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In episode two, Dr Alasdair Whyte, a Gaelic singer, writer, and Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow, joins Fay to explore the medieval Gaelic roots of Glasgow through its place-names.
Alasdair's research takes us into parts of Glasgow where Gaelic was spoken a thousand years ago. In this green landscape where cattle grazed, we even catch a shadowy glimpse of the farmer's daughter who owned Shettleston. Yes, Shettleston! When you know where and how to look, place-names are full of human history.
In this conversation Alasdair draws on the evidence in his recently published book Glasgow’s Gaelic Place-names, co-authored with Katherine Forsyth and Simon Taylor. It caused quite a stir and we are about to find out why.
Highlights:
- Uncover the Gaelic origins of Glasgow's place-names with Dr. Alasdair Whyte.
- Hear stories behind names, like the medieval farmer’s daughter of Shettleston.
- Explore findings from "Glasgow’s Gaelic Place-names," co-authored by Alasdair Whyte.
- See how Gaelic names reflect Glasgow's landscape and features.
- Understand the importance of preserving Gaelic place-names.
Key Moments:
- 00:00:10 — The significance of Gaelic place names in Glasgow
- 00:19:41 — The origins and meanings of Gaelic place names in Glasgow
- 00:38:10 — Gaelic place names reflect the natural landscape and features of the area
- 00:41:05 — The evolution of place names and their adaptation over time
- 00:51:08 — Preserving Gaelic place names and promoting cultural heritage awareness
Learn more:
- You can buy Alasdair’s book here
- Follow Glasgow City Heritage Trust on social media: @GlasgowHeritage #IfGlasgowsWallsCouldTalk
- Produced by Inner Ear (innerear.co.uk) for Glasgow City Heritage Trust
- Sponsored by Tunnock's (tunnock.co.uk)
Creators & Guests
Host
Host
Niall Murphy
Niall Murphy, who is the Director of Glasgow City Heritage Trust, is a conservation architect and is heavily involved in heritage, conservation and community issues in Glasgow. Niall is also Chair of Govanhill Baths Building Preservation Trust and was previously chair of Pollokshields Heritage, Planning Convener for Pollokshields Community Council and a member of the Glasgow Urban Design Panel. Between 2016 – 2018 he was a member of the Development Management Working Group for the Scottish Government’s Planning Review. Niall regularly lectures or does walking tours on architecture, heritage and urban design issues. Niall has won the Glasgow Doors Open Day Excellence Award for Outstanding Talk (2023) and for Inspiring City Tour (2017), the Glasgow Doors Open Day Above and Beyond Award (2014), the Sir Robert Lorimer Award for Sketching (1996) and, in addition to nominations for Saltire Awards and GIA Awards was nominated for the Scottish Civic Trust’s My Place Award for Civic Champion in 2015.
Producer
Editor
Katharine Neil
What is If Glasgow’s Walls Could Talk?
A podcast by Glasgow City Heritage Trust which focuses on the relationships, stories and shared memories that exist between Glasgow’s historic buildings and the city's communities. Presented by Glasgow City Heritage Trust’s Director Niall Murphy and journalist Fay Young, this series features guests discussing with Niall and Fay a specific area, type of building or aspect of Glasgow’s heritage, not only from a historical and architectural point of view, but also from the perspective of the community; drawing on the guests’ personal experiences, thoughts, knowledge and memories.
Was a real motivating factor to kind of change the narrative or to draw attention to another bit of that story. So I think, probably, most listeners will be aware of the huge numbers of Gaelic speakers that were displaced as a result of clearance and emigration. Actually, much earlier than people probably imagine, even going back to the 17th century and before that people come into kind of lowland and Central Scotland for employment. Even before that. Obviously, we have big numbers of Gaelic speakers coming to the Glasgow area in the 19th century, particularly.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And I suppose, yeah, the motivating factor for looking at the place names in part was to maybe move away from the kind of traditional narrative of the poor Gaelic speakers having to come to Glasgow and really struggling to survive in a new place. We really wanted to focus on the fact that Gaelic had been spoken in Glasgow for many centuries before that for lots of different reasons. And, if we're talking about the medieval place names, the biggest reason there is the fact that Gaelic really was the main language of the community in Glasgow for a significant period of time.
Fay Young:Hello, and welcome to If Glasgow's Walls Could Talk. I'm Fay Young, the host of today's episode, which promises tantalising glimpses of Glasgow life a thousand years ago. A study of Gaelic place names created by Gaelic speakers living here in the 10th Century has revealed a green landscape where livestock grazed and crops were grown. There's even shadowy hints of the men and women living here. So long ago, who knew Gaelic was spoken in medieval Glasgow?
Fay Young:Who knew Shettleston had roots in medieval Gaelic? Well, our guest today knows that, and a great deal more. Alasdair White, Gaelic singer, writer, research fellow in Celtic and Gaelic at the
Fay Young:University of Glasgow, is also co author of the book Glasgow's Gaelic Place Names, which caused some surprise when it was published last year. Welcome to you, Alasdair. It's great to have you here.
