Kitz Forum
Chat => Chit Chat => Topic started by: tickmike on June 07, 2019, 10:12:28 PM
-
Going to the Isle of Skye soon. :)
Any suggestions for places to see, things to do and also nearby on the mainland, including any nice restaurants .
The plan is,
Taxi to a local Railway station.
Using all first class trains, go to Birmingham New Street station, Catch Virgin train down to Euston, Wait in the Virgin First class lounge for our Daughter coming up from Kent, Catch the New Caledonian Night Sleeper train with for the first time 'en-suite' facilities to Inverness.
Then collect our car hire, drive to Skye via the old Military road, Skye for one week.
Drive down to Glasgow Airport, Fly to Gatwick with BA business class, Train up to St,Pancras, say goodbye to our daughter, walk to Euston station , quick cup of tea and a free snack in the First class lounge again, train up to Birmingham and then train to our local station, taxi home, put the kettle on for a cup of coffee. ;D
-
You could always stop off and say hi to Mr & Mrs Weaver
https://goo.gl/maps/Q6jbFDSi2HsbgG9U8
-
Worth stopping for the “classic” photo at Eilean Donan Castle, per so many commercial calendar shots. Before the Skye bridge was built, you’d have the castle to yourself. Nowadays, you will have to form an orderly queue behind dozens of Japanese tourists to take *that photo from the car park, but still worthwhile imho and actually, Japanese are quite good at orderly queuing. Personally the photo from the car park is the goal, the castle itself would be even more queuing, and not that great.
https://www.eileandonancastle.com/visit/
Since I know you have an interest in railways... if stopping in Glasgow or just time to kill, one bit of advice I often give these days is... take a ride on the subway. Third oldest underground railway in the world, behind London and Budapest. In my youth it was still wooden carriages, that visibly twisted from end to end as they rattled along. The doors were manually operated concertina affairs, like old fashioned elevators. It’ was modernised in 1970s but still fascinating, amazingly compact, and how the lines drop down away from platforms in each direction, having originally been cable driven.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Subway
* PS afterthought, the car park photo can be good but just to clarify... the actual photo on the page I linked is not from the car park, probably a drone shot. :)
-
Car hire in Inverness is a good plan. I have done the old sleeper several times and the new one sounds fantastic. As a railway nut I’m surprised you can resist the train to Kyle of Lochalsh (autocorrect just now as ‘locals hell’) or Fort William-Mallaig. There is car hire locally, but ask my wife Janet about it.
For insider tips you need to talk to my wife Janet who is the world’s leading expert on Skye tourism janet@skyeshepherdhuts.co.uk - because I don’t get out any more of course.
Janet knows all the good eateries too. I would absolutely love to say hello to any kitizens.
Please feel free to ask any questions (I’ll just ask Janet then). Many of the most interesting things are not know or not publicised, unlike Orkney where they have got their act together. The Norse Cathedral for example. Spar Cave might be google-able.
Heasta is a beautiful place to stay. My neighbour Sally has a superb B&B and my wife has her posh Shepherd Huts, lined with sheep wool so they are extremely cosy. Janet knows all the rubbish places to eat as well the superb ones because she or her guests report back.
Eilean Donnáin is always misspelled always as ‘donan’ for some reason and mispronounced with a long ‘o’; correct pron is ‘ill-ann’ (not like Eileen), first syllable stress [always, in every stressable word], then donn as in ‘bonny’ or more like ‘bunny’ and the final n sounds like ny in canyon - so ‘illann donnañ’. I visited there when I was a student at smo.uhi.ac.uk and it is beautiful inside. It’s entirely modern, having been (relatively) recently been rebuilt from a pile of rubble after it was blown up iirc.
If I were driving from Inverness I would drive via the north road - over the Black Isle and across then down through Srath Carrann - as there’s a lot less traffic. If you go that way, watch out for unmarked police cars. That’s where I got done the last time when I was coming home from the airport. Janet told me that recently three guys got done for doing over 140 mph on the straight there. Do not drive in the dark, too dangerous with deer all over the road.
EE or perhaps Three good 4G+3G, O2 no reception at all in some places but may have improved now.
-
Agree with Weaver, re Northern route from Imverness to Kyle, I gave exactly the same advice to friends a few weeks ago. I’ve never driven it, but having researched it a little, I found myself wanting to do so!
Don’t be put off by single track roads up North. They are very easy and fun to drive, with copious and well marked passing places. Just be aware that the highway code requires us to use the passing places to let others overtake and the locals, often quite assertively, expect us to have read that bit.
-
> found myself wanting to do so
It is not the most interesting road, just very very fast. I can recommend far more entertaining local roads, which have far fewer policemen on them, than that one.
-
I will look out for the castle and hopefully stop and take some photo's.
The accommodation (A self catering house ) was booked in January in Portree and the car hire is also booked around the corner from Inverness station with 'Europcar' then afterwards leaving the hire car at Glasgow Airport (with some of the other car hire you can not do that !).
