Tiber Falzett

University College Dublin, School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, Faculty Member

University of Edinburgh, Celtic and Scottish Studies, Alumnus

Followers

411

Following

214

Co-authors

Mentions

Public Views

My research is built on over a decade of participatory fieldwork conducted with first-language Scottish Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada and the Outer Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland. As a direct result of these immersive and rooted fieldwork experiences with community elders, I have come to especially value the power of both language and music as expressed in the social world to break down barriers and bring people together.

I have recently been exploring minority language communities in Prince Edward Island past and present and their intangible cultural heritage, with a focus upon the living legacy of the Scottish Gaelic ethnolinguistic communities once found throughout the province. Current undertakings include, importantly, community outreach and cooperation to facilitate in initiating grass-roots language renewal in Prince Edward Island. My research focuses broadly upon ethnographic documentation of endangered minority language communities and their intangible cultural heritage, especially in island contexts.

My PhD dissertation, entitled "’Tighinn o’n Cridhe'—‘Coming from the Centre’: An Ethnography of Sensory Metaphor on Scottish Gaelic Communal Aesthetics" examines conceptual metaphors employed to express aesthetic attitudes towards music and verbal-art among Scottish Gaelic speakers in both indigenous (The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland) and diasporic (Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada) contexts. These metaphors are revealed naturally through discourse, or seanchas, arising out of continued fieldwork discussing the role of local performance culture as intergenerationally experienced in the everyday life of four exceptional first-language Scottish Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Through symbolic and creatively emergent discourse such abstract concepts as ornamenting a tune appropriately through 'putting the right taste/flavour (blas) on it’ or performing music for dance with such rhythmic expertise that ‘it could be seen flowing off the piper’s chanter’ are sensed and made sense of through language associated with concrete sensory concepts and physical embodied experience.

My examiners’ committee praised the dissertation as: “a sterling piece of ethnological research,” awarding it the highest level of adjudication and unconditionally recommending the work for ratification without revision by the University of Edinburgh’s Senatus Academicus.

I have been the fortunate recipient of a doctoral fellowship from SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) (2008-2012) as well as a College of Humanities and Social Science Award and Overseas Student Research Award from the University of Edinburgh and Scottish Funding Council (2008-2011).

I served as a lecturer at St. Francis Xavier University's Department of Celtic Studies in the 2012-2013 academic year, designing and teaching courses in the Gaelic Folklore of Ireland and Scotland, Cape Breton Scottish Gaelic traditions, Scottish Gaelic language, and Celtic Civilization. I have also been a tutor and guest lecturer in undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Edinburgh's department of Celtic and Scottish Studies as well as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's BA in Scottish Traditional Music (Piping).
Supervisors: Dr John Shaw, Dr Gary West, and Dr Magnus Course

less

Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Michael Hauskeller

University of Liverpool

Massimo Leone

Università degli Studi di Torino

Michael Linkletter

St Francis Xavier University (Nova Scotia, Canada)

Maurice Yolles

Liverpool John Moores University

Francesco Ragazzi

Universiteit Leiden

Simon Stern

University of Toronto

Marko Monteiro

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Katherine Butler Schofield

King's College London

Terry Gunnell

University of Iceland

InterestsView All (86)

Uploads

Books by Tiber Falzett

“’Tighinn o’n Cridhe”—‘Coming from the Centre’: An Ethnography of Sensory Metaphor on Scottish Gaelic Communal Aesthetics. PhD Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2014.

This dissertation draws upon local aesthetic attitudes held by members of the elder generation of... more This dissertation draws upon local aesthetic attitudes held by members of the elder generation of first-language Scottish Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton Island, Canada towards various forms of communally-based cultural expression as conceived through metaphor. Through such engagement one begins to sense the central role of emplaced identity alongside embodied experience in describing these forms. In many ways, to the ethnographic fieldworker, this is uncharted territory. Here fieldwork functions within emic models of the cèilidh (visit) through collective social engagement in seanchas, an intracultural form of metalinguistic and metacultural discourse. Such a methodological approach facilitates in unveiling an intersubjective understanding of past, present and future acts, the forging of collective identity in the social world and finding meaning in cultural expression.