Fay Young:Perhaps we can just start with you talking about your own Gaelic origins.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well, thanks very much Fay for your very kind introduction. And, yeah, I could talk a wee bit about how I got into Gaelic in the first place, and that's led on to a kind of place name study and the book that you mentioned there on Glasgow's Gaelic place names. I'm originally from the island of Mull, and I grew up hearing a fair bit of Gaelic, and particularly Gaelic song when I was a wee boy. My mum is a learner of Gaelic and she sings in Gaelic. So my sister and I grew up singing Gaelic with her and at her encouragement.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And my father's too, I should mention him too. And so that was really my way into the language. The way things are in Mull at the moment, There are some native speakers of Gaelic, that can belong to Mull, but there's a rapid decline of Gaelic in the 20th Century. So not too many people my age, I suppose, grew up speaking Gaelic as a native language. But there is a lot of interest now.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:A kind of renewed interest in the Gaelic language and a more positive attitudes towards Gaelic. Not only in Mull, but in Glasgow. And that's something that I've seen, firsthand, during my time in Glasgow. I came to Glasgow when I was when I was 18, to study at the University of Glasgow, and I've been kinda between Glasgow and Mull since. Mhmm.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:But Glasgow, I feel very at home in Glasgow. And as I said, I think that well, hopefully, the the book can contribute to this as well, but I I think that that there are more, generally more positive attitudes towards, towards Gaelic and Scotland today. Glasgow's a part of that story, And Glasgow is very much a part of the story of Gaelic, as well as in the future, and in the present, in the past as well. And I suppose that's the main focus of of the book, Glasgow's Gaelic Place Names, is is that story of Glasgow over the last millennium in Glasgow.
Fay Young:So you were studying at Glasgow University and it, strengthened your own sense of being part of the Gaelic tradition. How did you discover what place names have to tell us? How how did you get into that?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well, when I started age 18 as an undergraduate at the university, I definitely didn't expect to be studying place names and going on to to do a Master's and a a PhD looking at place names. That came as a surprise to me. I started off doing, Gaelic and History and French, actually, in my first couple of years at the university. And it wasn't until, the kind of, options came up in third and fourth year at Honours level that I realised that place name study was an option. Mhmm.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:We had, I think, a background lecture in our 1st year to, as part of our Gaelic program on place names, so a kind of toe in the water. Really enjoyed that course at honours level in my third year, I think it was, maybe even fourth year, on the Celtic place names of Scotland. So the place names of Scotland that are of Celtic origin, either Gaelic or other medieval languages that have have fallen out of use, unlike Gaelic. Gaelic obviously survives and is spoken today but there are other Celtic languages that were productive of Scottish place names in the past. So learning about them and about Gaelic, that really encouraged me and kind of inspired me, as opposed to, to look a bit more into the origins of place names on my own patch in Mull, but also in Glasgow.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Mhmm. And I think it became clear fairly quickly after that how much kind of real world application place names can have, as well as it being fascinating to look into their origins and what it can can tell us about the past. I think it you don't have to be in place name studies long to realise the kind of real world application of place names, and maybe that's something we can talk about later on.
Fay Young:And I I was thinking when I was, you know, just getting ready to speak with you that in, in a way, your own journey from Mull to Glasgow is such a well worn path, And yet, when
Fay Young:you get here you discover, it goes back a lot further than the Highland clearances. Was that as a surprise to you as as well? I
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I think it probably was a surprise initially. And then it was a real motivating factor to kind of change the narrative or to draw attention to another bit of that story. So I think probably most listeners will be aware of, of the huge numbers of Gaelic speakers that were displaced as a result of clearance and immigration. Actually, much earlier than people probably imagine, even going back to the 17th century, and before that people come into kind of lowland in central Scotland for employment even before that. Obviously, we have big numbers, of Gaelic speakers coming to the Glasgow area in the 19th century, particularly.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And I suppose, yeah, the motivating factor for looking at the place names in part was to maybe move away from the kind of traditional narrative of the poor Gaelic speakers having to come to Glasgow, and really struggling to survive in a new place. Uh-huh. We really wanted to, to focus on the the fact that Gaelic had been spoken in Glasgow for many centuries before that. Mhmm. And for lots of different reasons, and if we're talking about the medieval place names, the biggest reason there is the fact that Gaelic really was the main language of the community in Glasgow for a significant period of time, right in the middle of that kind of medieval period.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So maybe from the as early as 10th century, but certainly the 11th 12th century in the kind of greater Glasgow area, Gaelic was the the main language, the predominant community language. And if it wasn't the the main evidence for that, and the best evidence that we have for that, is the place names. The place names, the Gaelic place names simply wouldn't be there were that not fact. Gosh.
