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.phpSMO’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.infois the ultimate and is online-searchable now too. A colossal achievement by an Englishman
Edward Dwelly.
Wiktionary 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.
