DASG Blog

Ceàrdaman

There’s a great deal of vocabulary from different dialects in Faclan bhon t-Sluagh. Here’s a few examples from Islay related to insects and other animals.

According to an informant from Bowmore, it’s a ‘béisteag’ that they’d say to what’s known elsewhere as a ‘boiteag’, ‘cnuimh-thalmhainn’ or a worm. The woodlouse is often called a ‘corra-chòsag’ in Gaelic. In Islay it’s similar but has a slightly different connotation: ‘a’ chailleach cheòsach’ - ‘cailleach’, of course, means an old woman.

Many words recorded in Islay are found all over the Highlands, e.g. ‘seangan’, an ant; ‘tarbh-nathrach’, a dragonfly; and ‘seilcheag’, a snail. But one word that many people won’t have heard of is ‘ceàrdaman’. This is ‘a big fly frequenting manure heaps’.  Another informant from Port Wemyss even has a cutting saying about it:

‘’S àrd a sheòlas an ceàrdaman ach is ann anns an t-salachair a thuiteas e’.
[The ‘ceàrdaman’ flies high but it’s into the dirt that it will fall.]

The onomatopeic ‘an cracair’ [kɾɑxkɑɾ] was given by the same Bowmore informant for a ‘cricket’, which might also be called a leumadair-feòir.

Sometimes there’s a bewildering number of words in different dialects for some insects. Spiders are often called a ‘damhan-allaidh’, but in some places they’re known as a ‘poca-salainn’ or a ‘poca-puinnsein’ (a bag/poke of salt, or poison!). In Islay, they’re known simply as a ‘fitheadair’ - which means a weaver or knitter.

The same linguistic diversity is true for the earwig, which might most often be called a ‘gobhlag’ or something close. In Bowmore, however, it’s a ‘daolag-lìn’ or a linen beetle.

To name just a couple of other examples, this time for larger creatures, we can find that the word for lizard, according to the Port Wemyss informant, is ‘an dearc luachrach’ - which could be translated as the striped creature of the rushes.

The word for a gannet is commonly ‘sùlaire’ - and incidentally this is very close to the Icelandic ‘súlan’. In Islay, and in the southern islands, the word used is ‘amsan’ [/ãũmsan/]. This appears in a saying coined by a fisherman when he heard that some farmworkers were going to get a boat:

‘Tha na h-amsain dol do’n mhonadh agus na coilich dhubha dol do’n chuan’.
[The gannets are going to the moorland and the black grouse are going to the ocean., in other words things have gone a bit upside down.]
 
Do you know of any Islay words for insects or animals? Let us know!

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