Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the origins and meaning of place-names around our area.
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of place names around our area Caledonia, historical area of north Britain beyond Roman control, was the land of the Caledonian tribes (which means ‘possessing hard feet’ according to Zimmer). Ptolemy of Alexandria mapped Caledonia in 120 AD, based on
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of place names around our area Craggan a’Chait, ‘the little rock of the cat’, is a child summit of Càrn Bàn. It stands 778m high overlooking Toll Lochan (from toll, ‘hole’), which is reputedly one of the more magnificent
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of place names around our area A stream falling into the Einig, a tributary of the Oykel, is called Abhainn Dubhach, the ‘sad or gloomy river’. Lamentation Hill in Culrain takes its name after Montrose’s defeat in 1650. A
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of place names around our area The origin of the place name Gledfield has different explanations, all related to birds of prey. One is that it comes from the Gaelic leth’-chlamhaig, ‘half [strath] of the buzzard’ (William Watson). The
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of place names around our area The consensus amongst scholars is that Pictish is a P-Celtic language related to Welsh, as opposed to Scottish Gaelic, which is a Q-Celtic language, although both come from an Early Celtic language. Pictish place
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of placenames around our area In Gaelic cù means ‘dog’ while the word madadh may mean either ‘dog’, ‘fox’ or ‘wolf’. Meall nam Madadh, ‘Hill of the dog’ (or perhaps ‘wolf’) is a 627.9m hill by Càrn Bàn In
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of placenames around our area There are two different words for grey in Scottish Gaelic: glas or greenish grey, and liath, a light grey of a blueish hue. Place names in the area related to the glas shade of grey
Place-names
Toponyms from the various names for horse are very common, arising from the old practice of keeping horses on a pasture by themselves. Rosehall (Rossall) comes from the Norse hross-völlr, 'horse field'. In the adjacent Glen Rossal, several names incorporate the Gaelicised version Rosail: Rosail forest, Loch Rosail,
Place-names
The letter yogh (ȝogh) in Older Scots derived from the letter g, and sounded like a y. In Middle Scots the handwritten character became confused with a cursive z. The early Scots printers often used z when yogh was not available and, as a result, some words have a z
Place-names
Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history and origins of placenames around our area. Viking names around the Kyle of Sutherland