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[Weaver]

Every few years we get one of these COCKUPs, now it's time for another yet one. Kids, don't drop those accents, not ever.
    http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/bute-renamed-penis-island-in-gaelic-sign-blunder-1-3867056

[AArdvark]

 

Love it!
The same happens with Welsh where the signs are NOT checked by someone who speaks Welsh. 
There was one instance where the sign was made and it turned out to be the instructions to layout the sign written in Welsh. 
Does seem a little basic to check.

[Weaver]

It's both right and then wrong on the sign in fact.

[Weaver]

We get the same kind of disrespectful laziness around here in Skye too. The nearest village, "An t-Ąth Leathann" ("BroadFord" to English speakers), seems to switch from masculine to feminine to a mixture of the two as you progress down the road. (It's masculine.)

Amongst various other good reasons, the words for "ford" and "lime-kiln" are homophonous, but the former is masculine, the latter feminine, and there was indeed a big lime kiln in in the village, so there's another possible source for confusion. (Yet only fords can be broad, not lime-kilns.)

[AArdvark]

Is Gaelic a language where the meaning can change by a change of inflection or emphasis on a part of the word ?
(Sorry never read anything about the language. ) 

[Weaver]

Scottish Gaelic is inflected, like Latin, where grammatical conditions change parts of words. Like Latin, ScG has long and short vowels.

Modern Celtic languages are extremely weird in that various factors cause the _initial consonant_ of a word to be altered or even deleted or a consonant can be added.

In English, the stress can move about to differentiate related words "reCORD a statement" (verb) but "play a RECord" (noun). In ScG, it's nice and easy, as if a word can be stressed at all then there is always a strong initial syllable stress, it's completely predictable, unlike English.

[AArdvark]

it's completely predictable, unlike English.

Maybe to you! 
I can't even start to pronounce the words never mind predict how the words change. 

Thanks for the lesson. 

I remember once watching a Gaelic Children's program on Scottish TV (just to see if I could understand some of it), I could understand bits (or so I thought) but every so often it was 'over my head' 

[Weaver]

In the isle of dick case, there were two unrelated words,
- one with a long o, a placename, the accent marks the vowel as long, and
- one with a short o, "bod", the word for penis (pronounced like English "pot" but with no aspiration on the /p/ or /t/, and the t is dental, so sounds we don't have in English at all)

So accent dropping, changing long vowels into short ones, is bad, as you easily pick unrelated words. I once spent an evening referring to a woman as "nipple" again and again because I got a vowel length wrong in her name. Bewildered looks, as a native speaker struggled to try and work out what on earth was going on.

[AArdvark]

 
That must have been an interesting evening. 
Surprised you didn't get a slap around the face 

Your friends must have been dying to burst out laughing. 

[Weaver]

> Thanks for the lesson. 

My deepest apologies. Don't get me started.

[AArdvark]

I meant it, as I said I know nothing about Gaelic or Celtic Languages.
Spent a lot of time reading signs and not understanding them 

Used to Holiday in Scotland (Highlands & northward)
Like Scotland a lot, but could not survive the Winters. 

[Weaver]

Back in 1998 I moved up here so that I could study Scottish Gaelic full time (at smo.uhi.ac.uk, total immersion, no English allowed! ) which I did for a year. I spent several weeks in Ireland studying ancient and early medieval Celtic languages, which I really loved, although it was quite hard work and I'm pretty idle.

So I'm pretty hooked. If I were well enough and the opportunity presented itself then I'd take it a lot further. I have a few elderly Gaelic-speaking neighbours who are fine about having a long chat with me, but poor health means I don't ever get out of the house now.

[AArdvark]

Unfortunately, I have no linguistic skills .... suffered though French, Latin was OK

Envy anyone who is good at picking up languages 

Interesting your focus on Gaelic as I thought it was, some years back, under pressure from a lack of it being used / taught at schools.
Is it now going through a resurgence due to people realising if it is not taught and used it will disappear ?
(I am all for preserving things if possible particularly as we have the Internet to help.)

[AArdvark]

Sorry for taking your thread, over the hills and far away, off topic. 

[Weaver]

This is chat, so meandering is fine, surely.