November 5, 2017 — One of my favorite books is Scots Gaelic: An Introduction to the Basics, by George McLennan. This book is still in print. Used copies are also available and may be worth considering once you include extra costs for shipping, postage, and currency conversion fees (if your currency is different from the seller’s).
This is a small book but well worth owning for what it offers a learner. My copy (2005 edition) is 13cm X 19.8cm X 7mm and has 78 pages. It is packed with introductory information about how the language works in pronunciation, grammar, and spelling, as well as its history and differences in dialects. If you think Scottish Gaelic is hard to learn, you can find out why English can be even more difficult for new learners. If you are interested in an overview and where Scottish Gaelic fits in the Indo-European family of languages, this is covered along with plenty of examples of similarities and differences between Scottish Gaelic and the languages we are generally taught in school.
The writing style is engaging and easy to understand. The best part for me is that the book improves my ability to learn by providing explanations beyond what my courses have included. It has made learning more fun and encourages me to want to learn more. It provides correct linguistic or grammatical terms for language features discussed (such as, pre-aspiration, inflection, participles). These help learners find more information on topics of interest.
While the book is neither a textbook nor a grammar book, it does include a list of 300 words for “getting along” in Scottish Gaelic. I think it would be improved by an index so I started my own in pencil inside the back cover. The book was first published in 1987 and my copy (2005) appears to be the third edition. It is small enough to carry everywhere.
Highlights:
- Vocabulary list with Gaelic, English, and English Cognate provided at the end of every chapter.
- Short place names list at the end of every chapter that shows how place names are derived from words in that chapter. The exception is only Chapter 9 – which is all about place names.
- Explains why it seems so difficult to find translations for words in a Gaelic-English dictionary from (what seems to be) a “simple” sentence. Once you understand some of them, life as a SG learner suddenly becomes much easier!
Table of Contents:
Preface; Preface to the 2nd edition; Preface to the 1st edition1. Background
2. Lenition / Aspiration
3. Spelling
4. Inflection
5. Letters lost or added, stress and accent
6. Some problems with verbs
7. Dialects
8. Time and number
9. Place names
10. Basics
Details:
Author: George McLennanTitle: Scots Gaelic, An Introduction to the Basics
Publication Date: 2005, reprinted 2010
Previous Editions: 1987, 1998
Publisher: Argyll Publishing
Printed: Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow
Dimensions, mm, width x height x thickness: 130 X 197 X 7
Pages: 78 pgs
ISBN: 1-902831-88-8
Table of Contents: Yes, 10 chapters
Index: No
© 2017