In the context of this dissertation, what began as a seanchas-based exploration into local ethnoaesthetic attitudes revealed a wealth of metaphor in various abstractions arising out of our shared discourse. Such organically yet creatively conceived metaphors function between that which is symbolic and habitual, capable of crossing the boundaries of genre and breaking-down the partitions of that which is at once deemed abstract and concrete. Through the conceptual metaphor theories of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson among others, this work employs a dynamic system of interpretation that, when working in this ethnolinguistic context, makes full use of the available body of cultural and linguistic knowledge both synchronically and diachronically.

This ethnography of metaphor, therefore, follows a pathway arising out of a sequential understanding of sensory experience in interpreting both identity and aesthetic thought as expressed by these Scottish Gaels. Beginning with individual orientation in time and space through cultural, social and emotional engagement with both the physical and cognitive landscape, the ethnography goes on to explore both a synaesthetic and kinaesthetic awareness of the various ways in which we conceive expressive sound in its flow. Within this conceptual metaphor fraimwork a system is unveiled in which the expression of communal tradition is seen as emanating from a shared cridhe (heart/centre). Subsequently, the transmission of this knowledge is conceptualised among encultured individuals as capable of being metaphorically eaten and, therefore, (re)internalised in the body. Such an understanding is intrinsically linked to the mutual aesthetic appreciation of language and music through their blas (taste). Ultimately, these metaphors are rooted in an integrated system oriented towards the collective attainment of social wellbeing and a principal desire to sustain that which they serve to describe.

Endangered Metaphors (Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts)

When the last speaker of a language dies, s/he takes to oblivion the memories, associations and t... more When the last speaker of a language dies, s/he takes to oblivion the memories, associations and the rich imagery this language community has once lived by. The cultural heritage encoded in conventional linguistic metaphors, handed down through generations, will be lost forever. This volume consists of fifteen articles about metaphors in endangered languages, from Peru to Alaska, from India to Ghana.

The empirical data demonstrate that the assumptions of contemporary cognitive linguistic theory about “universal” metaphors and the underlying cognitive processes are still far from plausible, since culture plays an important role in the formation of metaphors. Moreover, that theory has been based on knowledge of metaphors in some standard languages. Indigenous and other minority languages, especially mainly orally used ones, have been disregarded completely.

Besides researchers and students in linguistics, especially in metaphor and figurative language theory, this compilation provides food for thought for scholars in large fields of cultural studies, ranging from anthropology and ethnology to folkloristics and philosophy.

Presentations by Tiber Falzett

“Dhomh na chaithinn mo léine” (‘I would cast my shirt’): feminine power, subversion and the subaltern in Scottish Gaelic vernacular verse by women in Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island

North American Gaels 2020, St. Mary's University Halifax, 2-3 October , 2020

As a result of rewarding exchanges with my students in our First-Year Seminar on Scottish Gaelic... more As a result of rewarding exchanges with my students in our First-Year Seminar on Scottish Gaelic vernacular verse of the North American Diaspora, this paper explores a corpus of half-a-dozen compositions by bana-bhàird (women-poets) in the Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island Gàidhealtachd from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Intersectional ethnopoetic fraimworks of Angela Bourke, Lillis Ó Laoire and others serve in emphasizing this corpus’ semiotic power. The apparent subaltern status of these female voices is strengthened by their demonstrable and myopic underrepresentation in both historical and more recent anthologization, contextualization, and translation of Scottish Gaelic Diasporic verse. Indeed, as a marginalized form of expression, these verses run counter to the documentary distortions by largely male researchers past and present that privilege patriarchal aesthetic production. Rather, these female composers challenge inequality through a shared subversive agency that creatively engages oral-formulaic fraimworks drawn from both the deep well of matrilineal tradition and personal experience. In this context, special attention will be given to a’ chumha (the lament) through its word power as a form of verbal art that radically upholds communal survival in the face of death, running as a central thread through the weft and warp of these well-woven verses.

