Akerbeltz.org - A diachronic account of Gaelic news-speak

1 Introduction
Perhaps it would be best to begin by discussing the meaning of register as adopted here. Simply stated, a register is a variety of language associated with situation and purpose; uses rather than users (Biber 1994; Romaine 1994). Romaine (1994) comments:

As the current study is of a diachronic nature, there is a responsibility to trace the changes in the historical forms of the language and demonstrate how they correlate with changes in the areas mentioned above as conditioning factors. This paper will explore the contributing influences of the institution (BBC) and the changing contexts in its development, thus providing a framework through which to begin understanding the emergent changes in its linguistic form. It will take advantage of both written and oral accounts in order to provide descriptions of the context and institution, while samples of news-scripts² will be used, as well as the recollections of news-workers past and present, to provide examples of the form.

1.1 The Importance of News-speak
There are several reasons for studying language on radio, and news-speak in particular, when examining register development in Gaelic. For one, many Gaelic speakers must go through a day hearing substantially more Gaelic on the radio than they do in their physical vicinity (cf. Bell, 1991: “People in Western countries probably hear more language from the media than they do directly from the lips of their fellow humans in conversation... they are the dominating presenters of language in our society at large”, p. 1). In light of the effect of repetition of learning, it seems reasonable that the speech that people hear, even passively, can have an affect on their own. Furthermore, as the news generally assumes a central place in radio broadcasting, with regular reports on the hour, it is the greatest source of repetitive speech. From the standpoint of convention and repetition it would seem to have the greatest potential for affecting parlance.

Gillies (1987) asserts that broadcasters are in the position to steer a reconstruction of high-register codes in Scottish Gaelic. This is due to their daily exposure to varying forms of Gaelic, their capacity to reach listeners on a massive scale, their roles as professional communicators, and their mission to express current affairs in understandable Gaelic. Yet, as much as radio is a potential boon to the state of the language, Gillies recognises the potential for an accelerated wearing away of linguistic integrity; one hears inconsistent usage, neologism, dialectalisms, and occasional hyper-correctness. MacAulay (1986) suggests that radio has an edge over even television as far as its potential to affect speech, this due to its greater exposure time and ability to reach a larger audience. He is in concordance with Bell’s basic position above, saying that the media are the most commanding producers of new forms of Gaelic, mentioning examples of expressions that have entered (or re-entered) Gaelic speech due to their influence. However, it is important to retain cognisance of the fact that the people involved in media are members of and originate from society at large. So, when examining the state of Scottish Gaelic, they are both a barometer and a system capable of causing change (see Thomson 1994). In order to understand this, it is helpful to appreciate the background of the language.

1.2 Scottish Gaelic: Contexts of Use and The Present Situation
Gaelic was once the dominant language in Scotland and employed at every level of situational formality. Yet, due to English taking on the communicative roles previously assumed by Gaelic in most official and formal contexts, there are certain registers for which it has not been normally put to use. In general, the more technical or abstruse, the more political, scientific, or field-specific the topic, the less chance there has been of Gaelic being the language of choice (MacAulay 1982; Thomson 1994). Exceptions to this include religious discussion or technical matters involving the traditional occupations of crofting and fishing. Other registers of semi-predictable use include gossip, household matters, jokes and stories, pub-talk, and other non-field-specific discourse (Thomson 1994). Thomson asserts that only a small minority of Gaelic speakers today, in fact, would be able to handle a breadth of registers in their native tongue, the preferred strategy being to switch to English. And Meek (1990) sees the recent retreat of religious discourse in Gaelic as compounding the problem. The loss of the formal, supradialectal forms present in biblical, Classical Gaelic has meant that younger generations of speakers have lost a whole reservoir of expressiveness as well as a sense of appropriateness when navigating upper-level registers. So, the present contexts of use in Scottish Gaelic are generally limited to traditional work settings, the home, and religion, although the latter is seen to be slowly losing its grip.

The most common strategy for Gaelic speakers today (virtually all are fluent English bilinguals) when faced with an unfamiliar register is to take on the appropriate English discourse on loan. Yet there have been conscious efforts to ‘modernise’ the language (see Thomson 1990). With, for instance, the initiation of Gaelic-medium schools and colleges, its limited use in certain official bodies associated with Gaelic-speaking areas³, and the devotion of unprecedented resources towards its inclusion in the mass media, there has been a rejoinder to begin developing new modes of expression. The single most daunting issue facing those involved, however, has been that of establishing lines of communication, and reaching some collective acceptance. Without that, these efforts will remain ultimately idiosyncratic. The media, however, is free from the bonds of isolation. In fact, it is omnipresent and has the potential, as aforementioned, of being the prime mover in register development and expansion, and a great influence in general linguistic change.

2 A Short History of Gaelic Radio Broadcasting
The beginnings of Gaelic in the BBC were, appropriately enough for the language, a religious program aired out of Aberdeen in 1923 (Murray 1997). From then until 1935, when the first Gaelic producer as such was hired, Hugh MacPhee, Gaelic programs were broadcast irregularly and infrequently, with Glasgow as the centre (MacAulay, MacInnes, & Thomson 1994; MacAulay 1997). Yet, with the BBC’s commitment to Gaelic established, even on an initial level, somewhat regular programs began to be aired — a couple per week (MacAulay et al. 1994) — although many were actually recitals of Gaelic song, presented in English (Murray 1997). At this point, the thought of including news, translated from English or from the original Gaelic, had not yet occurred to the BBC. The first inclusion of the news in Gaelic did transpire in 1939 (McDowell 1992), but this and other promising expansions were interrupted shortly thereafter with the onset of W.W.II, during which Gaelic broadcasting effectively ceased.