Fay Young:It takes a bit of a mind shift, doesn't it, to to accommodate that new information. Were you working on on this research for a long time and then thought it was about time to share this with the wider world? Or or how how did it come about with you and your, your co writers, who are also eminent, experts in in the field of place names.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Yeah. That's right. And this is definitely a good time to talk a wee bit about, Katherine and Simon. So, yeah, Katherine Forsyth, Simon Taylor. I was Simon, doctor Simon Taylor is kind of Scotland's foremost place name scholar.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:He was my kind of lead supervisor on my PhD, actually. My PhD, as I said earlier on, looked at Mull place names, particularly, so on my own patch. And I was just coming to the end of that PhD. I think I maybe actually submitted. I was was in the final throes of that.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And, Professor Katherine Forsyth came to me and asked me if I'd be interested in branching out a wee bit Mhmm. Geographically and looking at the Glasgow place names. It's something that we, we'd actually looked at with Simon and others on the place name course that I mentioned, the Celtic Place Names of Scotland course. But the idea initially was, yeah, to really counter that narrative of not only Glasgow's Gaelic story being so much deeper chronologically than people might imagine, but also to kind of counter that narrative that, well, Gaelic was never spoken in Glasgow at all and that that it's really a new thing. So the original project title was actually, Gaelic Spoken Here or mapping Gaelic Glasgow, we as Gaelic speakers, we quite often hear the kind of phrase, oh, Gaelic was never spoken in Glasgow.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I think people distancing, I suppose, that idea of or maybe attitudes just towards towards Gaelic, that it's something that belongs to the islands and islands and doesn't really isn't really a part of identity in Glasgow and and other places in, with highlands and islands. Mhmm. But, as I hope the book demonstrates, that's that's not the case and, you know, it's the kind of message that you don't want to force down people's throats. And I hope that the book doesn't do that. It's got a strong kind of blurb when it comes to that because it's important to enter that narrative.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:But what I hope from the book is that it's really more of a celebration of the kind of multilingual and multicultural history of Glasgow. And, of course, that is true of history, but it's also true of the present and of the future city of Glasgow. It's going to be multilingual and multicultural Yeah. Going forward. It is already.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And I hope that Gaelic can be celebrated in the same way that other languages and cultures are in Glasgow.
Fay Young:It it makes for such such an interesting cultural experience to have all that diversity. But also if you have something that is so rooted in the origins of the city, that that, that's an extra dimension. And I really like the wording on your title page of your book. It's time to bin the nonsense that Gaelic was never spoken in Glasgow.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well, that's a headline grabber, I suppose.
Fay Young:Yeah. It is. It is. There's there's so much, to to ask you about the the place names of of Glasgow, but perhaps we can, start with Shettleston, which I found so intriguing when we were talking earlier.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Yeah. Very happy to to start with Shettleston. It's one of my favorite place names, full stop, I think. And definitely up there with my favourite Glasgow place names. It's a really interesting example because for Gaelic speakers, at least, on face value, you would you would never think, I don't think, that that Shettelston had Gaelic origins as a name at all.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I mean, the form that we have today is fairly transparently a a Scots name. So the final part of the name, the toon part of the name, is very common in Scots place names. It's a farm or a state, related to the English word town, although that's it gives us maybe a false picture of what a town was when the name would have been first used, so more like an estate or a farm, certainly a kind of agricultural settlement of some sort. The first part is definitely not as transparent if you're looking at it through a Scots lens, and that's because it's actually a Gaelic personal name. So this is one of these names.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Shettleson's one of these names in Glasgow, which gives us a really, kind of, tantalizing glimpse at individuals in Glasgow's story. So the individual in question here is a woman called well, we don't know her name, but she is referred to in the place name as Nighean Sheadna. So the daughter of a man called Sheadna. Even from Shettleston, it was very difficult to get that, which leads me in, as opposed, to talking a wee bit about the methodology of place name research. So a big part of that is to really trace the name as far as we can back, in its written forms.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So it's not just a case of looking at the modern map and be able to kind of tell what a name's origin is by the way it appears on the modern map or the way it's pronounced even, today. Sometimes, place names can change dramatically over the centuries, like Shettleston. And so when we trace the name back, in all the, kind of, sources that we could possibly think of that Shettleson might be recorded in. That takes us right back to 12th century and 1170, actually, the year 1170. And this place name is recorded in a Latin document.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And it's actually recorded in Latin in 1170. And it meet the Latin name translates as the estate of the daughter of Sheadna. Three years later, we actually get the Gaelic form of the name which tells us kind of
Dr Alasdair Whyte:undoubtedly that Gaelic is being spoken by at least the scribe who's recording the name in the document. And there's lots of evidence to suggest that it's not just the scribe that's speaking Gaelic, but for the name to be established at all. Gaelic is is 1 of the languages, at least, that's being spoken in the area at the time.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So in 1173, that document gives us a Gaelic form of the name. It's Baile Nighean Sheadna, effectively. That's what it would be in Right. In modern Gaelic. So, as I said, that kind of the state of the daughter of Sheitna.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So it's a it's a a fascinating name.
Fay Young:Isn't it? It just is, and you just start to wonder who was, who was she? And why why was she? Because, I suppose we, we tend to think that women didn't own property and didn't have the same kind of rights as men, but there's probably lots of challenges to that stereotypical view. But I'm just wondering how a name becomes a name.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:A really important point to make, I think, is that place names have to have a kind of user group
Fay Young:Mhmm.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:To become established at all. They're coined at some point. Somebody or some people start using this name, but then for it to really become established, it's got to take a significant number of people to be using it. Or it just it falls out of use, and it doesn't come onto our record at all. And that's especially true in the medieval period where, you know, we don't have maps at hand on our phones or, you know, ordinance survey maps, for example, to to look at online or to buy physical copies of, in the medieval period.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:We have our kinda sources are few and far between. So, again, yeah, we need that user group, but we also need to trace our name through the centuries and the sources that we do have.