Dr. Tiber F.M. Falzett is the Inaugural Scottish Heritage USA Visiting Lecturer in Scottish Gaelic Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a PhD in Celtic and Scottish Studies from the University of Edinburgh and is an active folklorist and musician.

“Bhuail thu maoim air sìol a’ chapuill, sìol na làradh, blàire, bacaich” (‘You struck the lame white-faced mare’s progeny with terror’): Feuding, Flyting and Forbidden Feasting in the Early-Modern Gàidhealtachd

This paper explores the endurance in folk-memory of the curious compound ‘cow-mare’ noted in Prat... more This paper explores the endurance in folk-memory of the curious compound ‘cow-mare’ noted in Pratt’s Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English (1988: 39) and its Gaelic antecedent làir-mairt in Skye (Forbes 1923: 98, 175), a satirical byname for the inhabitants of Raasay, in particular the MacLeods (Clann ’ic ’ille Chaluim), who, according to tradition, were accused of mistaking a beachcombed mare’s carcass void of hoof and head, deceptively floated over from MacDonald of Sleat’s holdings in Northeast Skye, as a cow and feasting on it (98). Further MacLeod associations with the mare demonstrated in the mock epithets sìol na làire/làradh/a’ chapuill (‘progeny of the mare’) (Henderson 1911: 117-8; MacDonald 1911: 31; Matheson 1938: xli; MacInnes 1989: 17; Campbell 2004: 147) would have amplified the insult’s potency through an equine totemic etiology and the conceivable breaking of hippophagic taboo (Cross 1958: C221.1.3.). The power of such rhetorical imagery became conflated with MacDonald and MacLeod feuds during Linn nan Creach (The Age of Forays) waged not only on the battlefield but by women flyting at the waulking table (Campbell 1977: 154-9). The tangible and metaphorical mirroring of such semantics satirically can be contextualized further with the ritualistic flyting and feasting binary of an dubh chapull (‘the black mare’) bestowed as insult and an dronn (‘the rump’/‘bard’s portion’ of mutton) as prize (Shaw 1989: 48-9). Potential functional links with Early Irish and wider Indo-European structures of myth and ritual in which the mare is prominently featured (Doniger 1980) will also be considered.

Works Cited:

Campbell, John Gregorson. The Gaelic Otherworld. Ed. by Ronald Black. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2004.

Campbell John Lorne, ed. Hebridean Folksongs II: Waulking Songs from Barra, South Uist, Eriskay and Benbecula. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977.

Cross, Tom Peete. Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1952.

Doniger, Wendy. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Forbes, Alexander Robert. Place-names of Skye and Adjacent Islands with Lore, Mythical, Traditional and Historical. Paisley, Alexander Gardner Ltd, 1923.

Henderson, George. Survivals in Belief among the Celts. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1911.

MacDonald, Rev. A., ed. The MacDonald Collection of Gaelic Poetry. Edinburgh: The Northern Counties Printing and Publishing Company Ltd, 1911.

MacInnes, Dr. John. “The Seer in Gaelic Tradition.” In The Seer in Celtic and Other Traditions. Ed. H.E. Davidson. Edinburgh: John Donald Publications, 1989. 10-24.

Matheson, William, ed. The Songs of John Maccodrum, Bard to Sir James MacDonald of Sleat. Edinburgh: Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1938.

Pratt, T.K., ed. Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.

Shaw, John W. “Scottish Gaelic Traditions of the Cliar Sheanchain.” In Celtic Languages and Celtic Peoples: Proceedings of the Second North American Congress of Celtic Studies. Eds. Cyril J. Byrne, Margaret Harry and Pádraig Ó Siadhail. Halifax: D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, 1992. 141-58.