We will be going the South route to Skye via the B852 along the shore of Loch Ness, this road is the old military road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_military_roads_of_Scotland , as on TV a few weeks ago.
One possible trip would be on the Jacobite Steam Train, 84 mile trip.
On the way back it will be very tight connection to catch the plane so no time to stop in Glasgow.
I have been on the Glasgow 'Tube' a long time ago.
The drive down to Glasgow looks very scenic.
-
Sounds like a great trip. I’m envious.
I covered bits of it myself in 2016, but that was including the outer Islands via Ullapool, then back through Skye. Portree is still lovely, but look out for groups of people in full highland dress, and then listen too... almost invariably, they have American accents, boasting among themselves how “scottish” they are. Stress though, still a lovely, peaceful, place.
You are right, the drive down to Glasgow is a treat. I’d forgotten just how much of a treat until that 2016 trip, but it is indeed a good drive, scenic for passengers, and fun for the driver too (by which I don’t mean speeding, which no longer entertains me). Shame you won’t be stopping in Glasgow but, as it’s the city in which I was born and raised, I’m biassed! :D
Enjoy!
-
I was based in Glasgow when we where testing the APT (Advanced Passenger Train) and also visited with our family a few years ago when we stopped in Anstruther for a week.
I only speed where it is safe to do so, I will be sharing the driving with my wife. :)
Just ordered some nice weather for that week ;D
What interesting wildlife would we expect to see ?, being our daughter is a Zoo keeper and volunteer for the Kent Wildlife Trust..
-
Golden eagles, deer, seals, otters, buzzards, whales and orcas (https://en-gb.facebook.com/SkyeShepherdHuts/). And donkeys. Ask Janet about wildlife and especially the good boat trips.
Much admiration for your daughter - Zoo keeper, wow! ;D
-
Golden eagles, deer, seals, otters, buzzards, whales and orcas (https://en-gb.facebook.com/SkyeShepherdHuts/). And donkeys. Ask Janet about wildlife and especially the good boat trips.
Much admiration for your daughter - Zoo keeper, wow! ;D
Camera's and binoculars at the ready sounds great.
She is a 'Primate Keeper' working Not a thousand miles away from Eric - Roseway ;)
-
Mike, I came across an interesting 2018 video on a Telegraph page, debating rumours that “Skye is full”. Seems to suggest that many people are drawn to Skye by specific movie locations, or social media bucket lists, and these spots are indeed very busy. Still plenty other parts to enjoy though.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/articles/tourism-skye-crowded/
That pretty much co-incides with my own assessment, in 2016. Previous visits had been three trips in 1980s, before the bridge (and before social media!), and first impression was that it had become horribly busy. But once I acclimatised, I too found some very nice spots, though didn’t write them down.
Admittedly I still liked Skye better in 1980s, when we could hop over on the ferry, with no accommodation booked, even in July/August. Roads were virtually deserted, and pretty much every B&B and hotel had a “vacancies” sign up. But same can be said of other places, eg Cornwall is even more badly affected (Overrun by Poldark fans, I believe), I suppose we must move with the times. :)
-
I would absolutely love to meet your daughter. I was always obsessed with primates when I was in my teens, learning the names of species from my book. Begged my parents to take me to Twycross where there was a superb array including some great apes which I could not see very well, unfortunately.
That Skye is Full article affected the economy very badly. Many parts of the island are crazy because people have gone like sheep to the same locations are Sunday papers articles, movies, postings on the interweb. The island is absolutely massive though. Compare it to Yorkshire, overlay on top of the other, I wonder how it does compare. Has one stunning beach - the Coral Beaches and the very fine beaches at Aiseag (anglicised as Ashaig) near Broadford and Gleann Bhreatail (anglicised as Brittle) on the west coast. The brochs are worth digging out - Sruthán boasts a good one as for others I will have to put my thinking cap on. Ask my Janet. No broch in Skye is as good as those on the mainland in Gleann Eilg - and take the small old ferry across (not to be confused with the big southern ferry to Malaig). The Malaig ferry is terrible these days - they have put on a small inadequate boat instead of the usual huge one and caused so much anger I think politicians are even getting involved in arse-kicking I think Janet said, luckily CalMac is state-owned. Avoid the CalMac ferry whatever you do.
The locals know so much about fantastic things to see that the foreigners never get to hear about. The Gàidhlig-speaking older folks keep it very very secret. Some of my neighbours have never spoken a word of Gàidhlig to me yet Janet swears that one at least has good Gàidhlig. I can think of five in the village who are always very happy to speak to me, my next door neighbour, most importantly. Unfortunately I never see anyone any more. The Gàidhlig speakers keep it pretty much a secret and will change to English if anyone they don’t know is present. But the language can be heard in the right places - on the radio all day and on TV, mostly Lewis Gàidhlig though - in the hospitals at Broadford and Portree. An elderly lady in the waiting room at Portree Hospital was amazed to hear a foreigner seeking to her in her language and seemed genuinely delighted with this close encounter. When I worked as a consultant one of my customers was a postman who with his wife was always very happy to let me chat away with them for ages in Gàidhlig despite my poor pronunciation. Another who was extremely proud of his Lewis Gàidhlig was a consultant in the finance industries who would encourage me but forbade me to try and talk about computers and made a rule that anything techy meant I had to switch back to English. But stalk the isles very carefully in Broadford Coop and Gàidhlig can be heard even there, centre of local social intercourse.
