Deeside Gaelic is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Aberdeenshire until 1984.[1] Unlike a lot of extinct dialects of Scottish Gaelic, it is relatively well attested. A lot of the work pertaining to Deeside Gaelic was done by Frances Carney Diack,[2][3] and was expanded upon by David Clement, Adam Watson[4] and Seumas Grannd.[5]

Deeside Gaelic
Aberdeenshire Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic: Gàidhlig Shrath Deathain
RegionAberdeenshire
Extinct18 March 1984, with the death of Jean Bain
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-1gd
ISO 639-2gla
ISO 639-3gla
Glottologscot1245
Deeside Gaelic is located in Aberdeenshire
Braemar
Braemar
Inverey
Inverey
Tullich
Tullich
Glen Muick
Glen Muick
Strathdon
Strathdon
Crathie
Crathie
Strathspey
Strathspey
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Decline

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In Aberdeenshire, 18% of Crathie and Braemar and as much as 61% in Inverey were bilingual in 1891.[6] By 1984, the dialect had died out.

Features in Deeside Gaelic

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In the mid-20th Century the Scottish Gaelic Dialect Survey was undertaken when there were still people who spoke Deeside Gaelic. Features of Deeside Gaelic include:

  • dropping of unstressed syllables; an example of this is the Word "Duine" becoming "duin'"[7]
  • weakening of the /o/ to a /u/ sound, words such as "Dol" being pronounced closer to "Dul"[8]
  • slender nn being pronounced like an English ng [9]
  • mutation of f instead of being dropped is pronounced as a /v/ or /b/ or /p/ in Speyside[10]
  • dropping of -adh, words such as tuilleadh being recorded as tull[11]
  • conditional final stop; conditional tense was realised as a /g/ or /k/ sound in Braemar[12]
  • shortening of words; words such as agaibh being pronounced closer to "aki" and cinnteach being shortened to cinnt [13]

References

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  1. ^ "Gaelic in the North East | The School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture | The University of Aberdeen". www.abdn.ac.uk.
  2. ^ "Papers of and relating to Francis Carney Diack - Archives Hub". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk.
  3. ^ King, Jacob. "A (re-)examination of the work of F. C. Diack (1865-1939)" – via www.academia.edu. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ "Clement (David)". bill.celt.dias.ie.
  5. ^ "Grannd (Seumas)". bill.celt.dias.ie.
  6. ^ "Upper Deeside". aberdeenshire-gaelic.
  7. ^ SGDS vol. 3: 360
  8. ^ SGDS vol. 5: 689
  9. ^ SGDS vol.2:167
  10. ^ SGDS vol. 3: 384
  11. ^ SGDS vol.2: 133
  12. ^ SGDS vol.3:281
  13. ^ SGDS vol.3: 281