It could be said that Gaelic broadcasting truly began after the War and a second producer was added at that time, Finlay J. MacDonald (MacAulay 1997). This epoch marked the commencement of a long struggle to gain more frequent and regular air time (Murray 1997). Fred MacAulay replaced Finlay MacDonald in 1954 and, by this time, things had accelerated gradually until there were weekly, 10 minute news broadcasts on Friday night, with total air time amounting to about 1 1/2 hours per week (MacAulay et al 1994; MacAulay 1997; Murray 1997). The news at this time was, in one broadcaster’s words “farcical” (MacPherson 1997) and “comment was quite likely to occur in the middle or at the end of a news item” (MacAulay 1997). Programs were strong on “scholarly talk” and reminiscence with the occasional safari to the Highlands and Islands in search of material (M. MacDonald 1976).

Reduction in funds caused the news program to get cut to a monthly broadcast in August, 1957. This brought protests from a previously assenting Gaelic community and the BBC responded with the first Audience Research Survey (1958) to determine demographics and viewing-frequency measures for Gaelic listeners (Murray 1997). The news was reinstated at once per week. Gaelic output was at 2 hours per week in 1962, plus one hour of additional material per month.⁴ The news stayed at one 15 minute, weekly bulletin of national and local items (Murray 1997). In 1964, Hugh MacPhee retired and MacAulay took over as the head of the Gaelic department.

The mid 60’s were, in general, a stage of optimism and expansion for Gaelic radio. Much of this can be credited to the visions of Fred MacAulay and of those that he took on as his associates: John Alec MacPherson, Martainn MacDonald⁵, and Neil Frasier. But it was the pro-Gaelic attitudes of Alasdair Milne, head of Radio Scotland, that opened the door for the developments of that period. The news became an everyday occurrence in 1965⁶— something that MacAulay had been fighting for for years (MacPherson 1997)— a 5 minute summary followed by 10 minutes of Gaelic song, broadcast at noon⁷. Also, Milne gave Gaelic another hour in the evening, bringing the total hours up to 6 and 1/2 per month. Finally, a weekly topical magazine programme, written for by northern and western freelancers, was produced by the Glasgow station and broadcast to the NW sector only. This was the first programme of its kind on Gaelic radio, and was seen as an advance, but it also clearly showed the distance between the production centre and its Gaeltachd focus (Murray 1997). Ironically, this sort of planning had benefits in the move towards establishing a national Gaelic radio service:

Thus the 70’s hallmarked the first foundations of a national Gaelic radio service: Radio Highland in Inverness (1976) and Radio nan Eilean in Stornoway (1979). A catalyst for some of this was the fact that Gaelic itself, its requirements and ‘renaissance’, became items of popular interest in the late 60’s/ early 70’s (Murray 1997). In 1970, the number of broadcast hours was up to 3.25 per week with an additional 0.5 hours for the NW sector only (Murray 1997). With Radio Highland established in 1976, there was a full-range of programs airing including documentaries, drama, current affairs, and general interest programs. This was, for the first time, a general broadcasting service (MacAulay 1997). Also in 1976, the BBC agreed to form a Gaelic Advisory Committee which would have “direct access to the management and the Broadcasting Council... [and play] a leading role in the process of establishing a comprehensive, co-ordinated service, including news” (Murray 1997, 2). This move was prompted by demands from local authorities, the educational establishment, university students, the crafty lobbying of Gaelic advocate organisations, and the willingness of the Highlands and Islands Development Board to help finance expansion of the broadcasting infrastructure. Broadcasting planners began to envision a division of labour between the different media centres that, put together, would begin to form a networked whole: Glasgow was slated for non-news, features, archival work, and programmes requiring its studio standards; Inverness was to cover news and current affairs; and Stornoway, youth and community programs (Murray 1997). The year 1979 saw the introduction of Radio nan Eilean, which increased the number of hours per week to 14 and began broadcasting morning and evening to the people of the West Coast and Islands. At this time, there started the first daily morning news program, a bilingual 20 minute slot (J. MacDonald 1997). Ultimately the English was seen as superfluous and was dropped.

In the early 80’s there was further expansion: a continuation of the Gaelic Advisory Committee’s recommendations. From within the Broadcasting council for Scotland, issues were raised which induced the development of a Gaelic Study Group (Murray 1997). Its mission was to evaluate what could and ought to be done for Gaelic broadcasting, submitting proposals to the Broadcasting Council to deal with the prospects for Gaelic media over the following ten years. The Group made certain that it was as public an entity as possible, advertising itself widely, and eliciting evidence from a wide range of individuals, organisations, and public councils. The Report that emerged in 1982 outlined policies and pragmatic planning for the BBC, based on “the overwhelming view... that there was an urgent need for increased hours of broadcasting on radio and television to create a service of Gaelic broadcasting” (BBC 1982: cited in Murray 1997, 2). It also clearly stated the crucial role that broadcasting has in the preservation of both Gaelic as a living language and its distinctive culture. It was immediately backed up by the BBC in most of its recommendations, with finances put forward to enable an increase of staff and resources. It set, as an aim, the doubling of Gaelic-medium output to 30 hours by the year 1988 (Murray 1997).

The first national Gaelic radio service, Radio nan Gàidheal, emerged in 1985. By 1986, there were 25 hours of Gaelic service being aired although it was distributed unevenly throughout Scotland, with some areas receiving a greater share of the pot (see Appendix 1). Upgrades of studio facilities in Inverness (1987) and Stornoway (1992) contributed to a growing quality and professionalism. Staff were added throughout this time, although not necessarily in keeping with the increase of air time (Morrison 1997). The greatest noticeable change during the last 10 years has been this increase, as well as the depth and variety of the programs being aired. The weekly broadcast now includes news bulletins on the hour, current affairs programs (morning and evening), documentaries, live coverage⁸, children’s programs, talk shows, a request program, and programs using archival stores. It is fair to say that today’s Gaelic radio “is much more professional than ever before in terms of compilation, scope, and delivery... it has evolved beyond recognition from the way it was 12 years ago” (Morrison 1997).