If there is a truly traditional Gàidhlig song event on at àros or at SMO then that would be a treat. Gàidhlig song is one of the exotic beguiling cultural forms of Europe and the glory of British truly traditional culture. The pure stuff is not to be found everywhere and ersatz nonsense is extremely common but luckily we have the best of the best "waulking songs" by the Harris Tweed Association - my copy with booklet is so old that it is a cassette. Anything by Cathy-Ann Nic A’ Phì (anglicised McPhee), or Christine Primrose, Mary Smith / Màiri Nic a’ Ghobhainn from Ness (Nis) in Lewis, or the beautiful voice of Mairead Stiubhart (Margaret Stewart) eg ‘Fhuair Mi Pòg’ or Margaret Callan eg ‘Faileasan Uibhist’ (stunning pronunciation and utterly beautiful N Uibhist), Anna Mhàrtainn (angl. Anne Martin) from Skye hooray someone from Skye. Older but not lesser all-time greats Seonag NicCoinnich (https://www.greentrax.com/music/product/Joan-MacKenzie-Seonag-NicCoinnich-Scottish-Tradition-Series-vol-19-CD). My guilty pleasure is Sìoda by Iseabail Nic Asgaill (angl Isabel MacAskill). There are couple of truly greats who escape me just now. There is also a cd of many Skye locals which is just superb and I can’t recall it. What no men? Seumas Caimbeul from the mainland just across the Skye Bridge at Cinn t-Sàile (angl. Kintail). If I were on a desert island and had to pick one I would break the rules and have two Mairead Callan’s ‘Faileasan Uibhist (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Faileasan-Uibhist-Reflections-Margaret-Callan/dp/B0000258H1)’ and the Harris Tweed Association (https://www.harristweed.org/contact/) one but haven’t found a source for that just now.
My cousins for some reason had a lust at one time for Gaelic children’s names and so named one of their boys Camshron, should have looked it up first as it means bent mouth (cam + syntactically lenited ‘sròn’ nf. ‘nose’ which although long would be shorted here as it is no longer the first syllable in this prefixed compound). Just like caim-beul =(bent-mouth).
-
@Weaver, the ferry of which I have fond memories was Kyleakin to Kyle of Lochalsh. It simply does not exist any more, having been replaced by the bridge, so no need to advise against its use.
That said, I actually look forwards to the remaining Calmac routes. Mostly nice vessels and service seems good, and also friendly, to me. But I’m prepared to accept they may have a darker side that only becomes apparent to the Islanders who depend upon them. :)
-
Understood, I thought that was what you meant. The Gleann Eilg tiny ferry is still going strong. Janet knows the current tiny ferry skipper’s mum as she lived in this house before we did and might have been born in this bedroom where I write this now, if memory serves.
I mentioned the Gleann Eilg ferry because of the Gleann Eilg brochs which are very impressive and the tiny ferry is the way to go over to that remote part of the mainland. If you were to drive all the way to the far end of that road, into Loch Shubhairne (anglicised as Hourn pron ‘hoo’ like shoo. "sh" is pronounced [h] in Gàidhlig. [normal people can had a nap for the next half hour]
Here it’s an initial written sh because it’s a proper noun that is in the genitive case, but that doesn’t really explain anything, it’s just an observation and in twenty three years I have been unable to get any real idea of why this is. It meand ‘the loch of <x>. The n is an ñ - IPA [nʲ] because of the i and e bracketing it; u is pronounced -o-; the bh is, in this environment, either nothing at all, or faintly a /w/, and the ai is like the [ə] or so-called schwa the vowel of the ‘-er’ in ‘butter’; so the thing sounds like ‘doer’ ‘shoer’; the n bracketed by i and e is like in ‘seein ya’’, the r is effectively just a y or nonexistent, prob best just not to pronounce it at all as the i-e bracketing changes the r to be a southern english r (as opposed to a hard grilled distinct strong r) but in this case because of the i-e final -e combination pronounce if you can’t pronounce the r as a y IPA [j] then just don’t pronounce if. The i is only written there to indicate the quality of the r and the n and because there is an e following. Wherever you have a medial consonant the vowels on either side of it have to have a certain relationship in writing. Set A is written {i,e}, called ‘caol’. Set B is written {a,o,u} called ‘leathan’. Say the pattern is VC(C*)V or in more detail V₁C(C*)V₂ then V₁ and V₂ would have to both be from the same set, ie both from set A or both from set B. also the consonant would have to belong to one of two sets of different-sounding variant consonants associated with A or B. Worse still, for each written consonantal there are four subsets each with a single member so giving us four actual sounds, one pair of subsets is the subset A = { A, AL} }and one pair of subsets is the subset B - { B, BL} }. The individual consonants are notated here A, AL, B, BL and the -L members are expressed in writing with a postfixed silent h after the core written consonant. We have an example here of CBL in sh- with h written after it and an a|o|u after it. We can of course write four regexes