Fay Young:And do you do you develop a kind of mental picture of the place as, as you're going back?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Yeah. I think that's a really a really nice thing about place names in a kind of urban environment is that, obviously, Glasgow is a huge city these days, and it that's a fairly recent thing. It wasn't a very big place at the beginning of 19th Century, probably a about a population of about 75,000 in 1801. The majority of place names that we have are are established long before that. As I was saying earlier on with likes of Shettleston and other names, Gaelic names, they're established.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Oh, a good 600, 700 years before that in many cases. So, yes, place names can really give us a picture of what the the landscape was like before, how the the land was used, in the period before urbanisation and there's some really nice examples of that in among the Gaelic place names. One of my other favorite names has got to be Gartnavel which gives us a really nice picture of what that area of Glasgow looked like in
Dr Alasdair Whyte:the past. It literally translates as the farm or the enclosure. Probably, the farm of the apple tree or the farm of the orchard.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So I suppose that place name is synonymous with the, the hospital these days. Yes. But in the past, it's definitely an agricultural area. There are apple trees about. Another place name not too far to the north of Gartnavel , staying in the West End for now, would be well, a name connected to the University of
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Glasgow.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:We've got a campus up in this place, Garscube. Oh. And actually the pronunciation of that name is interesting because I think I've heard pronunciation where it's the stresses on the first part of the name, so Gars cube. But in the past, I think we can be very certain that the name would have been pronounced something like Garce cube. Uh-huh.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And the origins of that name are almost certainly Gaelic. In modern Gaelic, the name would be Garcescuap. So it hasn't it hasn't changed that much. But it's one of these names that's recorded again in the medieval period. We've got forms of this place name from the, at least, as early as the 15th Century.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And it actually contains the same first element as the name Gartnavel. So the Gaelic word Garth, which means an enclosure, and then in the Glaswegian comes to be, applied to farms, small farms. And then the scoop bit of the name or the scoap in Gaelic, it refers to sheaves of corn.
Fay Young:Oh, gosh.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So this is, if listeners aren't familiar with that word Yes. I suppose it's not in kind of everyday vocabulary these days, but, that's when you have kind of cereal crops, and they're bundled together so that they dry. That's a sheath, And, actually, I mean, the place name gives us this image already of a field with these crops that have been cultivated, and then cut, and harvested and Yes. And bundled together to dry, so we can see that field of of sheaves. But, also, just to maybe, tie the place name in research in with kind of wider historical research.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:That's that's a big part of place name studies too. Is looking at the the context in which the place name forms are recorded. So for Garscube, we have, documents from the 15th 16th century which record a mill in this area as well. And so this is where the, again, the crops are. That's where the crops go after they've been dried and harvested and dried.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So all the in the kind of evidence ties in with the place name, what the place name tells us.
Fay Young:It's, it's a very powerful image there. I mean, I come my Irish forebears had, were farming. And, I'm just seeing those, you know, the harvesting and the, and so you in Garscube, it would have been taken for milling to to make bread. Yeah.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I would imagine so. I'm not sure we have that kind of detailed information in the sources that we have. We we know that there's the mill there. But, yeah, that's that's the nice thing as well. We we have we have this evidence.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And a bit like Shettleston, we don't quite have the full picture. So the other thing I would say is that there's a wee bit of room there for even more creativity. So when I'm talking about place names, you know, with with students now at the university, I always make the point that that place names wouldn't be they wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for humans and human people's creativity and people's imaginations because it takes people to, to look at the landscape in a certain way to use that name in the first place and to keep using that name. And where we are looking at older names, yeah, quite often, we can say a lot about the place in the past from the name and working out its origins and tracing it over the centuries, as I've said, But quite often, as is the case for Shettleston, we don't have all that kind of biographical information about Nighean Sheadna ,
Dr Alasdair Whyte:the daughter of Sheadna. So we can continue to be creative with these names.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:We can make our own stories up about these names and raise awareness of the daughter of Sheadna in that way. So there's room for creativity as well. So place names intersect with so many other disciplines and the creative arts, I would say, would is one of them.