3.1 General Developments
The news in Gaelic began, as mentioned above, right before the second World War, yet it was many years before the BBC Gaelic Department could have been called ‘news gathering’ as such. In the early days, it was a reflection of the mainstream English broadcasting at the time, for a start, with a very ‘stilted’ presentation (MacPherson)⁹. The reports were compiled from the previous weekend’s papers¹⁰, translated into Gaelic, and broadcast on the Friday night (MacAulay 1997). This practice changed, however, when the news went daily in 1965 and the BBC News Department began issuing copy to the Gaelic Department, exercising control over the content. The translators/readers were not to interfere with the copy and were told to translate as directly as possible (MacAulay 1997, MacPherson 1997). This was probably an appropriate enough policy for, at that time, those hired to do the job were generally either clergy/ministers, retired, or academics; they were not news-people per se and received no training as such (M. MacDonald 1997). The style of translation varied from individual to individual, with some exhibiting great ability at capturing the Gaelic idiom. However, some remained transfixed by the English copy, their output severely anglicised, and translated practically word for word (MacAulay 1997, MacPherson 1997). Although there were no editorial practices per se, occasionally an individual would be “let go” post hoc, due to an inability to translate effectively. This was a difficult issue, for those employed were from the community and working at it partially out of their own goodwill (MacAulay 1997)¹¹.

As the daily spots were only for 5 minutes, the translations had to be “tighter than the English copy” (MacPherson); those who succeeded were able to put the sense of the English into an idiomatic Gaelic with less words than the original. There was no formal policy concerning neologism or borrowing, but if a word needed to be created, there was the attempt to give it a form with less syllables than the English (satellite > saideal) (MacPherson 1997). Resources were few at this time with only the standard dictionaries — Dwelly’s, MacLennan’s, and MacEachen’s — used for consultation. One broadcaster from that period mentions that there was a definite problem with not having had standard word lists or policies concerning neologism at the time (MacPherson). This was recognised by MacAulay in the late 60’s and he initiated an Advisory Panel which met occasionally in order to address these issues. A letter was sent out soliciting Gaelic correspondences for words that often appeared in usage — such as government entities and constituents of the road system — and the panel would meet in order to decide on the best alternatives (MacAulay 1997; J. MacDonald 1997). The best fits were kept in a note card file, updated with each meeting (MacAulay 1997).

The first part of the 70’s did not usher in any major changes. The news-readers/translators were being picked, much the same as before, for their level of Gaelic rather than any journalistic skills per se. There was no true editorial practice other than this selection and no training (MacAulay 1997). The practice was not much different from the way it had been for the past few years — one took the English copy off the printer, wrote a translation and read from one’s own handwriting when the time came to be on air (Meek 1997). It seems that the word file that the Advisory Panel had collated was not often consulted however; Meek says that he only had a few brief glimpses of it. Instead of dealing with translations via agreement at the lexical level, there was an attempt to utilise idiomatic devices (Meek 1997). However, there is also the first mention that translation had become a rushed affair and sometimes presented a barrier to the very attempt to be idiomatic rather than literal (Meek 1997).

With the advent of Radio Highland (1976), there was, for the first time, an emphasis put on news gathering in addition to translation of English copy (J. MacDonald 1997) and journalists were beginning to be hired specifically for that purpose (MacPherson 1997). With Radio nan Eilean (1979), and the beginning of the first daily AM news program Aithris na Maidne, the pressure on those involved in news and current affairs grew considerably (J. MacDonald 1997). There is a mention of the word lists upon which MacAulay had worked resurfacing in the early 80’s (MacLennan 1997), giving credence to an observation that the production was growing more vocabulary than idiom-centred at that time (Meek 1997). The demand for professionalism was increasing drastically and there was a recognition of a need for training. Trainee news and current affairs personnel were, for several years, sent to London for tutelage with the BBC (Morrison 1997), but this practice decreased after a few years and trainees were taken in as supervised apprentices instead (Morrison 1997). There are mentions of both Fred MacAulay, and then Donald Morrison using peer pressure to maintain a high quality of writing and translation (Morrison 1997), but comments were informal rather than coming out of an editorial infrastructure.

With the beginning of Radio nan Gàidheal (1985), a recognition grew in some senior staff that there was a compelling need for both formal and informal quality control devices to be implemented (Murray 1997). John Murray, RnG editor (1987-1992), contracted Marianne MacDonald, one of the most experienced news-readers at the time, to write the first in-house style book for the news and current affairs staff in 1989. However, like the note cards from MacAulay’s Advisory Panel, it seems that these efforts to standardise did not often find their way into actual use (McLeod 1997, Morrison 1997). Issues of borrowing and neologism instead tended to be settled at an on-the-spot basis, with large impromptu discussions arising in the newsroom about correspondences of English and Gaelic terminology (J. MacDonald 1997)¹². MacAulay’s note cards were, however, collated and put into typed format for inclusion in MacDonald’s work. This list, in addition to Dwelly’s dictionary, a list of Gaelic-English place names (Ainmean-àite), De Bhaldraithe’s English-Irish Dictionary, and Sabhal Mór Ostaig’s An Stòr-data Briathrachais, form the set of resources that have been most used by the newsroom staff for the past few years (MacLennan 1997, Morrison 1997).