for these. The core consonant is not one sound though but has four phonemic (which means phonetic differences are vital for meaning/understanding) consonant sound values which all sound completely different and the difference are vital, mucking them up sometimes changes the meaning or more likely makes the result gibberish. In English dialects the pronunciation of the written letter l in sleep, slop, silly, sillier, milk, alpha, allo, Alistair might in different in some places in some dialects but it doesn’t really matter exactly how you pronounce it, it all means the same thing. It is said not to be ‘phonemic’ in English. In other languages Gàidhlig included the different kinds of sound represented by Latin letters with different encoded with shifts and prefix-suffix (circumfix??) options are phonemic that is vital for meaning. So correct pronunciation can be a challenge, one of the hard things about an otherwise very simple easy language, because there are approximately four times as many sounds in Gàidhlig as in English or Welsh or French, certainly four consonants for many English stops p t k b d g r l m n s f anyway (very approximately, leaving out some important details), there is a coding system to fit all these sounds into the Latin alphabet that uses escape codes and shift sets. Like English hoping hopping, mac and mace with doubled vs single consonants and i and e in English. The coding is a postponed h or no h, plus brackets ing by vowels A: (i|e) CAL or (i|e), or (i|e) CBL (i|e), or (a|o|u) CB(a|o|u) or (a|o|u) CBL (a|o|u). The CBL subset of consonants, written as <C>h - in fact [ie]Ch[ie] or [aou]Ch[aou], are called the ‘lenited’ set and the change to that set from the other set, ie no -h to with a postfixed -h is called ‘lenition’; secondly in the other dimension, changing from the [aou]-bracketed consonants (‘leathan’ in Gàidhlig) to the [ie]-bracketed subset (‘caol’) is called ‘slenderisation’ or less obscurely but extremely inaccurately ‘palatalisation’ so I recommend the former unless you understand enough about phonetics and want to make a phonetic point not a grammatical one. The words call, chall, ciall, chiall, (or ceann, cheann) are all real words and the written c has four different sounds [kʰ], [\x], [xʲ] > [ç]/[xʲ] - the first pair, depending on context, could mean ‘her loss’/‘a loss’, or ‘his loss’/‘to (a) loss’/‘its loss’; the second pair similar set based on ‘ciall’ which has many meanings and the last pair ‘ceann’ means’ ‘head’ and the same derived set again.
The vowels in the ie and aou bracket sets may or may not be pronounced, they may be silent and only be there because of the requirement for completing the escape sequence bracketing to indicate which kind of the four possible consonants the consonant is, or alternatively it may be heard a little as a glide or it may alter the vowels in either sound forming, a diphthong or it may be the main vowel. As an extreme the written letter o in the words fios [fɪs] ‘knowledge’/‘know’, and pìob [pʰʲiːp] and other such combinations is completely silent and it is only there to show unambiguously that the consonant s comes from set B and it is pronounced [s] not [ʃ], like the difference between coll. American Eng. ‘dis’ and ‘dish’ or ‘miss’ and ‘fish’. Taking the silent letter o out as in ‘ris’ [r’ɪʃ] (a preposition or a combined prepositions and pronoun melded form).
By the way, the four possibilities can be true for non medial consonants too, ie initial or final consonants.
Coming back to our word, after a digression within a digression *n, most importantly the last e is actually pronounced, as [(j)ə] or so-called schwa,the vowel of the ‘-er’ in ‘butter’ in southern England English where Rs are not pronounced.
So we finally, putting it all together, have the [huə(r’)nʲə], [‘huɚnʲə] I’m "suein’ ya!" But with an /h/ instead as I couldn’t find an English word starting with an h. One other point; it’s not one syllable - it’s 2.5 or even 3 syllables I suspect. Some people nowadays, when faced with this kind of word-form with a final e o it, are keen to even strengthen the last syllable making it s full no-doubt about it syllable by adding a final consonant after the -e, this is by analogy with other words that have this form legitimately. Anyway as for the correct pronunciation and exact syllable count, I need to ask my neighbour for a definitive opinion.
How’s that for getting carried away. Mea culpa. When you see and hear Gàidhlig spoken in the coop (stalking, patience, luck) or more likely on the radio (100% success) or www or down the road at smo.uhi.ac.uk, where Gàidhlig is compulsory and you (well not ‘you’, rather I) can get the cane for speaking English then you see that this jumble of written letters produces so very many sounds and without understanding the four way escaping ie-C-ie vs aou-C-aou vs ie-Ch-ie vs aou-Ch-aou and I didn’t even mention the option of double consonants vs single consonants ll rr nn (mm is no longer written for some reason, it’s just m now, and other double consonants are not found or are no longer found) the expected rh lh nh are not written but can sometimes be heard as they are grammatically significant.