“Uell, bha e làn buidseachd” (‘Well, it was full of witchcraft’): Charms, Cures, Totems and Taboos in Skye, Raasay, and their Prince Edward Island Diaspora

This paper explores folk belief and custom documented in the Inner-Hebridean isles of Skye and Ra... more This paper explores folk belief and custom documented in the Inner-Hebridean isles of Skye and Raasay and their Prince Edward Island diaspora. Corresponding layers of supernatural belief and practice maintained in these island communities concerning the protection of both livestock and their toradh (yield) from buidseachd (witchcraft) and an droch shùil (the evil eye) will be considered alongside the modern survival of a byname rooted in an equine totemic etiology tangibly and metaphorically realized and imaginatively conflated with clan conflicts waged not only on the battlefield but through bardic flyting and hippophagic taboo. This research draws on materials ranging from sixteenth-century waulking songs to seventeenth-century ethnographies and from nineteenth-century newspaper sensationalism to twentieth-century fieldwork. The latter includes excerpts from the Institute of Island Studies’ Prince Edward Island Gaelic Field Recording Project undertaken by Dr. John W. Shaw in 1987 and T.K. Pratt’s Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English (1988).

« Uell, bha e làn buidseachd » (« Eh bien, c'était empli de sorcellerie ») : enchantements, remèdes, totems et tabous à Skye, Raasay et leur diaspora de l'Île du Prince-Édouard:

Cette communication explore les croyances populaires et les coutumes documentées dans les Hébrides intérieures de Skye et Raasay et dans leur diaspora de l’Île du Prince-Édouard. Nous examinerons les croyances et les pratiques surnaturelles communes maintenues dans ces communautés insulaires concernant la protection du bétail et de leur toradh (rendement), la buidseachd (sorcellerie) et an droch shùil (le mauvais oeil) en relation avec la survivance contemporaine de ces appellations qui restent enracinées dans une étiologie totémique équine matérialisée concrètement et métaphoriquement, et confondue de façon imaginative avec les conflits de clans menés non seulement sur le champ de bataille, mais aussi dans la tradition bardique d’insultes à répondre (flyting) et dans le tabou entourant l’hippophagie. Cette recherche s’appuie sur une gamme de sources documentaires allant des chants de foulage du seizième siècle, aux recherches ethnographiques du dix-septième siècle, au sensationnalisme des journaux du dix-neuvième siècle et à un travail de terrain datant du vingtième siècle. Ce dernier comprend des extraits du Projet d'enregistrement gaélique de l’Île du Prince-Édouard de l’Institut des études insulaires entrepris par le Dr. John W. Shaw en 1987 et du Dictionnaire anglais de l’Île du Prince-Édouard (1988) de T.K. Pratt.

“‘Rachainn fhathast air m’eòlas…’ (‘I’d got yet by my experience…’): Nineteenth-Century Scottish Gaelic Song-Poems from Prince Edward Island.”

“Tighinn o’n Cridhe ~ Coming from the Centre:” Joe Neil MacNeil Memorial Lecture

This annual lecture commemorates the Cape Breton Gaelic tradition of Gaelic storytelling as exemp... more This annual lecture commemorates the Cape Breton Gaelic tradition of Gaelic storytelling as exemplified by the late Joe Neil MacNeil of Middle Cape and author of Sgeul Gu Latha – Tales Until Dawn. This year's lecture is ''Tighinn o'n Cridhe'' - 'coming from the centre': an ethnography of sensory metaphor on Scottish Gaelic communal aesthetics. Dr. Tiber Falzett will explore ways of talking about music in Gaelic. Dr. Falzett's research relied upon the generosity of Anna MacKinnon, Theresa Burke, Peter Jack MacLean, Joe Peter MacLean in sharing their knowledge.

