Detractors have long described Scottish Gaelic as a dying language, yet there has never been as much interest shown in it as today. In print, on radio and television, Gaelic, with its vast vocabulary, has been shown to be more than adequate to express, not only the requirements of the old life of the Highlands and Islands, but also to act as a modern language for a modern world. This book will be found to be valuable manual for speakers, teachers. learners and writers of Scottish .Gaelic

Work for the series »Placenames of the Isle of Man« is undertaken under the auspices of the Manx Place-Name Survey, set up at the University of Mannheim in 1988. The survey falls into two parts: material collected from a) oral, and b) documentary sources. Place-name material, mostly Manx Gaelic, for the first part, was collected on sound-recordings or in phonetic script 1989-1992 from some 200 informants, almost exclusively from the farming community. The second part contains material drawn from documentary sources of 13th-20th century date, but mostly from 17th-19th centuries. This is the final volume in the series »Placenames of the Isle of Man«. Six volumes, based on the Sheadings (districts) of Glenfaba, Michael, Ayre, Garff, Middle and Rushen, are already published. Volume 7 includes the town of Douglas (capital), place-name and field-name addenda, as well as complete indexes of place-name elements, place-names, field-names, and personal names. In addition are the following four articles: »Place-Names and the Physical and Human Geography of the Isle of Man: an Overview« (Peter Darvey), »Pre-Scandinavian Place-Names in the Isle of Man« (George Broderick), »The Scandinavian Element in the Place-Names of the Isle of Man« (Gillian Fellows-Jensen), and »Common Elements in Manx Place-Names« (George Broderick). To complete the volume are 17 parish maps containing the traditional land divisions of treen and quarterland.

The publication of An Introduction to Scottish Ethnology sees the completion of the fourteen-volume Scottish Life and Society series, originally conceived by the eminent ethnologist Professor Alexander Fenton. The series explores the many elements in Scottish history, language and culture which have shaped the identity of Scotland and Scots at local, regional and national level, placing these in an international context. Each of the thirteen volumes already published focuses on a particular theme or institution within Scottish society. This introduction provides an overview of the discipline of ethnology as it has developed in Scotland and more widely, the sources and methods for its study, and practical guidance on the means by which it can be examined within its constituent genres, based on the experience of those currently working with ethnological materials. Theory and practice are presented in an accessible fashion, making it an ideal companion for the student, the scholar and the interested amateur alike.

This single-volume reference offers a practical, evaluative guide to the main general dictionaries of the world's languages. It provides selective, critical annotations to help users choose the most appropriate dictionary for their purpose.

This book fulfils a keenly-felt need for a modern, comprehensive dictionary of Scottish Gaelic into English. The numerous examples of usage and idiom in this work have been modelled on examples culled from modern literature, and encompass many registers ranging from modern colloquial speech, to more elaborate literary constructions. The main contemporary terms and idiomatic phraseology, often not available in other dictionaries, provide excellent models for easier language learning. In addition to the main dictionary, the volume contains introductory material, providing guidance on using the dictionary, spelling and pronunciation. There are also twelve useful appendices which cover not only the various parts of speech, lenition and proper nouns, but also address the more difficult issues of expressing time, direction and numerals. The clarity of the design and layout of the volume will greatly ease the process of attaining mastery of the Gaelic language.

This encyclopedia covers the entirety of the Celtic world, both through time and across geography. Although emphasizing the areas where Celtic languages and traditions survive into the present, the work does not slight the reaches of the Celtic empire, which was the largest language and cultural group on earth prior to the rise of Rome. In some 1,500 articles, many representing original research by the finest Celtic scholars, the work covers the Celts from prehistory to the present, giving comprehensive treatment to all topics from myth to music, religion to rulers, literature to language, government to games, and all topics in between.