Fay Young:Yes. Yeah. And I'm just seeing scope for for street theatre and storytelling of of different sorts. Are there any other examples?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well, sticking with that element, Garth, in Gaelic, there's a really interesting name in, kind of, Northeast Glasgow. The Garth element in Gaelic comes into onto the modern map in a slightly different way and that the first part of the name this name is Garth and it's Garthamlock. So, yeah. Again, referring to a farm, a small farm of some sort. And the second element on this name is really interesting because it's the only example of this word, Gaelic word, being used in Scotland that we have is in this Glasgow place name.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So it's absolutely fascinating. There's place name studies. We have a a fair bit to travel yet with place name studies in Scotland, and there may be other names out there which contain this word. But place name studies involves comparison and contrast with, with place names in other parts of the world where the same languages have been spoken. So, when it comes to Scotland's place names that involves comparison with lots of different places, on the Gaelic side of things with Isle of Man and with Ireland, and then in places, you know, overseas where Gaelic was spoken later on, even in Nova Scotia and Australia and New Zealand, and, and the the States as well.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:But, there's other languages involved as well in Scotland's place names. So we have Welsh, for example, and Cornish, and Breton, which are related languages to Gaelic. And then we have Old Norse, so languages, in Scandinavia and in Iceland, for example. We quite often see the same place names or the same words, appearing in place names on all these places. We a huge part of place name studies is comparing and contrasting names and to see how these words are applied in place names elsewhere.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Uh-huh. Anyway, I've gone a bit off track there, but the second part of that name, Garthamlock, that I mentioned, which lots of listeners will be familiar with I'm sure, seems to refer to some sort of burial grounds, maybe a new way in which people were kind of honoring the the dead. Mhmm. That seems to be how the the word is applied in place names in Ireland. So we have, compatible well, a name in Ireland, in Dublin, in fact, which contains the same word in kind of English being context and in an Irish speaking context, an area within Dublin.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So, yeah, it could be that this tells us something about the kind of shared culture between, call, the Glasgow area, the the kind of wider firth of Clyde and Southwest Scotland with parts of Ireland. But as I said, we also have a fair bit of work to do in place name studies to to do that kind of comprehensive survey of Scotland's place names to tell us how unique this is. But at the moment, it's completely unique to Glasgow, which is pretty exciting for us.
Fay Young:Yeah. That's extraordinary. And what happens when you make that kind of unusual discovery? Is it exciting for you? I'm I'm sort of imagining you as as kind of detectives on a trail.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:It is. Yeah. It is exciting. I wasn't familiar at all with the sources for place names when I before I took that honors course, you know, as a a 20, 21 year old, whatever I was back then, at the University of Glasgow. But as part of my kind of research of Mull place names, a big part of that is building up your knowledge of where the place names are like to be recorded, the the sources that that are going to to give you these early forms that are so important.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So, actually, quite an exciting thing about the the research, the kind of subsequent research in Glasgow was trying to find these sources because there are different sources for Glasgow's place names than for Mull's place names. There's a bit of crossover there, some of the the maps of Scotland as a whole record place names in both places, for example. But, yeah, that was a a really exciting part of, of the Glasgow research, and there's probably sources out there still, unpublished sources and archives that will give us more information on place names in the future. So that's an exciting part. And then when you come across something that's, you know, potentially unique to to Glasgow, That is really exciting too.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And, again, I think with just in terms of spreading the word and because I think the message is really important to tell Glasgow's Gaelic story. I think that the unique things like that can capture the imagination of people and also can help people identify with that part of Glasgow's story. For residents and for visitors to the area, I think it's having that kind of USP like that is is really is really exciting.
Fay Young:Is is, ever any evidence on the ground of what you, you know, archaeologically perhaps? I mean, there you've got a new way of burying or honoring the dead. Has there ever been any searching that would reveal clues to that?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Not for Garthamlock, but that's a really important point, in terms of that intersection of place names with so many other disciplines and areas of research, that's such a fundamental thing to place name studies is to to make sure that you do your your research or and make sure you're aware of other the work that other people have done on not just archaeology as you've mentioned, but on geology and and agriculture and, song and poetry as well. That's something that I'm really interested in myself. And although we don't have too much medieval song that we know from from Glasgow, with what you know, which mentions place names. We do have that for other areas, and we can maybe talk a wee bit about that. But just to go back to the archaeology briefly, the book has a section kinda dedicated specifically to archaeology and Professor Katherine Forsyth, a a co author in the book, That's her background, actually, as well as the Celtic language side of things.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So, Katherine led the way in the archaeology front. And we have names in Glasgow like, Bloghairn, for example, which mention Cairns. So the Gaelic word Cairn, which is borrowed into Scots and into English as Cairn. Yeah. One of these many Gaelic words which had an influence on on modern Scots and modern English.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:We haven't come across evidence for Cairns in that part of Glasgow, unfortunately.
Fay Young:Mhmm.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:The place name tells us that they almost certainly were there and that's what they referred to, but the urban landscape now hides that. But we do know there's another Blachairn here in north of Glasgow, for example, where we do have these Cairns. So again, that comparison and contrast is is so important.
Fay Young:Yes. And and as you you've mentioned song and poetry, the sound of, of the the names, does that alert you to the contrast and comparisons that you're making? That it's, you know, maybe, maybe to the layperson, it doesn't sound so similar. But you you can hear that, ah, yeah, this this combination of of vowels or or consonants is is similar to something elsewhere and that gives you clues.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Absolutely. Yep. That's such an important part of Place Name Studies and a really enjoyable part of Place Name Studies as well, I would say, is that to do place name research properly, you really have to talk to people. So I suppose academics sometimes get a reputation for being recluses, locked away in an office somewhere with the or in a library somewhere. But for place name studies, at least, we need to go out and talk to people because pronunciation of names can tell us so much.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:As we've kind of seen already in some of the names that we've talked about, place names in there, in terms of how they're written on paper or on maps, how they appear on maps can change a lot over the centuries, dramatically at times. But pronunciation is one of these things which seems to have real longevity more often than not. So the same stress pattern seems to continue even when there's big language shift and big language change. And that's something which can really help us identify whether a place name is of Celtic origin or of Germanic origin, for example. So to give you a good example of that, in Gaelic place names, one of the Celtic languages, obviously, the stress tends to fall on the second element.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So if you have a Gaelic name which means big town or, let's say, new town. So Newton would be a fairly common place name in Scots, and the the emphasis is obviously on the new the stress is on the the new element of that because that's what's different about this particular town. It's a new town. In Gaelic, the stress is actually the other way around. So the Gaelic equivalent would be Ballou, I suppose, Newtown.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Just from the pronunciation, you can hear whether or not it's a Celtic or a Germanic, origin. There's some nuance to that. It's it's not hard and fast rule, but very often pronunciation can reveal things about the place name on its own before we even start looking at the written forms. So it's really important part of the, kind of, methodology.
