Ealaghol Books etc. Gaelic Books Gaelic Proverbs Review

A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases

Edited by Alexander Nicolson
Publishers: Birlinn ISBN: 1 874744 14 9 Softback

Reviewed by David Wright.
Review originally appeared in the magazine of the Dalriada Celtic Heritage Trust.

Back to Short Review

Back to Gaelic Culture Books Page

Proverbs reveal much about a culture, about the way it perceives the world and about its values. When it comes to Gaelic culture and specifically Scottish Gaelic culture there is, to my knowledge, no finer collection of proverbs than that first published in 1881 by Alexander Nicolson. For years I have been seeing tantalising quotes from and references to this classic work, but it was last published in 1951. Now thanks to Birlinn it is available again.

The book contains close to 4000 proverbs and "familiar phrases", each given in Gaelic along with a translation to English. Where appropriate there are explanatory notes to clarify the meaning; for example how would you interpret "The bagpipe is a miserable widow"? As if that were not enough Nicolson also provided any similar proverbs he was aware of from English, Irish, Welsh and a surprising range of other languages.

The editor of the 1951 edition Malcolm MacInnes added an index, a version of which is included in the new edition. Since the proverbs are arranged alphabetically, the index is an invaluable aid to finding proverbs related to a particular subject.

For the new edition, the spelling of the Gaelic has been modified to follow modern conventions, but this appears to have been done sensitively. The new editor, Ian MacDonald, has also added short informative biographies for both Nicolson and MacInnes.

This book represents stunningly good value for money and I would warmly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Gaelic language or culture.

Edition	Amazon.co.uk	Amazon.com
Paperback 1998	Yes	Yes

Back to Short Review

Back to Gaelic Culture Books Page

Back to Books Homepage

Top of Page