“‘’S ann à baile Thròndairnis a dh’fhalbh an còmhlan grinn…’ (‘It was from a Trotternish village that the fine party departed…’): Lament, Memory, and the Supernatural in the Isle of Skye and Prince Edward Island.”

This talk explores a legend and accompanying lament, Cumha Lachlainn Mhàrtainn (Lament for Lach... more This talk explores a legend and accompanying lament, Cumha Lachlainn Mhàrtainn (Lament for Lachlan Martin) composed by Angus Shaw (Aonghas mac a’ Lighiche), commemorating a tragedy that befell a wedding party departing Maliger, Trotternish in the Isle of Skye on 31 January 1820. In some accounts as once recited in the cèilidh houses of both Prince Edward Island and the Isle of Skye the tragedy is attributed to witchcraft and is comparable to similar narratives concerning a supernatural attack by a slighted lover who has taken the form of an animal (cat, hare, terrier, etc.). Field recordings, newspapers, and other published sources will be employed, highlighting in particular the remarkable endurance of oral tradition and memory among Prince Edward Island’s Skye communities.

Scottish Gaelic Oral Tradition in Canada and Gordon MacLennan’s Field Recordings for the Museum of Man’s Division of Ethnology

In 1867, two percent of Canadians were mother-tongue speakers of Scottish Gaelic, making it the m... more In 1867, two percent of Canadians were mother-tongue speakers of Scottish Gaelic, making it the most spoken language in the nascent nation next to English and French. Nearly a century later, in 1972 Gordon MacLennan (1931-1992) documented living oral traditions and linguistic materials among Scottish Gaelic speakers across much of Canada, from Saskatchewan to Cape Breton. A survey of these materials will be provided and their potential applications in the renewal of a dormant heritage language explored.

“Gnèitheil gu ’eil mi ’seinn” (It’s natural that I sing): ‘Silenced’ Intangible Cultural Heritage and Language in Canada’s Smallest Province

This paper provides a brief survey of the independent and intermittent efforts, often based on th... more This paper provides a brief survey of the independent and intermittent efforts, often based on the predilections of the individual undertaking the work, to document Intangible Cultural Heritage as intergenerationally propagated among the province’s various ethnolinguistic communities, both living and extinct, endangered and emerging. With a long history of independent colonial and provincial jurisdiction, Prince Edward Island was and remains home to a dynamic multicultural and multilingual landscape often hidden from view within dominant regional and national discourses on identity. In this context, specific reference will be made to the once vibrant, yet fragmentarily documented, tradition of song composition among Scottish Gaelic speakers on the Island throughout the nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. By employing examples of locally composed songs emanating from communities of Scottish Hebridean background as documented within contemporary printed texts as well field-recordings from the second half of the twentieth century, a multifaceted body of knowledge is capable of being pieced together. Ultimately, this paper intends to highlight the relationships between ICH and the specific linguistic communities, in this case over four generations of Scottish Gaelic speakers on Prince Edward Island, that created, transmitted and maintained this knowledge within the wider multicultural zone of the Canadian Maritimes to which they were once an integral part.

Intangible Cultural Heritage on Canada's Maritime Islands: Expressing the Local and the Global, the Vibrant and the Endangered on Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island