Fay Young:Oh, that's so intriguing. Yeah. And and it's something that you're aware of, you know, when when you're a newcomer to a place, is just getting the stress in the right place because you you can you can offend people, can't you, if if you pronounce it wrong?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Yeah. That's right. And that's I think that's another really interesting maybe brings us on to that kind of real world application of place names too. And maybe what what place name studies can do for us and their significance, the significance of place name studies. So, yes, you're absolutely right.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:People sometimes get frustrated if if people, like, kind of are new to a place or are visiting a place, pronounce the name in a different way to the way it's pronounced locally, and people can get quite frustrated and, frustrated about that, I suppose, would be a nice way of putting it. I think that just tells us how significant place names are to identity. People really identify with place. And maybe that's something that's not as strong as it was in the past in some cases when it comes to our relationship with the land. We don't rely on the land as much to survive, I suppose.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:That kind of critical nature of that relationship with the land is not what it was in the past. People, you know, really needing to get the most out of the land, knowing the land intimately to to survive. That's not as strong as it was in the past, but I'd say that something that still very much is as strong as it was is that I the way that people identify with place. This is where I'm from. This is, you know, where I where I belong.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Uh-huh. This is, you know, it's the people and the the place that people are really identify with. So in terms of how we can use place name studies maybe to speak to people and to bring people in is to to use that. The fact that place names are so profoundly connected to identity.
Fay Young:Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We were talking about how much the natural environment is part of the place name and that has included so many tree.
Fay Young:Or orchards or birches or oaks. How is that, why are trees so important?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well i think that's something that really demonstrates are so important because it demonstrates the really profound connection . That Gaels had in the past and arguably still do with woodland and trees is the fact that the Gaelic alphabet actually is based on the names of trees in Gaelic.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So I suppose theres nothing more kind of fundamental to the language than the actual alphabet. So these images of trees and knowledge of different trees, an intimate knowledge of different trees are really central to Gaelic speaking. The life, the life of Gaels in the past. You see that in so many other contexts too, trees are often a very stock image when it comes to poetry.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Strong leaders and champions are referred to are compared to an oak, for example. There are good trees and bad trees. Such a fundamental part of the language, what people turn to when they're being used in poetry and song. and just reinforces that connection that gaelic speaking people had to the natural environment in the past.
Fay Young:Perhaps we could just go back to that point you were making a a few moments ago about, becoming disconnected from the land, or at least not being aware of how much we still do rely on the land and the living environment. Your own researches do bring together so much of that. Your interests seem to be really very much connected with with that interplay between natural environment, how humans, exist. And would you like to talk a bit more about that? The the the point you made, I think, when we were speaking earlier about if trees could talk, what what would they tell us about our environment and the way we behave?
Fay Young:Yeah.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I
Dr Alasdair Whyte:think, If Glasgow's Trees Could Talk could be a great podcast series.
Fay Young:Maybe we'll Fantastic. Yes.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Talk about that again.
Fay Young:Yes. Yes.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:But that kind of environmental sustainability, obviously, that's something which is a real pressing concern. We're in this age of a climate emergency, and we're not as we don't have the same kind of relationship with the land as we did in the past, but it's something which place names can contribute to strengthening, I think. I very much believe that, and it's something that's a kind of direction that my research has taken recently. I've had a chance to work with quite a few colleagues here at the university, and not just the university, beyond the university, you know, working with community partners and researchers elsewhere, too on, yeah, the real world applications of place name studies. So an example of that would be looking at oysters and place names recently on a big project here at the university.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So looking at place names to just a bit of context to this, native oysters, the stocks of native oysters are almost, I think, the figure is around 95% down on what they were at 1 time. Mhmm. Due to over consumption and overfishing and not managing the kind of natural resource very well at all. I think the figures tell us that. So we've been taking place names and and establishing where there were populations of native oysters in the past with a view to restoring that habitat and and making sure that there's a kind of sustainable resource there in the future at at all.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:If we want that to happen then, I think place names are going to have to play a a big role in that. Identifying where oysters were in the past, but also where they can be in the future where we can reintroduce them. Within a Glasgow context, we've been doing that with, well, One example of that would be looking at woodland. So where native species of woodland are referred to in place names. We've got a few examples of that in Glasgow.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Place names like Dalbeth on the on the Clyde which refers to Birch. We've got Cardarach in, kind of, Northeast Glasgow as well, which refers to oak. Ah. There are quite a few examples. Again, Glasgow's pretty good, generally, at green space and making sure that that there is greens there are green spaces within the the kind of modern city.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:But knowing where these native species of tree were in the in the past can, I think, play an important role in where in how we manage the land going forward, how we manage woodland going forward, and how we get that balance
Fay Young:Probably there are still seeds in the ground from those ancient oaks and birch trees. Just waiting for their chance. Seeds do lie dormant for such a long time. Perhaps like the Gaelic place names. This is such a daunting time that we're living in but what you're describing is such an uplifting continuity. Do you find yourself there are reasons for optimism in your work?