During the late 80’s and early 90’s, major computer upgrading occurred in all of Radio nan Gàidheal’s studios (Murray 1997). This enabled direct communication between RnG centres as well as a link to general BBC information sources, such as on-the-minute wires. This was probably the first major change since the 60’s to the way that the Gaelic news personnel gathered and translated the news. Bulletins in English were on-screen and could be translated without any paper shuffling. Also, copy could be sent off to several people simultaneously. This brought unprecedented efficiency to the process, although it also brought along a great capacity for reduplication of orthographic and grammatical errors [see section 4.3 on orthography] (J. MacDonald 1997). In tandem, although the resources have grown over the past two decades, the pace clearly has as well, and many people involved have remarked that the pressure to get the news out on time often leaves little room for pondering grammatical or idiomatic usage (MacAulay 1997; J. MacDonald 1997; M. MacDonald 1997; McLeod 1997; MacPherson 1997). This would ostensibly have effects on the translations of the most fluent Gaelic speaker/writer, but is compounded by the certainty that, as time goes on, available recruits are becoming ever less grammatically aware, with fewer synonyms, colloquialisms, and general linguistic currency compared to older generations (J. MacDonald 1997). As one commentator and previous news-worker put it, their vocabulary has “become much tighter and neater, but the idiom has fallen out and the grammar could be a bit better” (Meek 1997).

3.2 Philosophies of Style and Usage
As discussed already, attempts to standardise the lexicon and style of the news broadcasts have fallen far short of universal adoption by those employed to write the news. The question remains, in absence of clearly established standards, as to what is generally held to be acceptable practice. Although all of those individuals surveyed for this research would maintain that the Gaelic radio news has a responsibility to ‘good’ usage, it is very difficult to uncover what, in their minds, constitutes ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ Gaelic¹³. This issue is clearly in the consciousness of those involved, however (J. MacDonald 1997), and is compounded by the fact that the public expects the media to speak a much more conservative form of language than they themselves would practice (Morrison 1997).

MacAulay (1997) makes the point that there is a wide disparity between the kind of Gaelic that different groups use without any general consensus or standard having yet emerged¹⁴. Yet, the opinions of those news-workers questioned offer glimpses about what forms the terrain between the questionable/unacceptable and the pedantic, so far as grammatical ideals are concerned. Practices to avoid: verbosity (Morrison 1997); the use of an assimilated word (bacadh>backing) to mean the opposite or confuse the meaning of a native Gaelic homophone (impeding, obstructing) (J. MacDonald 1997, M. MacDonald 1997, McLeod 1997); unwieldy use of periphrastic possessive forms using aig when simple possessive pronouns would be more suitable¹⁵ (Macaulay 1997); both using the nominative forms of irregular nouns in genitive constructions and confusing the gender¹⁶ (Macaulay 1997); utilising an unedited English-Gaelic resource such as the Stòr-data without concern for what is neologism versus common-store (MacAulay 1997); using a style of writing that parasites on English syntax and lexicon (MacPherson 1997; Morrison 1997); translating succinct English copy into verbose Gaelic and then rushing through the broadcast to stay on time (“They may beat the clock, but they defeat the audience.”) (Murray 1997); and, finally, the use of archaic or pedantic language: being too correct¹⁷ (Morrison 1997). The general aim is to be concise, accurate, and comprehensible (Murray 1997); to use a form of Gaelic that is both understood by most of the audience and is grammatically aware (J. MacDonald 1997). When asked what the qualities of the “best” news-readers are, respondents said that they were able to: write a story as they would tell it to a friend avoiding jargon (MacLennan, 1997); conceptualise language holistically without translating word for word (MacAulay 1997); balance good grammatical usage with natural, colloquial idiom (Morrison 1997); and speak with clear diction (M. MacDonald 1997).

4 Some Linguistic Features of Gaelic News-speak
As will be evident from the coming examples, there has been, understandably, a massive influence from English in the development of this register, on all linguistic fronts. Perhaps the most transparent effects have been on the level of the lexicon, yet they are detectable throughout. The order of the following sections will be as follows: the lexicon, morphology, orthography, syntax, dialect/ accent, and prosody. They will be divided first by field (ex.: 4.1 The Lexicon) and second, if applicable, by sub-field (ex.: 4.1.2 Calques). There will be remarks throughout the sections about the diachronic changes that can be seen within the time period.

It will be noticed that some sub-fields will be glaringly absent, such as a discussion of English-derived -s plurals in Gaelic. It was necessary however, due to the constraints of length and available resources, to concentrate on those aspects which seemed most salient and present in the texts rather than those which begged greater questions and a larger corpus.

Description of Corpus
The examples derive, mostly, from scripts written during the years 1959, 1965, and 1997. The scripts from 1959 are the earliest that are available from the BBC archive in Glasgow. The ones from 1965 are significant in that it was the first year of daily broadcasts. And the 1997 scripts are the most recent ones available. These were read by myself, Professor William Gillies, and Dr. Rob Ó Maolalaigh, both of Edinburgh University. They contain approximately 2500 words. I additionally read another approximately 20,000 words of script, covering the years 1959-1970, 1980, 1987, and 1997 to collect further examples.

A brief note on editing: there has been an attempt in the shorter illustrative examples below to insert the diacritics and punctuation that are utterly absent, or at least inconsistent, in the vast majority of the scripts. Certainly their absence is due to the fact that the scripts were meant to be read out loud and not published. Those inserted have been broadly consistent with the Scottish Examinations Board conventions.

4.1 The Lexicon
There is a relatively limited stock, in Gaelic, for various topics associated with modernisation. The strategy has commonly been, as aforementioned, to take the English on loan. Yet, in such a public platform as the media, this might be interpreted as revealing a lack of linguistic integrity to the rest of the world (MacAulay 1997), and there has been an intense effort by the news workers to adapt, using various strategies to communicate about concepts traditionally outwith Gaeldom. Borrowing, calquing, neologism, and semantic extension have been some of the tools employed by them, consciously or not, in their attempts¹⁸. Halliday (1968) asserts that lexical features may be the most obvious markers of a register, and may even serve by themselves as identifiers. There are probably not many words in the corpus that would, by themselves, serve to identify a text as a news-script per se, but the concentration of certain categories of terms in a text — such as those dealing with economics and government, seldom used in Gaelic — may be sufficient.

