Update, 2022: There’s now a version 2 to explore.
After posting on twitter about starting to better understand Scottish maps since learning some Gaelic, I was pointed to all sorts of interesting articles, projects, books and events on the subject. One was this Ordanance Survey guide to the Gaelic origins of place-names, which I felt was crying out for a map to be made from the data. It gives examples and translations of some of the most commonly-seen Gaelic words on maps of Scotland.
As the grid references listed were for a 1km box and the NLS Historic Map Layer uses various OS maps from the 1920s-1940s, you’re going to have to do a bit of sleuthing to try and see each Gaelic word. 🕵 You may find the reference or you may not, but exploring these lovely old maps is all part of the fun…
The tweet that kicked it all off is below; there are plenty of excellent replies too. The joy of understanding the Gaelic placenames was summed up with this lovely quote from James Westland:
Once I started learning, it was like a veil being lifted, like some sort of opaque film being removed from the map…
So I’ll keep practising my Gaelic to know my Rubha Mòr Nighean Eoin from my Eilean Meall na Suirudhe, gradually lifting that veil. It’s worth noting that there are numerous databases of Celtic-language placenames at the bottom of this page, and the 1000+ names above are just a tiny sampler. Hopefully it’s enough to give you the Gaelic bug though… Happy exploring!
One of the cool things about learning Gaelic is the sudden awakening of place names on Scottish maps – it's like someone suddenly switched the light on… A "Gaelic for Cartographers" course would be a great idea! @ScotsGaelicfor @ScotsGaelicDuo @OrdnanceSurvey #gaelic pic.twitter.com/xcyM67b3Kn— Phil Taylor (@ScienceAndMaps) February 25, 2020
Resources:
- The original article / data from OS.
- Scottish Place-Name Society
- Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland
- Northern Ireland Place-Name Project
- Placenames Database of Ireland
- Reading the Gaelic Landscape by John Murray
I want learn Scottish Gaelic, but all I seem to find are books online. Could you direct me as to where I might find CD’s to help me learn the sound of the the letters. Thanks
Hi Neil, there are some books that come with CDs, such as Complete Gaelic (copy on eBay at the mo here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/178355313?iid=133337844644). There was also a TV series and book from the 70s called Can Seo, which can be found on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBVb1zbe32k. The Learn Gaelic website is really helpful too: https://learngaelic.scot/getting_started.jsp?. And there’s the duolingo course which teaches pronunciation: https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/gd/en/Learn-Scottish%20Gaelic
Hope that’s helpful!
I’d be careful with OS Gaelic names as some have changed from the original over the years with no explanation or consultation. OS are not experts on the language and I fear some of the guidance given by academics from the comfort of a library disregards local knowledge as the language dies out. Also advice given on standardising names is simply wrong and diverts from local heritage.
Hi Angus – you make a good point, OS definitely shouldn’t been seen as the official historians of the Gaelic language by any means! I hope this map might give people a small way into learning about the Gaelic language and its use in modern names though. You might be interested in this map of Loch Torridon place-names, with all the names being collected locally: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1zHpvMdQhkQWXjVg919O4SMtjD5alh14w&ll=57.55188547902752%2C-5.608465000000034&z=11
odd map there loads of gaelic names not on the map, my home town has a gaelic name, Alloa , as is Tullibody, Tillicoultry, Alva, Dollar, Sauchie Clackmannan, some are welsh/pictish and gaelic combinations, but thats just some of the towns, you start looking at the names of hills like ben cluch ets and farms etc, and it gets a lot more dense, I wonder by what criteria there defining Gaelic??
Hi Stuart – thanks for your comment. This is a map of common Gaelic placenames, so it just shows examples of the most common names. It’s in no way attempting to be an exhaustive map of all Gaelic placenames in Scotland. However, I am working on attempting something along those lines (within reason) so watch this space. This map is just a spatial version of the list in this article: https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/guides/the-gaelic-origins-of-place-names-in-britain/
PS In case you’re not familiar with it, the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba website is really good for finding out about the Gaelic origins of place names. Here’s Alloa for example: https://www.ainmean-aite.scot/placename/alloa/