21-05-2025
Scholars look to solve Gaelic mysteries in historical dictionary
There is a trope that irritates Gaels. Their language, they keep being told, is 'traditional'' or 'ancient', its origins somehow lost in the mists of time.
The reality is that Gaelic is no older than English or Scots — having split from Middle Irish around the 12th century.
But that does not mean that there are not mysteries to be solved. Scholars are building a comprehensive historical dictionary of Gaelic, Faclair na Gàidhlig, tracing the sources of 100,000 words and phrases. And they are going right back to manuscripts from the 1100s to do so.
Experts have already rediscovered terms that have largely slipped from use. These include:
• 'Ciod fo na rionnagan' ('what under the stars'), a phrase used in the early 1900s rather