-
??? :swoon: :sleep:
-
Quite
-
Quite
:drink:
-
Weaver’s amazing enthusiasm for Gaelic does remind me to warn Mike of one thing...
Many road direction signs in the Western Isles, and inner Islands like Skye too, are in Gaelic, or bi-lingual. Can’t remember which is more common, or in which arreas. Not a major problem, but worth being aware of it, these signs may always not tally with OS maps - or at least, not if you keep your maps as long as I do. :D
-
Signs in Skye and increasingly in the Highland Region, on the Mainland are ‘bilingual’ so-called. Of course they are nothing if the kind, it’s just that one form is a mangling of Gàidhlig into an anglicised form and the ‘green’ coloured form uses the spelling used by Gàidhlig speakers. There are exceptions where the two are completely different, such as Spean Bridge / ‘Drochaid an Aonachain’ and Dingwall / ‘Inbhir Pheofhairean’ in both cases the one is nothing to do with the other.
Bear in mind also that in the Hebrides a large number of signs are not Gàidhlig anyway as a very large proportion of the placenames in the Hebrides and Orkney+Shetland+Caithness are Norse which shows that Norse was the dominant language, at least among the important people, until it died out in favour of Gàidhlig (probably a bit like Norman French in England). My wife’s friend who is a native Icelander finds it difficult to make out the Norse names as the Gaeks mangled them so much and then now they are written in Gàidhlig spelling, this code that is indecipherable without your cut-out-n-keep regex engine handy.
In Scotland very many Welsh language placenames can be seen in some areas, even as far North as around Inverness and Orkney. As you may know Welsh was spoken up here before The Gàidhlig-speaking Irish invasion and the prestige of Christianity and then Gàidhlig-speaking royalty caused the Gàidhlig language to take over almost everywhere (apart from in Caithness and right down near Berwick although there are Gàidhlig rural names to be seen right next to Welsh and English to the SE of Edinburgh in the hills and on the coast.
All of the maps are improving quite a bit now so you shouldn’t have any trouble. It’s interesting to compare the situation with wales, where misspelling all the welsh place names, mangling them and showing such disrespect for the language would not be tolerated. (Apart from the continuing habit of running Welsh names together so that multiple words have no whitespace between them, and so too in mangled Gàidhlig.)
-
@Weaver, of interest, is Gaelic your first language, as in first learned?
-
Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.
Re Full, we have a good knack of getting away from the crowds. :)
As I said earlier we are coming up on the Caledonian Sleeper (we hope) to Inverness, as there are lots of problems with the New stock sleeper trains, I emailed the CEO of Scot rail and he gave me the Bad news it will be the old Sleeper trains they be using, as long as it is running.
I was looking forward to going on the new ones. :(
I am taking my Sat-Nav with me so hope that will still say the names in English of the towns / villages etc.
-
I am taking my Sat-Nav with me so hope that will still say the names in English of the towns / villages etc.
I hope so. :fingers:
But unlike (causing massive offence here) Wales, I find the Gaelic signs quite easy to pronounce, and hence to identify on maps. Not sure what really changed since my 1980s expeditions. Recollection is that OS maps, and signage, were all in English, but happy to stand corrected.
I’ve never learned a word of Gaelic myself, but had a few pals at University who spoke fluently. They were justifiably proud of their heritage, but only too willing to speak English for social convenience. Mind you, when expletives or insults were required, Gaelic might be used, just to keep me guessing... ;D
-
@7LM Nope, I’m an Englishman, born in Derby. I gave up my job in The West End and relocated to Skye to smo.uhi.ac.uk (http://smo.uhi.ac.uk) in 1998 in order to study Gàidhlig full time. (Everything taught entirely in Gàidhlig, no English allowed.) I had studied Gàidhlig for three years in the evenings after work at The City Lit Institute (http://city lit.ac.uk) in Covent Garden. (And I was also studying Linguistics (http://westminster.ac.uk) at the time as well.) I went to Ireland (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/early-irish-sean-ghaeilge) to study Old Irish, Continental Celtic and Celtic Historical Linguistics all too fleetingly so I was well hooked but didn’t have the money to continue academic studies.
-
Derby is a fine city. ;)
One thing I find a little unusual is, when discussing on an English-speaking forum, you use the Gaelic spelling “Gàidhlig”. I find that slightly disorientating. It’s a bit like somebody saying to UK firiends (in English) “I speak Francais as well as English”, whereas most would say “...french as well as English”. Is that habit common in Gaelic?
But the main thing is, if the Gaelic community has accepted you, credit to you. I have every reason to think they are quite choosy about their friends. :)
-
If you want some fun translating the placenames into English note this tool
https://www2.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/faclair/sbg/m.php
https://www2.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/faclair/sbg/lorg.php
SMO’s online Gàidhlig-English-Gàidhlig dictionaries. The first one is the mobile-phone minimal version, the second one the normal one. Note the word ‘beurla’ (a historical mistake for beul-ra it seems to me ‘mouth-saying’) historically meant ‘language’ and now means English so hit the [Gàidhlig] button first to look things up in the Gàidhlig-to-English direction.
