Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks has been written both as a self-tuition course for beginners and also for use within the classroom. You may want to learn Gaelic because of a general interest in Celtic or Scottish history and culture, or because it was the everyday language of your ancestors. The cynical observer may wonder if the exercise is worthwhile, when only 1.5 per cent of Scotland's population speak the language. However, Gaelic is far from dead; in some parts of the Highlands and Western Isles it is the everyday language and it represents an important part of the United Kingdom's cultural mix. There are Gaelic-learning classes in almost every area of Scotland. Each lesson in the book contains some essential points of grammar explained and illustrated, exercises, a list of new vocabulary (with a guide to pronunciation, using the International Phonetics Alphabet), and an item of conversation. This new edition includes an audio download link.

A landmark of scholarship on medieval Scotland. Professor Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow. Personal names can provide a rich and often overlooked window into medieval society, and Scotland's diversity of languages over the course of the Middle Ages makes it an ideal case study. This book offers a range of new methodological approaches to anthroponymy, covering Gaelic, Scandinavian and other Germanic names, as well as names drawn from the Bible, the saints, and secular literature. Individual case studies include a comparison of naming in early medieval Scottish and Irish chronicles; an authoritative taxonomy of Gaelic names drawn from twelfth and thirteenth-century charters; a revolutionary new analysis of the emergence of surnames in Ireland, with implications for Scottish history; a complete linguistic discussion of the masculine Germanic names in the 1296 Ragman Roll; a detailed local case study of saints. names in Argyll which bears on place-names as well; and an examination of the adoption of Hebrew Old Testament names in central medieval Scotland. Dr MATTHEW HAMMOND is a Research Associate at Kings College London. Contributors: Rachel Butter, Thomas Owen Clancy, John Reuben Davies, Valeria DiClemente, Nicholas Evans, Matthew Hammond, Roibeard O Maolalaigh, David Sellar, Tom Turpie.