One million words transcribed on the Tobar an Dualchais website

We are delighted to tell you that over a million Gaelic words have now been transcribed on the TAD website. We hope this makes the Gaelic recordings easier to follow for some of you. Amongst the transcribed recordings are 313 Gaelic songs, 521 stories and 67 radio features. And this number continues to grow.

A collaborative project being undertaken with Faclair na Gàidhlig has greatly assisted us in reaching this milestone. The project, which started in 2018, aims to find Gaelic words and phrases in recordings on the TAD website which are rarely seen in written records, if at all. As a result of this work some of the source material in which these terms were found was transcribed by the TAD staff.

Member of the TAD team, Cailean Gordon, has been responsible for transcribing the majority of the one million words!

Here are a few examples of words found in the transcriptions which rarely appear in written records, and the recordings in which they appear.

Fiamhalanach- this word means ‘restless’ and Murdo Macleod from Leurbost in Lewis uses the term in this recording where he discusses a game which his mother would play with him. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/43895?l=en

Duilleag- this word usually refers to a ‘leaf’ of a plant or a ‘leaf/page’ of a book but in this instance it means ‘stomach’. Rev Norman MacDonald from Valtos in the Isle of Skye explains how the old folk would use the word ‘duilleag’ for stomach and would never use the term ‘stamag’. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/8600?l=en

Tarsmalt- meaning ‘sign’ or ‘trace’. Nan MacKinnon from Vatersay uses this term when she tells of a girl who got lost on the island of Sandray and was never seen again. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/21487?l=en

Ualaid- this is a word used for a cow which has lost a calf. Sandy Buie from Jura talks about this term in a recording in which he describes words associated with cattle and horses. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/53595?l=en

Slèocaire- this word would be used for someone who supervised workers and is similar in tone to the term ‘gaffer’. John MacDonald from Highbridge, Lochaber, uses the word when he talks about his working life. https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/51653?l=en

To find our transcriptions, enter 'transcript' into the search box.

This work would not have been possible without funding from Bòrd na Gàidhlig.