Two requirements for using a dictionary app
1. With any Gàidhlig word when you are using a dictionary, if the second letter of the word is an h then drop the h eg chat -> cat. The dictionary apps are too stupid enough to do this for you.
2. If you see a prefixed letter t-or h- or n- just drop these, you don’t enter these into a dictionary (in very ancient times they were from the ending of the preceding word which got stuck onto the start of the following word instead. (Like English ‘an orange’, ‘an apron’ but in reverse)
[Gaelic spelling is easy for learners in compared to Welsh because you just always remove any h after the initial letter before dictionary lookup, and that’s all there is to it. In Welsh you are really stuffed because the initial consonant of words changes according to grammatical patterns and the Welsh writing system gives a phonetic rendering of the sound of the word, so it’s spelled how you say it, so for example cath gath chath are all the same word, and some stupid welsh dictionary apps will only match against the base form. Poor welsh learners see the other word forms constantly and don’t know what the word is.]
The massive wonderful standard reference dictionary
http://www.dwelly.info
is the ultimate and is online-searchable now too. A colossal achievement by an Englishman Edward Dwelly (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Dwelly).
Wiktionary (http://wiktionary.org) the stunning global multi language dictionary is approaching full coverage of Scottish Gàidhlig now and unlike the other dictionaries, wiktionary has not only every word but every word-form of every word too, so if you are unfamiliar with the grammatical forms then you won’t be able to find inflected word forms so will often be out of luck with the others and wiktionary is the one to turn to as it has more than just the base form of each word (eg English child child’s children children’s; man man’s men)
In many parts of Skye and in most of the Western Isles you’re out of luck anyway as the placenames are not Gàidhlig but Old Norse mangled by Gàidhlig speakers. Broadford for example is not English but a duff translation from the extremely similar sounding - because of their close genetic kinship - Norse phrase. The Gàidhlig name for this village is An t-Àth Leathann which is a translation into Gàidhlig of the Norse ‘the broad ford’ (but the Norse was I think fjord not ford iirc but memory fails me here, referring to the sea gap between the Mainland and the islands of Skye/Scalpaigh/Ràtharsair.
I have my own ideas about ‘Skye’ given that a very early recorded form was ‘Scētis’ or perhaps I should write Skētis which does seem to me to be connected with the Gàidhlig forms we have today leading me to prefer the spelling An t-Eilean Sgiathanach rather than ‘Sgitheanach’ and don’t get me started about the possible meaning, which is difficult. I absolutely must confirm the exact pronunciation with my neighbour, whether it is three or four (3.xx) syllables in exact pronunciation. The t- is pronounced like an English j or ch in chill either will do in this instance or maybe something in between, and the whole thing is pronounced "earn tchill-ann ‘SKEE-ann-och" where the last ch is like ‘loch’ ‘Bach’ and the first small word (a proclitic) is the definite article "an t-" and its vowel is a schwa like the vowel in the unstressed final syllable of ‘butter’, ‘mother’, or the first syllable of ‘another’ when it is weakly pronounced.
-
> speak Francais as well as English
@7LM you are absolutely 100% correct in this of course. And your example is spot on. The only reason I chose to do so here, incorrectly I think, well two reasons: (i) is to clarify for a readership outside Scotland that there are three Gaelic languages and I have to write ‘Scottish Gaelic’ to be correct and distinguish it from Irish and Manx. (ii) the other thing is that in Scotland, English speakers who have no Gaelic at all themselves do not in my experience use the word ‘Gaelic’ when referring to the language itself but rather everyone here nowadays says ‘Gàidhlig’, that is they use the same phonetic form of a word that Gàidhlig speakers themselves do. The Gaelic word itself has been borrowed phonetically by Scottish English speakers. In Scotland English speakers frequently do write ‘Gaelic’ though. So very surprisingly, your example of what we would not expect because it is incorrect - ‘I speak Français’ - is in fact exactly what we do find. When I first came to Scotland I found this very confusing and was completely unaware of it, not being able to get Scottish flavours of TV down south in England. (Mind you, radio is better, when driving south in the M6 I can hang on to BBC Radio nan Gàidheal in the far until we get to - where is it, Shap Fell, gone blank, the highest point on the M6? I think it’s important for a number of reasons to get ScG and Welsh language programming all over Britain
So I should stop doing the wrong thing and stop trying to give the helpful heads-up and rather write Scottish Gaelic [ScG] instead.
-
Absolutely no change requested from me, carry on as you were, all fascinating. I’m afraid I personally speak no other languages whatsoever, and seem to have no aptitude for learning them. Unless of course, it is a programming language.
In fact I recently had a short holiday in France. I find I can recall a few “useful” phrases from school o level (I failed my French higher) but it is rather pointless to do so, as I am completely incapable of understanding the responses. I suspect the responses may actually be off-topic to what I expect, because I probably actually said something quite different to what I thought I’d said.