In introducing this section, I thought it might be interesting to see an overview of those domains most frequently accounted for in lexical and idiomatic expansion. I took as my source the updated version of the glossary begun by Fred MacAulay in the late 1960’s. The head-items were grouped into different domains, such as government and politics, and frequencies were calculated based upon the classification scheme. Those that did not fit neatly into any particular domain, or vaguely fit two or more, were relegated to the ‘General’ category. The data are provided in tabular form below.

4.1.1 Borrowing
Virtually every Gaelic speaker alive at this point is also a fluent English speaker: This is a situation of widespread bilingualism. When considering borrowing, there is a question whether to ‘gaelicise’ a word or to pronounce it/render its orthography as one would in English. Although the public often do, as MacAulay (1982a) says, consider it fair game to utilise almost any lexical item from English without adapting it to Gaelic phonology, news presenters are, by virtue of their elevated position, expected to produce a higher register than everyday speech. There is clearly a correlation between the number of evinced loans in a person’s speech and formality of context, with more formal contexts producing less loans (MacAulay 1982a; Dorian 1994). So, one would expect that the language of radio news would produce few examples of, especially, what may be called “unassimilated” loans; ones left, unaltered, in the form of the source language. There are, in fact, few examples of out-and-out English words in the news scripts that I perused, with possibly a greater number extant in the earliest scripts. There is commission> coimision, used in Comisean (Commission, Coimision) nan Croitearan. Yet, a year later (1963)¹⁹, one finds Co-bhonn nan Croitear²⁰ in its place. There is mòisean used for English ‘motion’ and Phenecitin used for the name of a drug commonly prescribed in the 1960’s²¹. Polataics is used for politics, being simply the rendering of the word in Gaelic orthography. We have ‘am baile New York’ in an example from 1960 and ‘airson toiseach September’ in 1967. This last example is curious as there were contemporary examples of the month names in Gaelic used in the news, and one would expect An t-Sultain to be in its place. In one from 1961 about putting the first chimpanzee in space, we have ‘chimpanzee’ and ‘rocket’. However, although it was about a topic far removed from Gaeldom, the rest of the passage seems quite Gàidhealach:

Finally, there is Distillers Company (1980), factaraidh ‘factory’ (1965), làraidh ‘lorry’ (1965) and ‘a’ bhuidheann Scottish Ballet’ from 1997. It was observed that the most common examples, however, and too numerous to cite, were proper nouns and names of countries that are either relatively new, or rarely enter into Gaelic discourse (ex. Syria, the Himalayas). These will, in general, be left in English or English-adapted orthography²². Unfortunately, because there are no tapes available of news broadcasts from earlier periods, it is impossible to hear how these names would have been pronounced; whether the English orthography lent itself to English phonology or otherwise.

Although there were few examples of unassimilated borrowings besides proper nouns, one finds borrowings assimilated to various degrees very often. There is bombaichean ‘bombs’ and atom in (1963) ‘...anns am faodar aontachadh mu bhacadh a chur air spreadhadh bhombaichean an Atoim’. Here, it is interesting to note that both have been morphologically assimilated in the genitive case (see section 4.2). (This also is an example of the appropriate, pre-loan usage of bacadh to mean ‘obstruction, opposition’.) There is bile ~ pl. bileichean meaning ‘bill’ (1965). One also finds Tòraidheach < Tory [adj.] (1965), grantaichean < grants (1967), drifteadh < drifting (1967), planaichean < plans (1997), drugaichean < drugs (1997), and fodadh < voting (1997). ‘Sandwiches’ is rendered, in an script from 1965 as sanndaichean, which must have been before the entrance of the ostensibly Irish borrowing ceapair(-ean). Another borrowing of almost certain Irish origin is deugaire < Ir. deágóir ‘teenager’ (1997). In an example from 1965 about a lethal radioactive isotope that has gone missing, there are many examples of interesting loans that are, to various degrees, assimilated to Gaelic structures (see Appendix 2). In this, we see iosatop ‘isotope’, canastair ‘canister’, siogaret ‘cigarette’, rugbai ‘rugby’, radiografair ‘radiographer’, and X-ray.

Although it is beyond the scope of the present paper, there are, currently, few productive morphemes in Gaelic that are used when assimilating loans. With verbs, for example, one of two general rules is merely to add the verbal-noun ending -adh to the root form (drift > drifteadh; smoke > smocadh), thus producing a new Gaelic verbal noun. The second is to build based on not the root form, but the participle, for example: drifting > (ing > ig) driftig > VN driftigeadh (see Macaulay 1982a). (NB: In the previous case, instead of the gaelicised root form becoming drift, it has been reanalysed as driftig.)

4.1.2 Calques
A calque (or loan translation), is a word or phrase that has been imported from one language to another, not in a straight fashion, but essentially morpheme by morpheme (Trask 1996). Idiomatic calquing is perhaps the most acknowledged way that Gaelic imitates English (Macaulay 1982a). Examples such as a’ gabhail àite, rinn e suas inntinn, and the like are so common as to be considered quasi-native structures at this point. As would be expected, the scripts are quite full of calques, both from the community at large and, ostensibly, created by the news-workers themselves. Beginning in 1959 there is sona leis ‘happy with’, an deidh eachdraidh a dhèanamh ‘after making history’, coinneamhan mullaich ‘summit meetings’, and fhuair iad fìor eagal ‘they got a big fright’ (would normally be in Gaelic ghabh iad fìor eagal ‘they took a big fright’). These are rather general examples and could be expected from the community itself. However, in two scripts (1965) discussing parliamentary proceedings, one finds troimh an dara leubhadh ‘through the second reading’ and a' cur sìos mòisean ‘putting down motions’²³. In the first script, there is also the surprising appearance of Di-h-Aonaichean for ‘Fridays’ (days don’t have plurals). That script can be found, with the English source copy, in Appendix 2. A curious example is present in saor-chlachairean (1965) meaning ‘free-masons’. In the updated Glossary, the term is listed with an editorial comment in handwriting adjacent to it declaring, “nonsense!”. An additionally curious calque from the same year is toll dìon meaning ‘safety pit’. From 1965, discussing a Russian space station, is steisean-speur and one from 1968, a calque-loan, is eadar-phlanndachadh ‘transplanting’. There are many examples of calquing from the latest scripts (1997): ath-shiollachd ‘re-cycling’, slatan-connaidh ‘fuel rods’ (as in ‘plutonium’), reidio-beò ‘radio-active’, gun tèid am faighinn cionntach ‘that they will be found guilty’, rinn na meirlich às le còrr is deich mìle nòt ‘the thieves made off with more than £10,000’, thèid... a chumail air ais ‘it will be kept back’, ruidhinn (sic.) ri pàrantan ‘reaching parents [with a message]’, and crios sabhalaidh ‘safety belt’.

