Footnotes:
1 Submissions are being made to Teangeòlas, Scottish Language, European Journal of Communication, and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.
2 This research will concentrate upon the form of language within the scripts of the news bulletins. Although today’s broadcasts contain much non-scripted material, the bulletin is a consistent feature in Gaelic broadcasting, pre-dating W.W.II. As there are no sound recordings of Gaelic news broadcasts in archives, one must rely on these scripts (1959-present) for linguistic evidence. 3 Yet the form of written Gaelic that these bodies sometimes employ has been taken into question: “They are evidently written in English first and then translated into an un-nuanced, colloquial Gaelic that, if re-translated literally would be perceived as manifestly unsuitable for the purpose at hand. [They are] simultaneously infelicitous, imprecise, and insufficiently attentive to the question of register” (McLeod 1996, 32). 4 Gaelic music introduced in English was still classified as Gaelic output at this time. 5 Mr. MacDonald is well-known as the first Gaelic journalist, trained as a reporter before his entrance to Gaelic media. 6 The Scottish news in English had gone daily in 1945 (McDowell 1992). 7 The news in English was not broadcast until 1:00 PM at 8 During the September 1997 Referendum, RnG broadcast a several hour coverage of the polling complete with discussions, interviews, and live on-scene reporting. It was clearly of a quality comparable to its English counterparts. 9 The news in general, at this time, was of a stiff, scripted nature, and not considered entirely important to the mission. Broadcasters would be heard saying, “And there is no news tonight” (MacAulay 1997). The style of the BBC was shaken terribly, however, when ITN came on the scene with their relaxed, personal style (Milne 1988). 10 Those used were the Oban Times, Stornoway Gazette, People’s Journal, Inverness Courier, and the Perthshire Advertiser (MacAulay 1997). 11 Even certain individuals with ‘simply immaculate Gaelic’ found difficulty when presented with these translation tasks (Macaulay 1997). 12 This was my own experience when I visited the news room in Inverness. I heard one of the news-writers say, “Dè 'Ghàidhlig a th' air ‘neurological disorder’?”. The reply came back, “trioblaidean-inntinn”. Also, after Aithris na Maidne was wrapped up, there was a meeting in which the team discussed the possible misunderstanding of ceum-dannsa as a ‘degree in dancing’ versus what was meant: ‘step-dancing’. 13 A broad stroke assertion might be that “good” Gaelic is backward-looking: the kind of language that would have been spoken in past generations, and maybe by certain older members of this one. 14 Bex (1996) makes a statement about English that is relevant to Gaelic, perhaps universal: The belief that standards of English are falling is peculiar, although it has a long history. It is peculiar in that is presupposes that there is some universal set of criteria against which the standard can be judged. Usually these criteria are found in the past and they are frequently associated with particular literary writers. (p. 8) 15 aig a’ chù aice versus aig a cù 16 bleoghainn na bà, b. na bò ?, b. a' bhà ?, b. a’ bhò x 17 Ex. Using genitive forms that have disappeared in common parlance such as Albann for the genitive of Alba (Morrison 1997); even a recent government publication was entitled ‘Pàrlamaid na h-Alba’. 18 Ferguson (1968) says that lexical expansion will be most effective when: 1) The tempo is not too fast; 2) The practitioners who need the vocabulary are involved in its creation; and 3) There are sufficient lines of communication between the users of the new lingo to arrive at a consensus. Based upon these assertions, the Gaelic news-broadcasters have a likelihood of having an impact. 19 It should be made clear that the dates affixed to the examples represent the date of its text of origin, not when they first entered the language as such. For this kind of information, we must await the Historical Dictionary being compiled by the University of Glasgow. 20 Note differences in genitive plural form of croitear. 21 Phenecitin is a curious example as it is only partially assimilated into Gaelic orthography, as shown by the <c> and <t> which would be slenderised in Gaelic. With an example such as this, that may only rarely enter into the discourse of Gaelic speakers, we would not expect it to be assigned, or indeed to have a developed, a re-dressing. 22 Although some of these will, if possible, be lenited when appropriate: Riaghaltas Shyria (1965). 23 Note mòisean is unassimilated morphologically and is thus ambiguous in the genitive. Yet we can safely assume that it is singular. Although -(e)an is a common plural morpheme in Gaelic, it probably, in this example, simply the rendering of the -ion ending of the English word 24 In an earlier example (1959), stad-oibre was used instead. Stailc has become the common usage at this point. 25 Itealan is not used as often now as it was in the 60’s and perhaps 70’s. The common usage is now pleun/ plèan: a case of the community never really accepting the neologism and the broadcasters responding with a change in their preference. 26 This study is apparently the only published example dealing with register differentiation in Celtic language media. However, due its lack of inferential statistics, we can not be completely sure to what degree the frequency differences obtained are due to chance. 27 There have been several attempts to settle the issue of Gaelic spelling over the years. Unfortunately for Gaelic learners and editors, these initiatives have, instead of solving the debate once and for all, resulted in the proliferation of different systems which, although slight in their differences, continue to exist side-by-side. 28 Air dhà ‘after him/ it’ was never seen by me in the more recent records, the use being an déidh dhà. Another example of this type is gus ‘in order to’ which is quite rare in that sense in the scripts, yielding to airson. 29 ‘Intonational full-stop’ was the description offered by Meek (1997), when he agreed that he had noticed it as well. 30 McEnery & Wilson (1996) provide a readable introduction to the theoretical issues and application of computerised corpora in linguistic research. 31 The script has been left unedited besides italicisation for emphasis. 32 As pointed out to the author, even more rude in the Gaelic than the English. 33 Adapted from that used in the London-Lund corpus, cited in McEnery & Wilson (1996). 34 Two presenters were used, one Gaelic and one English, and broadcasts were from the same day. Words in bold show the 'intonational full stop'.