Thankfully, many French folks do speak pretty good English, I just feel it is polite to make an effort to speak French, however pathetic I might be.
-
Derby is a fine city. ;)
It used to be, more like a concrete jungle now. :o
-
In the Hebrides, Gaels in the past used to be simply dumbstruck by encountering any learner speaking Gaelic to them, with a look of not exactly horror but total astonishment. That happened in the island shop in Beàrnaraigh na Hearadh for example. In Skye, in the pub at Eilean Iarmain, I was talking to a very local elderly lady in Gaelic and the conversation came round to asking me where I was from, the absolutely most vital and essential question in any Gaelic conversation between strangers. I replied, in Gaelic again, that I was an Englishman, from Derbyshire. At that point she told me I was a liar and that I was obviously from the Isle of Lewis. I assured her that that was not so. She said ‘I’m not speaking to you any mire’ and turned her back on me. Dumbfounded, I retired to lick my wounds and contemplate the meaning of it all. Apologies most sincerely if I have told you this tale before.
Presumably I was supposed to be ‘from the Isle of Lewis’ because my Gàidhlig was so horrible, either that or because all my long-term teachers bar one were from Lewis, although I have tried very very hard not to pick up any of their extremely distinctive traits and divergent pronunciation, giving that I live in Skye not Lewis. Anyway it’s both a terrible insult and a backhanded compliment.
If you are an English speaker in England then you will have header foreigners trying to speak English, will have heard incorrect pronunciation and foreign accents and might well be able to identify some well known particular foreign accents. But Gaels, until recently, had never heard any foreigner speaking their language and had never heard of such a think actually happening. In the case of the island shop, the astonishment was because I was breaking the rules. No one ever speaks Gaelic to someone that they do not know, because the assumption is that that person will not understand the language and that would inconvenience and embarrass the other party. In the past it would be humiliating to reveal your lack of English competence by failing to speak in English. The shame is part of this particular contact situation right next door to the most powerful prestigious language in the world. All Gaels went out of the way to not let their children converse in Gàidhlig at home and the loss has been particularly massive in the last two generations, from my experience. WWII made things far far worse too.
That’s why the language will be extinct within a very few years. I came in rather late, not at the eleventh hour but some time after that. There are still a very large number of native speakers in Skye even though around the bridge, with certain exceptions, there does seem to be a bit of a black spot and in that region there is a surprising number of (literally) foreign immigrants, not just from England either. I can think of a dozen European countries in fact. In Sléibhte, the large peninsula to the south of where I live, in the region surrounding SMO (http://smo.uhi.ac.uk), the native speakers are mostly ‘foreigners’ as the language has declined badly and the replacements have been attracted to the area by employment at SMO. This means that locals will be very used to hearing alien dialects, but that’s true in any event because of the BBC Radio. But they will also be used to hearing the terrible Gaelic of the students.
[Moderator edited to fix the typo in the closing url tag.]
-
My Gaelic-speaking pals at University came from various islands, including at least two from Islay. I have no idea how Islay Gaelic might compare to Skye, or which would be more perfect?
BTW Mike, I hope Weaver will agree, whilst Gaelic speakers Islanders may be rightly proud of their language, I have never met one who does not also speak perfect English. More perfect than certainly myself, and many parts of England in fact, owing to absence of bad habits such as “Estuary” (from watching East Enders). And all Gaelic speakers I have met are only too willing to speak in English when needed.
-
I do know a couple of people whose English is pretty iffy, although improved recently in one case. And I know of people who at certain times never had much of an opportunity to speak English - there would be a chance a few times per week. It’s very rare
Gàidhlig Ìle / Islay Gaelic is very different to Skye Gaelic in some respects not in others. It’s getting closer to Donegal and Antrim (RIP) Gaelic. One odd thing I am told about Islay Gaelic is that it is more common now in the towns / villages of Islay than in the rural areas. Its sound system is different, the vowels very very different to Skye / Uibhist / Mull so that math pron [ma] in Skye and neighbouring areas is [mɛː] where that vowel is like that in ‘where’ / ‘mare’ / ‘care’ and adopt an East Yorks, Hull/York accent. And that’s a systematic odd trait other words adopting that [mɛː] instead of [a]. Well known idioms are different, such as ‘thank you’ is ‘tapadh leibh’ [t̪ʰapa l’v] / [t̪ʰapa l’e(j)v] and various other variants in the ‘standard’ that is Skye + Uibhist/Barra/Harris and even Lewis, but in Islay it is ‘gura maith agaibh’ [gurə mɛː akəv] with stress on the second word. ( Nite that I am using the non-familiar form of pronominal inflections like tu/vous in French and du/Sie in German, I have given the form that is the equivalent of ‘vous’ as that is what you will hear being a stranger.) This latter Ìleach idiom is that used in Manx Gaelic and in Irish Gaelic and they would find Skye incomprehensible.
I have been listening carefully to recordings of Ìleach Gàidhlig speakers on the BBC but I’ve never been fortunate enough to meet anyone in person.