4.1.3 Neologism and Semantic Extension
Neologism as such, in the sense of creating entirely new words, is quite rare in the corpus. More often than not, compound words, calques, or extensions of meaning can fill the need, such as in the case of stailc (1966)²⁴ to mean an occupational strike or sìolachan to mean cigarette filter (1965). I was only able to find three examples in the texts. Apparently, they can either be modelled on existing Gaelic elements such as itealan ²⁵(1965) ‘airplane’ (< iteal ‘on wing, flying’) or upon English derivatives such as saideal ‘satellite’ and ràdaidheach ‘radioactive’ (1965). MacPherson (1997) says that when words did need to be coined, his team would try to come up with ones that had less syllables than the original English impetus. Saideal is a good example of this, as is ràdaidheach.

4.1.4 Glossing
When introducing unfamiliar words or phrases, the earliest scripts frequently evince English glossing. These give the new Gaelic form first, followed by the English and, often, the phrase ‘as it is called’ mar a theirear ris. Some examples:

After reading through approximately 100 pages of material from 1965 and 1997, only a single example of English glossing was located, and even then it had been gaelicised (buidseid < budget):

It seems that the news-workers were confident that their audience would either understand the terms used, or would grow to do so with increased exposure. This can be taken as the sign of the register’s conventionalisation at this point (Romaine 1994).

4.2 Morphology: The Genitive
The most conspicuous characteristic in the scripts, on the side of morphology, is inconsistency in declension for genitive cases. This goes both for both loans and the native lexicon. There is also a general tendency towards less conservativeness as the scripts become more recent. Neither of these tendencies is restricted to the Gaelic news however, and one could argue that the news, as a whole, is actually one of the most grammatically conservative registers in the media in regards to its adherence to standard grammatical forms. This was the finding of Ball (1985) when he examined stylistic variation in Welsh radio broadcasts to see if the programs evinced differentiation along lines of formality, as would be expected in the community. Choosing a small set of variables (nasal and aspirate mutation, standard forms of personal pronouns) that were known to correlate with formality of situation in general discourse, he found that, indeed, the same kinds of interactions were found with language on the radio. In particular, news broadcasts were found to have the highest frequency of standard usages, higher than what would have been expected from a word-list exercise²⁶. Part of the conservativeness is, indeed, due to the formality of the context, yet, it is also true that writing tends to be more conservative than speech, and these scripts are written first, not spoken impromptu.

Concerning the genitive, there is great variation and inconsistency in its use throughout the years. However, it is generally true that the genitive is used in a more standard fashion in the earlier examples. Perhaps the greatest change has been in indefinite forms: The earlier years show a high frequency of standard usage while the most recent examples are more lax: a’ ceasnachadh balach [sing. g. balaich] 1997). While it is probable that one will find taic airgid in the earlier examples, one will probably have taic airgead (or airgiod (1997)) in the later ones. There is a inconsistent application of the genitive to adjectives in general, with the practice being to use the appropriate form (usually) of the nominative instead: airson fèisd mhòr [g. mòire] latha na Maigh (1959), airson na coinneamh [g. coinneimh] mhòr [g. mòire] seo (1959). Finally, the more recent examples also evince confusion as to the proper definitive article, às aonais an taic [fem. na taice], suidheadhach na boireannaich [fem. pl. nam boireannach] (both 1997). All of these confusions and inconsistencies are qualities of what MacAulay refers to as ‘New Gaelic’ (1986; see also 1997) and are readily found, more frequently even, in the Gaelic speaking population at large.

4.3 Orthography
Although it is unclear what effect orthography has on the recitation of the news-readers, it is something that has clearly changed throughout the years and deserves brief comment. Reading through the corpus, there are, basically, two kinds of print: handwriting and type. The news was typed most of the time from the years 1959-1965 [Period I] and was then hand-written from that point until the 80’s [Period II] when word processors began to be employed [Period III]. Diacritic marks were seldom used during Period I; what was there was added in handwriting. Period II saw the reintroduction of diacritics (as well as other forms of punctuation such as commas and apostrophes). The spelling in both of these periods was generally careful and typographic errors were often corrected in the manuscript. Period III, with the return of typing (but not necessarily of typists) can be characterised by a preponderance of typographical and spelling errors and, universally, a lack of diacritics. One must, again, remember that the scripts are meant to be read, not saved for posterity, but these errors clearly are clearly one of the effects of the present rush to get the news out on time. There is also the fact that Gaelic spelling is not widely taught in schools. If the person going to work for the BBC has never taken Gaelic in University or College, he or she may have not been taught how to spell the language using any established orthographic system²⁷. The scripts vary however, with some individuals obviously more practised or more concerned with spelling and punctuation than others. As far as the length marks are concerned, there may not be the facility to represent them on the word processors being used or, less likely, the knowledge of how to do this. Finally, a general trend can be shown of moving towards the new orthographic recommendations in the more recent scripts. Earlier ones show older renderings such as ciod e(>dé), so(>seo), thubhairt(>thuirt), and tigh(>taigh), which may be, in part, due to the fact that many of the writers would have been influenced by the orthography of the Gaelic Bible.