Fay Young:Perahaps we could return to what you said earlier about Glasgow's great wealth of Gaelic.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well, I think that's a really lovely metaphor that you've used there yourself about the kind of seeds lying dormant because I think that's exactly how we describe Gaelic language and culture across Scotland. A lot of what we have is lying dormant at the moment. It's not dead.
Fay Young:Uh-huh.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:The language is still spoken, and there are people with the expertise and and knowledge of the language and of the culture to pass on, and lots of ways in which we can we can do that to make sure that we do enrich life in Scotland for everyone. I'm pretty passionate about that, both within a mall context and a Glasgow context. And something which does really give me optimism is the kind of studies that have been done recently which show that there are increasingly more positive attitudes towards Gaelic. So the context for this is important too and that Gaelic really is at crisis point in terms of it being a living community language where there are native speakers of Gaelic. So we have to do everything that we can to make sure that these native speakers and communities in which Gaelic is a native language, to make sure that that those people and that Gaelic is supported in those contexts.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Within a Glasgow context, there are children who are being born and raised in Gaelic speaking families. And, at the same time, we've got a real increase in interest and it seems to be a generational thing in Gaelic among people who have no Gaelic background whatsoever, and I think that's something to be celebrated. Both of those things, that we have native speakers left, who are willing to pass on their knowledge and expertise and their their language and their stories, and we have people who are interested in learning that who have no Gaelic background. And I think that's that's really visible in the the kind of increasing provision and strength of Gaelic medium education in the city. The growing number of Gaelic speakers in the city, you know, at the level of skills, but also among adult learners.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:So just to kind of quantify that in numbers, in the 2011 census, we had around 60,000 speakers, fluent speakers of Gaelic, and around 10,000 of them based in Glasgow. So that's a really quite a high proportion. And I think that's that is definitely a reason for optimism. And just to go back to your lovely metaphor about things lying dormant, That I think that that that really can enrich our lives as to to awaken these place names and and all the kind of wealth of language and and lore and story and song that's associated with the place names. They can we can learn so much from them, and we can they can give so much to us in our daily lives too.
Fay Young:Uh-huh. That's that's a really lovely thing to think about. And especially as as a proud grandmother, I'm really pleased that, 2 of my grandchildren are at Gaelic school and learning Gaelic and singing Gaelic as well, most beautifully. But, I can imagine them and their friends, becoming really interested in place names and finding the, you know, maybe, just connections across the city and and, as you were saying earlier about the the creative possibilities in in just learning, origins of the place that you're living in, and and maybe picturing the people who lived there before, and it's a great adventure, I think.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Yeah. I I totally agree with that, and I think it can be really empowering for for young people to be able to to talk about their own place, the place that they are so familiar with, by referring to Gaelic language and culture as well as, you know, other languages and cultures. I I think that that can only be a good thing. I think we've seen in studies recently as well about, in relation to health and well-being, how diversity can contribute to that increased health and well well-being and and song as well, which you mentioned. I'm so glad to hear that your your grandchildren are are singing in Gaelic too.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I think that's something that, again, can just bring us together and, such a lovely way to we've got such a rich song culture in Gaelic that it's something that we can really celebrate. Use to celebrate, you know, as part of where we're from.
Fay Young:Yeah. And as I I suppose my grandchildren, a bit like yourself when you were growing up, that the song comes first. And actually, the speaking comes later. The singing is is a lovely, joyful thing to do. And I'm just remembering you were a a mod winner.
Fay Young:Is that it? sorry. That's probably not the right way to describe it. But you you had a a great, start in song, didn't you, on on Mull?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I did. Yeah. I always I'll, yeah, be forever grateful for that, not only within the family, but within the wider community of people encouraging me to to sing in Gaelic. That being the my way into the language and also hearing I think just reinforcing that real connection to place. Hearing, you know, people that as well as my mother, other people in the community who kind of would help me learn the songs.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I remember them saying, this is how we pronounce this in Mull. You might hear it pronounced differently elsewhere, but this is how we pronounce this word in Mull. And this is a song from just down the road. I think that can be really, well, has been really empowering for me. And I think just in in terms of education, as well as the the song I think you're quite right.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:The the songs can be a really useful way of, you know, starting off on your kinda learner journey if it comes to Gaelic. In Gaelic song culture, we have a lot of songs which have a refrain or a chorus, which are really were created by people so that other people could join in. That's that's a big part of the culture that always has been, and it will be going forward too. So in in terms of education, song is is really important. And just to go back to the place names and and and within the context of education, place names are also I mean, I've talked probably at too much length in terms of some of the place names today, but I think that place names are these real kind of bite sized chunks of language and culture in and of themselves.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Typically, a place name has 2 constituent parts and that is such a lovely and useful educational tool is to to have that real bite sized chunk of of language and culture within the place name.