Were you by any chance at Glasgow University?
-
Were you by any chance at Glasgow University?
Indeed I was.
At about age 5 or 6, Dad showed me how to complete a circuit, using a pair of scissors, between a torch bulb and a battery. I was smitten. From that day onwards I knew I wanted to be an Electronics Engineer. I lived in Glasgow, Glasgow Uni was good for engineering, and I clearly lacked any sense of adventure, so why look further?
Not entirely sure how I lost focus post-graduation, spending my career in boring software, but there you go. :-X
-
I have awe and total respect for anyone who is electronic design literate - it is all dark magic to me. I have been software only. My relationship with digital electronics ended in a row and divorce with me and my friend OurKeith trying to wire up a set of traffic lights - miserable failure. Finding out that I could get a job writing assembly language and I was gone, games programming in the West End.
Languages have always been ‘my thing’ though and took over my life in the mid 1990s when I decided that I was seeing nothing new in software, that and various other unrelated things.
-
We have been back for over a week now and I am just getting around to give an update on our trip. :)
Part 1
I noticed my mobile phone was a bit low on charge so put it on charge before the taxi came to take us to the nearby railway station, When I was at the station my wife asked what time is the train so putting my hand in my pocket to get my phone and look, what phone, **** :o What phone, yes you guessed the phone that is still in the house 10 miles away and still on charge. >:D
It only had all the train times, Sleeper train PDF tickets, guest house details, my Driving license, My Credit card, my photo ID for the Plane. and lots more.
So not a good start. >:(
Lucky I had all my train tickets in my coat, when I got to Euston Station to get the Caledonian sleeper train, the chap just asked our names and did not need any PDF tickets.
As expected we went on the old sleeper train, I had not used a uk sleeper before and was not impressed at all, we booked first class cabins but was more like a second class, the ride was not too bad but the shunting of the train to split it up into smaller sections at Edinburgh would wake the deepest of sleepers.
The breakfast was a bit of a joke, with dried up Scottish breakfast, the problem was one host looking after four coaches of people.
If you book 'Club ' first class you can use the Caledonian lounge at Inverness, free food and drinks, nice very clean toilets and showers with towels provided.
The next problem was at Inverness, there was no way the chap would let me have the car hire I had booked and paid for some months earlier without seeing my driving >:D even though I gave him all the details of the booking and I had a special code so they could look at my driving license on line .
By chance my wife had her driving license and also my daughter did.
In the end they let my wife be the main driver and my daughter second driver after paying another £276 because of my daughter age. >:D being I had already paid £500 for the car hire.
I had a very nice relaxing time 'Back seat driving' ;D to be continued.
-
Oh dear, didn’t really go to plan, then. :(
If it’s any consolation, anytime we depart on a remotely important journey, by the time we get to the end of the driveway, better half will have asked at least three times “Have you definitely got your wallet and your phone!”. And yes, she speaks with an exclamation mark, rather than a question mark. It is an unsympathetic reminder of the very rare (by my estimation) occasions I have left things behind. :blush:
Sorry to hear the sleeper train disappointed, that was kind of on my bucket list. I wonder if service levels are simply dropping? I am in GWR region and can testify, comfort in the new Japanese-sourced rolling stock is a dreadfully poor imitation of the old HSTs (/125s), and that applies to both first class and standard. :-X
-
British customer service for you.
-
Lets hope they get the New sleeper trains sorted out soon, I will give it a year then book on them again.
Part 2
Having freshened up in the sleeper lounge opposite Inverness station we had our first look around Inverness then had some lunch before we set off down the side of Loch Ness on the B852 on our way to Ilse of Skye stopping lots of times to take pictures including Eilean Dolnan castle.
The bungalow (on the LHS as you enter Portree, Cnoc Mhairi ) we hired for the week was very nice and the view out of the window was mind blowing and we voted it the best view we have ever had.
We spent all week going around the island and looking at the wonderful scenery, walked up some Mountains hills and visited lots of the ' out of the way ' area's the busiest was Neist Point lighthouse, no way was the isle of Skye 'Full'.
We asked ourselves why we have waited all this time to visit The Isle of Skye.
-
The next problem was at Inverness, there was no way the chap would let me have the car hire I had booked and paid for some months earlier without seeing my driving >:D even though I gave him all the details of the booking and I had a special code so they could look at my driving license on line .
Do you mean seeing your photo driving license?
I wouldn't blame that on the hire company. It's possibly a legal/insurance requirement.
The hefty increase in cost is not so good though.
I regularly hire vans and occasionally cars and don't think any of the companies I've used (usually Arnold Clark) allow me to hire a vehicle without bringing my photo license along.
Despite having hired from them a dozen times, them having photo copies of my license and me having the necessary DVLA code, they insist I bring my photo license with me to collect vehicles.
I hope you enjoyed your trip :)
-
@j0hn
Yes it was with my mobile phone which was on charge in our house a long way away.
It was nice to just sit back and look at the wonderful scenery and take photo's. :)
-
Brilliant