Scottish Gaelic Dictionaries

The history of Scottish Gaelic dictionaries goes back to the early 17th century. The high-point of Gaelic dictionary production was in the first half of the 19th century, as yet unrivalled even by modern developments in the late 20th and early 21st century. The majority of dictionaries published to date have been Gaelic to English dictionaries.

Vocabularies

The first precursors of true Gaelic dictionaries were the vocabularies, often little less than wordlists, which made their first appearance in 1702 with Rev. Robert Kirk's wordlist, an appendix to William Nicolson's ''Scottish Historical Library''. Thomson, D. ''The Companion to Gaelic Scotland'' (1994) Gairm Edward Lhuyd's Scottish field work between 1699-1700 contained substantial wordlists for Argyll and Inverness-shire dialects which, however, were not published until much later.

Some 40 years later, the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge published a title called ''Leabhar a Theagasc Ainminnin'' ("A book for the teaching of names") in 1741, compiled by Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair.

Timeline
* 1702 ''The Scottish Historical Library'' by W. Nicolson, containing on p. 334–346 ''A Vocabulary of the Irish Dialect, spoken by the Highlanders of Scotland; collected by Mr. Kirk''
* 1699-1700 Fieldwork by Edward Lhuyd
* 1741 ''Leabhar a Theagasc Ainminnin / A Galick an English vocabulary''

Dictionaries

18th and 19th centuries

The first dictionary in the modern sense was published in 1780 by the Rev. William Shaw, the ''Galic and English Dictionary'', which contained a large percentage of Irish terms. This was quickly followed by Robert MacFarlane's small-scale dictionary, ''Nuadh Fhoclair Gaidhlig agus Beurla'' ("New Gaelic and English dictionary") in 1795. Exactly 10 years later Peter MacFarlane, a translator of religious publications published the first bidirectional dictionary in 1815, the ''New English and Gaelic Vocabulary - Focalair Gaelig agus Beurla''.

Although the Highland Society of Scotland had set up a committee in 1806 to produce a full-scale dictionary, but was beaten by Robert Armstrong who published his ''Gaelic Dictionary'' in 1825, followed three years later by the Highland Society's dictionary in 1828 entitled ''Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum - A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language I & II''.

Various other dictionaries followed, most notably Alexander Macbain's ''Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language'' in 1896, to date the only such publication in Gaelic.

A number of dictionaries from this period exist which have not been published to date, such as the ''Highland Gentleman's Dictionary'' from c. 1776 which is currently in the Countess of Sutherland's library.

Timeline
* 1780 ''Galic and English Dictionary'' by Rev. William Shaw
* 1795 ''Nuadh Fhoclair Gaidhlig agus Beurla = A New Alphabetical Vocabulary, Gailic and English'' by Robert MacFarlane -
digitised version
at National Library of Scotland)
* 1815 ''New English and Gaelic Vocabulary - Focalair Gaelig agus Beurla'' by Peter MacFarlane
* 1825 ''Gaelic Dictionary'' by Robert Archibald Armstrong -
digitised version
at National Library of Scotland)
* 1828 ''Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum - A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language I & II'' -
digitised version
at National Library of Scotland)
* 1831 ''A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language'' by Dr Norman MacLeod and Dr Daniel Dewar - (Glasgow, 1833
digitised version
at National Library of Scotland)
* 1832 ''Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary'' by Neil MacAlpine
* 1842 ''Gaelic-English Dictionary'' by Father Ewen MacEachan (based on MacLeod & Dewar); 4th edition in 1922
* 1845 ''Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary'' with additions by John MacKenzie
* 1896 ''An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language'' by Alexander Macbain; a later edition in 1911

20th century

The 20th century in Gaelic lexicography was ushered in by the publication of Edward Dwelly's ''Illustrated Gaelic English Dictionary'', which was partly based on a previous dictionary but supplemented by extensive material from other sources and Dwelly's own fieldwork. It remains the dictionary seen as the most authoritative to this day. Various other small to medium dictionaries followed.

