Language in context seminar

Speaker: Dr Paedar Ó Muircheartaigh (Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Aberystwyth)

Title: The Empire Writes Back: Epistolary English-Gaelic Code-Switching in the Eighteenth-Century

Abstract: This paper examines the use of English-Gaelic code-switching in a letter of 1778 written in Long Island, just outside New York City. The writer of the letter was Rev. James McLagan (1728–1805), the preeminent eighteenth-century Scottish Gaelic literary collector and scholar, and a military chaplain to the British Army during the American War of Independence. His correspondent was Rev. Hugh MacDiarmid (†1801), an important collector of Gaelic literature in his own right. The form and function of Gaelic deployed in the letter will be examined to shed light on the linguistic repertoire of the Gaelic-speaking ministers with regards to both register and dialect. McLagan’s letter will be used as a point of comparison in discussing other examples of epistolary English-Gaelic code-switching from the same period allowing for conclusions to be drawn in relation to Gaelic literacy and the use of Scottish Gaelic in eighteenth-century letter-writing more generally.