A wee Celtic whisky dictionary

A wee Celtic whisky dictionary
Alex Kraaijeveld

Most of you reading this will know how to say ‘Cheers!’ in Gaelic or how to pronounce the Irish for ‘water of life’. But that only covers two whisky words in two Celtic languages; not a large dictionary by any means. So I want to expand this Celtic whisky dictionary a bit to cover 25 whisky words in each of the six modern Celtic languages. Bit of linguistics first, though. The six modern Celtic languages are split by linguists in two groups: Goidelic (sometimes called q-Celtic) and Brythonic (p-Celtic). The Goidelic language group includes Gaelic, Irish and Manx. Some linguists also include Shelta (also known as Gammon, Cant or Sheldru), a secret language spoken by Irish travellers throughout the world. Shelta is based on Irish, but with a heavy influence from English, Roma and other languages. The Brythonic languages are Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Included in this group are also Cumbric (spoken in Cumbria, Northumbria and lowland Scotland; went extinct in the 11^th /12^th century), Ivernic (spoken in the Munster area of Ireland; extinct in the 9^th century) and Pictish (spoken north of the river Forth; extinct before the 10^th century).

            Although Celtic languages have recently been mostly confined to the British Isles, Celtic languages were once spoken over large parts of Europe. The Continental Celtic languages of which we know a little bit, and which have been partly reconstructed are Gaulish (spoken in France; extinct 1500 years ago), Celtiberian (spoken on the Iberian peninsula; extinct around 2000 years) and Lepontic (spoken in northern Italy; the oldest known Celtic language).

            Let’s look at each of the six recent Celtic languages, and in a tiny tiny nut shell the whisky history of the region, in a bit more detail.

Irish (Gaeilge)

Irish is mostly spoken in the west of Ireland, the Gaeltacht areas. Current estimates of numbers of speakers are in the 50,000 - 75,000 range. In the past, Ireland was a very important whiskey country, but went in decline due to a host of reasons. It’s really the last 5-10 years which have seen a revival of Irish whiskey.

 Gaelic (Gaidhlig)

Most of the estimated 60,000 or so speakers of Gaelic are to be found in northwestern Scotland, mainly on the islands. When it comes to whisky, Scotland is of course the spiritual home of whisky, no matter where it is actually distilled. Well over a thousand distilleries are known to have existed over the centuries, and today just under a hundred are operating, with plans for several more in various stages of completion. The picture by the way shows the pagodas of Strathisla distillery (in case you hadn’t recognised them yet).

Manx (Gailck)

Manx was only spoken on the Isle of Man. Was, I said, because the last native speaker, Ned Maddell, died in 1974. An interest in not letting the language go completely extinct has led to there being several hundred speakers now. The Isle of Man has never had a legal whiskey distillery and the closest anyone ever got to distilling whiskey on the island is when the Glen Kella distillery started re-distilling Scotch whisky and bottling it as ‘Manx White Whiskey’. Following a court ruling, it is now marketed as ‘Manx Spirit’.

 Welsh (Cymraeg)

It won’t surprise you to hear that Welsh is spoken in Wales, by more than half a million speakers. Wales’ recorded whisky history goes back to the Frongoch distillery near Bala at the turn of the 19^th/20^th century. No whisky was distilled in Wales for almost a century until the Gwalia distillery took up the baton and brought Welsh whisky back to the world.

Cornish (Kernewek)

It is arguable whether you consider Cornish a modern Celtic language. Dolly Pentreath died in 1777 and is often said to be the last native speaker of Cornish. However, others claim that Cornish was spoken by a handful of people until much later. Either way, Cornish has seen a revival and is spoken now by a few hundred or so people. Cornwall has never had a whisky distillery, but that has changed in recent years; the picture shows the still of the Penhallow distillery. In a few years time, Cornish malt whisky will be there for the tasting.

Breton (Brezhoneg)
There is considerable debate as to whether Breton is purely derived from the re-immigration of Brythonic people or whether there is some Gaulish influence. Purely Brythonic or partly Gaulish, there are about a quarter of a million Breton speakers nowadays.

Brittany’s whisky heritage does not date back very far, but whisky distilling is growing there (the picture shows the scenery near the Glann ar Mor distillery which is being built at the moment).

By the way, estimates of numbers of speakers vary quite a bit and that mostly depends on how much fluency people need to have in a language before they’re included. So don’t take the estimates to seriously, but just consider them as ball park figures. Also, several Celtic languages (especially Irish) have substantial numbers of speakers outside their region.

So, on to the dictionary proper: 25 whisky words in the six Celtic languages! I have not given any pronunciation guides. The only way to do that halfway decent is to use the International Phonetic Alphabet and that would make this wee piece way too technical. Also, this is not meant to be conclusive; sometimes there are different words for the same English word. So just look at this to ‘get a feel’

            And again, it doesn’t require much linguistic training to notice the Goidelic – Brythonic split: ‘oak’ still shows clear overall similarities, but also a degree of separation. Check out ‘barley’, ‘malt’, ‘water’, ‘glass’ and ‘Cheers!’

            And then there are some oddities. For instance, the Welsh word for ‘peat’ looks more Goidelic than Brythonic and the Cornish word for ‘alcohol’ is very different from the other five (which have basically retained the Arabic word). Incidentally, the Welsh world for whisky itself is ‘wisgi’ or ‘chwisgi’ and not a variation on its own words for ‘water of life’. Similarly, in Breton it is ‘wiski’. To me, it seems as if both languages took the word straight from English and that again suggests a lack of a long history of distilling in these regions.

So, here you go, a wee Celtic whisky dictionary. I may have to expand it pretty soon again though. With the planned Staveley distillery in Cumbria, I’ll need to add Cumbric. This will be a tough challenge, because only very few Cumbric words are known, and I bet you that ‘distillery’ isn’t one of them!

© 2005 Alex Kraaijeveld

Not being able to speak any of the Celtic languages myself, I could never have written this article without the kind help of a bunch of people. Thanks to Matthew Clarke, Jean Donnay, Berle Figgins, Meirion Hopkins, Hefin Jones, Conor McLaughlin, Rene Richard, Brian Stowell and Justin Taylor!