Fay Young:That's a great way to describe it. What what more are you working on at the moment? What what follows the the book?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I'm really keen within a Glasgow placement context to, as a team, we've done a bit of this already, feed the kind of research into the curriculum in the Gaelic schools in the city. I think that's an important thing to do. What I would also really like to do is to make sure that we feed the research into the, kinda, English speaking curricula as well at different levels. So one I think that would really that would really benefit Gaelic and, in turn, benefit Scotland as a whole is making sure that people have a bit more exposure to Gaelic. Not just in Gaelic skills, but across curricula.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:We grow up with so many words in English from English is an amazing language in itself. And that it's it's got this kind of propensity to borrow from other languages. So we're we're used to words from French and from Spanish, Another an Italian, for example, used on a daily basis when we're speaking in English. Historically, we would have had that in Scottish English and in Scots too. There would have been a huge influence from Gaelic on that.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:And there's a lot to be said for for making sure that there's more exposure to Gaelic across Scotland in in that way. So that would definitely be quite high on the list in terms of, you know, within a a Glasgow place name context. The other projects, Mull place names still obviously very close to my heart. So, yeah, publishing on Mull place names before too long. And then really that kind of environmental sustainability aspect of my research to really keen to take forwards the oyster habitat suitability project that I mentioned in passing earlier.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:You know, we've identified places now where we know oysters where native oysters were in the past. So, actually, working with people to reintroduce native oysters in those places is something that we're actively looking at doing now. And as part of that process would be sharing stories and songs and place names that we've come across in these places to to kind of raise awareness of what we're doing and of the importance significance of native oysters in the past and how how they can contribute to a sustainable coastal communities going forward.
Fay Young:Yeah. Just like the herring fisheries have obviously their lore and their song. And so are you able to say where the oyster beds are or or would be would have been?
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Yeah. Well, we've we our kind of initial research was from the Solway Firth up to the Isle of Skye. Although, we did look at the Outer Hebrides as well. So we have a map that's, it's not actually publicly available yet. We've been working with with various partners on this just sharing our research with them just to make sure that we do the the right thing.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:NatureScot, for example, to make sure that we go about this in the right way. We've got, expertise, on the project from from different areas within the the university, but there are a couple of places in in Mull, actually. You're probably not surprised to hear that we're we're looking at in particular, because of that associated lore that I've come across in my own research to kind of tie in with the project. Mhmm.
Fay Young:Yeah. Because an an oysters used to be actually part of a staple diet, didn't they? They weren't the the food of the wealthy. And of course, the Firth of Forth had, I think they had oyster wars, didn't they? In the, whenever it was, 18th 19th centuries.
Fay Young:I'm straying into territory that I don't really know enough about. But and, and, I can't believe that we we're reaching the last question of this, conversation which is, asked of every guest, and that is if you have a favourite building in Glasgow and what it would say if its walls could talk.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Well, the I'm sure my employer would love me to see the University of Glasgow and its old buildings. And I suppose that just to in relation to that, you know, the university has given me so much on my on my life to date. You know, I've been within the walls of different university buildings since I was 18 and I know that the the cloisters, for example, and the old buildings as part of the main building at the university are such iconic. So iconic in Glasgow's kind of modern cityscape. When you ask the question, I think places like the old Clincart farm, which was part of Lesser Hampden, come to mind.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:I've seen photos of that, you know, with the haystacks Uh-huh. Right next to the old stadium and that kind of urban and rural Glasgow in the same photograph really is, I suppose, a huge part of the book. Glasgow's Gaelic Place Names, that kind of with 1 eye on urban Glasgow in the present and in the future and an an eye on rural Glasgow in the past. That's that's really central to the book. It's not just about Glasgow's past.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:It's about Glasgow's future and what we can how how it can be, you know, a really vibrant, multilingual, and multicultural city going forward with Gaelic as part of that Gaelic language and culture as part of that. So, yeah, I'd love to speak to the walls of, the old Clincart farm and other buildings like that and have a chat about Gaels of the past and place names of the past.
Fay Young:That's a great idea that it would be a conversation. It's not just you standing there listening to what the walls are saying. You're actually engaging with it with it. In fact, I think that's possibly been a theme of our conversation today is is just that, constant, you know, dialogue between the past and the present. And and that that is a hopeful idea that that we keep on learning from that.
Fay Young:And and the picture you're creating of that city, the urban, rural city, is is a really exciting I1II think. Alastair, thank you so much. This has been a just I just it it the conversation could go on and maybe we can come back to it, especially with the talking trees. Thank you again. That that has been a really lovely, enjoyable conversation with you.
Dr Alasdair Whyte:Taing Mhor, Thanks very much.
Katharine Neil:Glasgow City Heritage Trust is an independent charity and grant funder that promotes the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of Glasgow's historic built environment. Do you want to know more? Have a look at our website atglasgowheritage.org.uk and follow us on social media at Glasgow Heritage. This podcast was produced by Inner Ear for Glasgow City Heritage Trust and is sponsored by Tunnocks.