4.4 Syntax: NP Construction and Passive Forms
One of the features of the sports reporting register, as described by Romaine (1994), is its complex or heavy noun phrase construction. This same feature is clearly exhibited in the following examples:

These noun phrases often consist, as can be seen, of a proper noun followed by modification. Ferguson (1983; cited in Romaine 1994), who was also working on sports reporting, explains them, in that context, as the attempt to insert more background information. This is clearly the case here as well. Romaine (1994) says that this can be taken to an extreme sometimes, with every noun phrase consisting of a proper noun followed by modification.

As far as diachronic change is concerned, one consistency has been the move from inflected passive and impersonal forms to periphrastic ones, along with a general tendency towards preference of the active over the passive in many cases:

Many of these constructions would be rare in today’s broadcasts. Compare the following, all of 1997:

These examples show the usual types of passives/ impersonals used today. Whereas thugadh x gu... would have been the norm before, today it would be chaidh x a thoirt gu.... However, there is the occasional inflected form still being used: ...fhuaireadh Claire Rogers... agus a caraid... ’nan crochadh... ‘Claire Rogers and her friend were found hanged’; and a’s an do bhàsaich, thathar an dùil, co-dhiubh trì cheud duine ‘in which died, it is expected, at least three hundred people’ (both 1997). The impersonal form using the verb bi ‘be’ plus ending -as or -ar seems to be at the same frequency as the early years. But it is without question that periphrastic passives of the form [dol ‘go’] (+N) + part. +VN^(L)or [bi] + N + air + PN + VN^(L)are much more common today than the inflected forms. This change is not limited to the news however, and seems to be a general trend in contemporary Gaelic.

4.6 Dialects, Accents, and the ‘Intonational Full-stop’
Bell (1991) found that newscasters tend to unite around a ‘station style’ and dull their individual differences. This certainly seems to be the case in Gaelic broadcasting as well. One former broadcaster from Tiree was most aware of the changes that his speech went through while on the air: it was suppressed “in terms of idiom and usage to become much more ‘mid-Minch’ or ‘BBC Gaelic’” (Meek 1997). MacAulay (1997) said that dialect differences were there in his day, but they were usually “smoothed out” for the sake of the audience. Watson (1989) noted that broadcasters in Donegal were known to adopt the dialectal forms used by their colleagues from other regions, and Martin MacDonald (1997) indicated that the job almost requires standardisation of your dialect: you must become aware of when what you say falls outside most other dialects. There are two things being discussed here, namely accent change and dialectal forms. Almost all of the news-workers asked replied that there was a ‘levelling out’ of their own dialect and the transfer of lexical goods between the different dialects present at the station. There is some evidence to take that further, that their ‘accents’ can change when going on air.

From listening to Gaelic news-reports over a period of time, I began to notice that there is a characteristic intonational pattern to many of the reports, especially at the end of sentences; a sort of ‘intonational full-stop’²⁹. It seemed to me that it was similar to the intonation pattern that I have heard in English news-broadcasts. (Please refer to Appendix 3 for the transcriptions with prosodic annotation.) As can be seen in the examples, the Gaelic has generally more tonal range than the English in the examples, but clearly shows a similar pattern at the end of the sentences. It is characterised by a sudden drop in tone at the penultimate part in the first instance (usually the penultimate word(s), but can be seen in the first syllable of a multisyllabic word such as Ecclefechen) followed by an increase and then either levelling off, or drop, in the ultimate word or end of a multisyllabic word:

This feature is not omnipresent in the news-reading of all Gaelic speakers, but is common enough in especially the younger readers to warrant consideration. I am presenting it here in a cursory manner. I do not have the expertise or experience in prosody to continue further, but feel that it is a real phenomena, probably functional, and one that may be considered to be a distinguishing feature of this register. MacPherson (1997) thought it to have originated in the news-reading of the Americans, subsequently entering into that of the British some time after. The road that it took into Gaelic is unclear, but it is reasonable to assume that the newsreaders in Gaelic are imitating certain features of their English counterparts, to whom they have grown accustomed over the years. It also lends itself to the question of whether or not universals of register — commonalties in context and communication purpose for instance — can be invoked to help explain similarities such as this between registers in different languages. For a thought-provoking discussion on this topic, see Romaine (1994).

5 Conclusions
This paper has examined the history of Gaelic radio news language, showing the factors involved in the creation of this register from the levels of institution and context, as well as the guiding views of those behind its shape. It has described some of the characteristic features on various linguistic fronts and how they have changed diachronically. Importantly, this research enlisted the opinions of those who have been or are bound up with the news, and grounds their words with observations gleaned from the texts themselves.

The findings point to a register that has been created, as it were, from the ground up. There have been attempts to standardise the words and style used in the Gaelic news, but those attempts have been, ironically, not fully accepted within an entity with the potential for overcoming the bounds of isolation and, thus, idiosyncrasy. However, there are signs of conventionalisation in the record: adoption of standard nomenclature for official departments and titles; fairly consistent orthography; preference for certain constructions over others; and the appearance of characteristic patterns of intonation serving to identify the register. The main enabling influence for the development of these burgeoning conventions has been the amount of time, and hence practice, that the news-workers have had at the desk and on the air. As was seen, the first potent signs of conventionalisation (use of Gaelic terms without English glossing, for instance) were beginning around 1965, when the news first became a daily occurrence.

