Tha mi ag ionnaschahd Gaidhlig

And have been trying for a long time. My fascination with this ancient and beautiful language started when my first piping teacher, Skip brought out a book of music titled Piobaireachd and called it "pee-brock". My first question was: "How do you get pee-brock out of that?" Well, he didn't know but that was just the way it was.

Piping has many Gaelic terms in it but they are mainly just words. Just names of things, hardly conversational. Then on our latest trip to Scotland, Chris and I washed ashore am t-Eilean Sgitheanach (actually, we took the ferry) and there on Skye, most of the signs are bilingual and it was a good thing one of the languages was English! But it was fascinating.

One dark and stormy night we headed out from Sarah Shurmer's B&B and went to supper. The drive into town took us down the one lane road weaving around the sheep lying in the road (really) and into a restaurant. The place was deserted. The tourists being at a swanker spot and the locals warming themselves with a dram in front of the peat fire. The waitress seemed to take a liking to us and sat down and told us her life story of coming from Leodhas to get away from her ex and the bad scene of a seemingly hopeless existence on windswept island where the economy had all but vanished along with most of the people. The conversation then turned to Gaelic, a language she spoke. I had picked up a rather elementary book on it and started asking her questions. She then went to get the cook who came from na Hearahd where, she said, they spoke a purer form of the language. The cook came out and reccomended a local single malt that should help flatten the learning curve and we all sat around saying words.

When we parted, I told them that I was going to go learn the language at home and be back. She told me "You can do it" and I told her back that I thought it was one of those things that you had to learn on your mother's knee. And, I can tell you the drive back to Sarah's after several glasses of learning curve flattening took on a whole new sense of adventure!

I still feel that way but this winter I have acquired some new, improved learning materials and have found some helpful sites online and have started to learn some grammer and useful vocabulary. And, I can tell you "pee-brock" is a rather crude pronunciation. So, I will press on regardless. Come on up and chat.

Beannachd Leibh!