The following maps have been constructed using data recorded in the “Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland” (SGDS). This work, in four volumes of data and a fifth of detailed explanations of methods employed in their assembly, was published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1997 (ISBN 1 85500 165 9), with William Gillies as Editor-in-chief. The material was collected in the Highlands of Scotland, mainly in the period 1950-1963 at a time when there were still at least a few native Gaelic speakers to be found in most parts of the area. A total of 207 carefully selected local Gaelic speakers were asked for their pronunciations of 895 Gaelic words or expressions and the results were recorded using an augmented version of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).  The map shows that forms of the language were recorded from native Gaelic speakers from St Kilda in the west to Braemar in the east and from Melness in the north to the southern tip of Arran.  It is indeed fortunate that this work was done, as Gaelic, in its local form, is now extinct in many of these areas.  The Survey is a treasure-trove for research into Scottish Gaelic dialects and the following maps represent a tiny fraction of what is possible.

 

The map opposite shows the distribution of all 207 interviewees.

 

The maps have been constructed by putting the Ordnance Survey grid co-ordinates of the interviewees into a spread sheet and using this to plot a scatter graph of the 207 locations. These scatter graphs, with precisely defined northings and eastings, have been overlaid onto blank maps of Scotland, having the same northings and eastings, with the two layers then being merged to form the various maps. Further details of this are in the Appendix.

 

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