This is where the contributions of the institution come into view. To conclude about the greatest influence that the BBC has had upon the development of this register, it is clear that it was their decision to allot hours on-air and financial resources that has both given it birth and fostered its growth on material terms. In other words, the BBC, as subsuming organisation, is the sine qua non of Gaelic radio. It should also be added that they have, since 1965, been behind a good portion of the news (especially foreign and international) which is eventually aired, thus exerting a strong influence on content.

The context of the news has changed a great deal between 1959 and 1997. In the 60’s especially, the employees were, as mentioned, gathered from the community and tended to be clergy/ministers, academics, or retired. Although they were not journalists as such, with no training as to what constitutes ‘news’, they were from sections of the population which would be expected to have had the most exposure to higher-registers in Gaelic. In addition, they clearly had more time for reflection and preparation when dealing with their scripts. Therefore, it is not surprising that one finds more formal, literary forms in the earlier scripts. It is also not surprising there are complaints that traditional, colloquial idiom has suffered in recent years; the nature of the job and those working within it has changed considerably. There have been also been changes in Gaelic — as a language — over the past generations pertaining to the loss of native idiom and higher registers, as well as the influence of English (see Gillies 1980, 1986; MacAulay 1982a, 1986, 1996; Meek 1990). We expect to see the effects of these influences in the news record and they are there. However, although there are general trends to be seen throughout the corpus, it ought to be said that there is a great variance in the styles between the news-workers of every period. Regarding future research, one might examine these differences in depth with an eye to areas such as grammatical conservation, preferences for certain syntactic constructions, interlingual effects, and dialectal forms. Also, one could do the same thing across the periods themselves, and provide an analysis of finer detail than that which was possible in the current study. The most important tool to enlist in studies of this type is the computer.

Using the technology that is currently available, it is possible to effectively manage computer-based corpora of many millions of words³⁰. This provides the researcher with an ability to make conclusions based upon a much larger sample, pull observations from the texts that would otherwise go unnoticed, and back up assertions with statistics rather than impressions. A corpus of parallel English-Gaelic texts, aligning English copy with the Gaelic translation, would provide a ready platform for an examination of calquing and other interlingual phenomena. Also, with a pedagogical orientation and sensitive treatment, it could assist in the development of some of the teaching materials and reference guides that are currently lacking in Gaelic broadcasting. However, one fundamental desideratum for Gaelic linguistics is to move towards an in-depth account of syntax and discourse organisation in the language at large. This could be initiated by compiling a large, representative corpus of texts, varying in formality and orality, and investigating syntactic variation in relation to different dimensions of text. Without the basic data that a study of this kind would generate, definitive statements about register development in the language, not to mention its synchronic syntactic description, are greatly impeded.

Appendix 1: The Expansion of Gaelic Radio^*
*(There are slight discrepancies between these sources. Murray (1997) gives the most complete record and was the main account used in the graph of the following page.)

Author	Year	Total Hrs./ wk.	News Hrs.
MacAulay et al.(1994)	1935	‘couple per week’	—
	1945	1.5	—
McDowell (1992)	1945	--	1 prog./ wk.
MacAulay (1997)	1954	--	10 min/ wk.
Murray (1997)	late 50’s	1.5	10 min./ month
	1962	2 + extra 1 hr./ month	15 min./ wk.
MacPherson (1997)	1965		5 min./ day
MacAuly (1997)	1965	6 ½ month	—
Murray (1997)	1970	3.25 + 0.5 (NW only)	—
MacAulay (1997)	1970’s	—	5 min/ day
MacPherson (1997)	1972	from 2.5 to 4.5	—
Murray (1997)	1979 (pre-RnE)	10 hours: National: 6.25 Highland: 3.25	—
	1979 (post-RnE)	+ 4 hours in RnE catchement area	Start of Aithris na Maidne
MacAulay (1997)	1983	22	—
MacAulay et al.(1994)	1986	25	—
Murray (1997)	1987(RnG)	25.5: National: ~7 Highland: ~16 Maritime: ~22 RnE: 25.5	20 per week (5 National, 15 in Highland area)
Murray	1990	33.5: National: ~7.5 Highland: ~21 Maritime: ~33.5 RnE: 33.5	18 per week (15 Hlnd. area,3 Maritime) + 5 x 15 min. illustrated bulletins — Aithris an Fheasgair begins; abandonment of daily national news bulletins.
MacAulay et al.(1994)	1993	‘just over 35 hours’	—
Morrison (1997)	1996	> 40	Daily 5 min. bulletins on
	(National service)		The hour (M-F) during broadcast time, 50 min Aithris na Maidne and Aithris an Fheasgair

Appendix 2: News-scripts showing calquing, loans, semantic extension and neologism

Thubhairt dà Bhall-chuil Laborach gu bheil iad a dol a chur starradh air Bileichean nam Ball Dhomhair³² an Tigh nan Cumantan gos an dean iad adhartas leis a’ Bhile aca fhein — Bile Dion nam Fiadh. ‘S iad na buill, Marcus Lipton, tha air cul a’ Bhile agus Dòmhnull Chapman. Tha e fo chomhair a’ Bhile stad a chur air brùidealachd ann a bhi sealg nam fiadh le gadhair. Tha Mr. Lipton agus Chapman ag ràdh le cheile gun do dh’ fheuch iad am Bile a chur troimh an dara leughadh, air tri Di-h-Aonaichean as deigh a cheile, ach gun deach a stad gach turus le fear na dhe de na buill Thoraidheach a dh’ eubh a mach, san doigh abhaisteach, “Starradh”.

# end of tone group
^ onset
/ rising nuclear tone
\ falling nuclear tone
/\ rise-fall nuclear tone
_ low nuclear tone
‘ high nuclear tone
- level nuclear tone
= booster: continuance
. pause of one stress unit

^ _ ' \ -
Tha ùghdarrais Haiti a' rannsachadh feuch dè a dh'aobharaich tubaist'

' - ' - / -
...expansion plans they hope will provide the local economy with jobs