Timeline
* 1901 ''Illustrated Gaelic English Dictionary'' by Edward Dwelly (based partly on MacLeod & Dewar)
* 1912 ''Am Briathrachan Beag'' by Malcolm MacFarlane
* 1925 ''Gaelic Dictionary'' by Malcolm MacLennan
* 1932 ''Pronouncing Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic'' by Henry Cyril Dieckhoff
* 1958 ''Gaelic Words and Expressions from South Uist and Eriskay'' by Rev. Allan MacDonald
* 1979 ''Abair Facail'', a pocket-dictionary by John MacDonald and Ronald Renton
* 1981 ''The New English-Gaelic Dictionary'' by Derick Thomson
* 1991 ''Appendix to Dwelly's Gaelic-English Dictionary'' by Douglas Clyne (ed.)
* 1991 ''Brìgh nam Facal'', a dictionary for schools by Prof Richard Cox
* 1993 ''The Modern Gaelic-English Dictionary'' by Robert C. Owen
* 1998 ''Gaelic-English English-Gaelic Dictionary'', a pocket dictionary by Dougal Buchanan

21st century

Following Dwelly's dictionary, essentially no new large-scale dictionaries were published until the 21st century with the appearance of Colin B.D. Mark 's substantial ''Gaelic English Dictionary'' in 2003.

The first substantial English to Gaelic dictionary of the 21st century was the ''Faclair Beag'' ("Little Dictionary") by Michael Bauer and Will Robertson. The Faclair Beag is an online dictionary which appeared in two stages, first with a digital version of Edward Dwelly's dictionary early in 2009 and soon thereafter with a modern dictionary later that year, by now containing more than 85,000 entries.

Timeline
* 2001 ''The Essential Gaelic-English Dictionary'' by Angus Watson
* 2001 ''The Essential English-Gaelic Dictionary'' by Angus Watson
* 2003 ''The Gaelic-English Dictionary'' by Colin Mark
* 2004 ''Gaelic Dictionary (Teach Yourself)'' by Ian MacDonald and Boyd Robertson
* 2009 ''Dwelly-d'' and ''Am Faclair Beag'', online dictionaries by Michael Bauer and Will Robertson"Dwelly air a thionndadh 's ga chur air loidhne"
BBC Alba. Retrieved 6 April 2009.

Faclair na Gàidhlig

A partnership of the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI is working to develop an authoritative, historical Gaelic dictionary comparable to the resources available for Scots and English through the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, the Scottish National Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary.

The dictionary will document fully the history of the Scottish Gaelic language and culture from the earliest manuscript material onwards, placing Scottish Gaelic in context with Irish and Lowland Scots, and it will show the relationship between Scottish Gaelic and Irish.

The project draws on the Corpas na Gàidhlig, part of the Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic based at the University of Glasgow.

Specialist dictionaries

Except for place-name publications, specialist dictionaries remain rare and focus almost exclusively on the natural world or government terminology. The most notable exception is ''An Stòr-dàta Briathrachais'', a dictionary of general technical terminology published by the Gaelic college Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

Timeline
* 1883 ''The Gaelic Names of Plants'' John Cameron -
digitised version
at National Library of Scotland)
* 1890 ''The Gaelic Names of Diseases and Diseased States'' by Cameron Gillies
* 1905 ''Gaelic Names of Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Insects, Reptiles etc.'' by Alexander Forbes -
digitised version
at National Library of Scotland)
* 1989 ''Gaelic Names for Flowers and Plants'' Douglas Clyne
* 1993 ''An Stòr-dàta Briathrachais''
* 1999 ''Ainmean Gàidhlig Lusan - Gaelic Names of Plants'' Joan Clark and Ian MacDonald
* 2001 ''Faclair na Pàrlamaid'', a dictionary of governmental terminology
* 2011 ''Dictionary for Local Government - Scottish Gaelic and English'', an online dictionary by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar

See also

* Irish lexicography
* ''Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru''

References

External links

Faclairean Gàidhlig
- a page at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig with links to essential all online Gaelic dictionaries

Multidict
- search interface to nearly all online, searchable Gaelic dictionaries
* Links to digitalise
Grammars

Dictionaries
at Wikisource

Individual online dictionaries

Am Faclair Beag

Stòr-dàta Briathrachais Gàidhlig

Searchable version of Dwelly's dictionary

Am Briathrachan Beag
by Malcolm MacFarlane

Dictionary for Local Government

WebArchive (page images of out of copyright dictionaries)
* Digital version of the Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum
Vol. IVol. II
* Digital version of Dwelly's Gaelic dictionary, revised edition of 1918
Vol. I (intro, a – dath)Vol. II (dath – mì-stiùrannan)Vol. III (mì-stuama – ut! ut!, proper names)

Projects

Faclair na Gàidhlig

DASG - Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic

{{Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic language
Lexicography