nasalisation is otherwise not easily predictable, it is written as tilde accents beneath the vowels, e.g. in fʊ̰a̰äiri, this is not marked in the Barra form fuaȧiđeo̊ because the Barra form given here does not contain nasal vowels. 

The Norn language