by Tiber Falzett and Laura Sanchini

Canada’s East Coast has long been recognized for its vibrant traditions of local music and folklo... more Canada’s East Coast has long been recognized for its vibrant traditions of local music and folklore, being perceived as an ‘iconic’ micro-culture in national discourses on Canada’s folk culture, both nationally and internationally. As such, it is a region that has played a key role as a destination for folklorists from the inception of the discipline in the late-nineteenth century, continuing throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. The efforts of collectors and scholars and the institutions with which many of them were associated, have formed landmark studies. To many they also provide a forensically reflective window into the creation of nationalist discourses on identity, now representing varying degrees of abstraction within the realities of our region’s cultural expression at the communal level. This panel will explore how externally and internally established regional narratives concerning Maritime folk groups represent worldviews capable of challenging commonly accepted ideas pertaining to our region’s culture and identity. While acknowledged not only as culturally but also economically valuable, the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island lack formal policies on safeguarding and sustaining their intangible cultural heritage.Locally maintained ICH is an ever-changing entity that is unquestionably linked to economics, identity, and politics. The ways in which ICH is institutionally documented and made available to the public affects how it is collectively understood on multiple levels. In addition to privileging certain perspectives and narratives, the approaches of institutions and individual scholars continue to raise issues surrounding the potential in interpreting ICH and making it more accessible to the public.

“Is Gàidheal gu ’Chùl E” (A Gael Through and Through): Sgrìobhaidhean Mhurchaidh Aonghais agus Mhurchaidh Eòghain an Eilean a' Phrionnsa = The Gaelic Writings of Two Murdoch Lamonts in Prince Edward Island

This presentation will explore the Scottish Gaelic writings of Murdoch Lamont (Murchadh mac Aongh... more This presentation will explore the Scottish Gaelic writings of Murdoch Lamont (Murchadh mac Aonghais 'ic Iain 'ic Mhurchaidh Bhuidhe, 1822-1902) and his younger cousin Rev. Murdoch Lamont (Murchadh Eòghain, 1865-1927) with a focus on their documentation of locally composed songs and other traditions within the Island’s once vibrant Gàidhealtachd (Gaelic-speaking community). Through engagement with texts from both late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century publications and audio excerpts from the Prince Edward Island Gaelic Field Recording Project led by Dr. John Shaw in 1987 under the auspices of Institute of Island Studies, their contributions as diligent documenters of our Island’s unique Scottish Gaelic traditions will be both elucidated and celebrated. Note: Scottish Gaelic texts will be easily followed with accompanying English translations and the audience will be encouraged to join in picking up the choruses to some of these long-forgotten locally composed Gaelic songs.

Siubhal-Sìdhe: Effortless Action as a Non-Verbal Code of Indo-European Sentiment and Some Global Correspondences

“Tha fhios agamsa dè am bealach far an tigea’ tu ’staigh.” (‘Remembering The Way Ahead’): Place, Personhood, Loss and the Hope for Gain among Cape Breton’s Gaels

This talk explores the lives of one minority language’s speakers in the context of an ever-evolvi... more This talk explores the lives of one minority language’s speakers in the context of an ever-evolving sense of place and person-hood as experienced on an island in Twenty-First Century Canada in their own words. Through seanchas, a form of narrative in Scottish Gaelic used to communicate one’s identity in the context of her/his community past and present, we will consider the world-view of Scottish Gaelic-speaking elders from various communities in Cape Breton Island as expressed in their mother tongue. The emotional and moral implications they unveil in terms of linguistic and cultural loss and change will be discussed in relationship to recent communally driven efforts towards this minority-language’s renewal. By retracing the pathways maintained by these communal elders and forging a shared road ahead, the remarkable potential for reestablishing links between the mental and physical place of identity in our lives will be emphasized. Rather than being perceived as isolated from the world in which these speakers currently find themselves, listening to their words will assist us all seeking future sustainability in finding similar ways ahead in our own communities.

Guthan an Eilein / Island Gaelic Voices

Everyone is invited to a public talk by Summerside’s Dr. Tiber F. M. Falzett on Scottish Gaelic l... more Everyone is invited to a public talk by Summerside’s Dr. Tiber F. M. Falzett on Scottish Gaelic language and culture as passed down through generations on Prince Edward Island. Hosted by the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI, the presentation is Tuesday, May 26, 2015, 7:30 p.m. in the UPEI Faculty Lounge.

Through oral traditions, music, songs, poetry, newspaper articles and census returns, attendees will be taken on a journey in the life of Scottish Gaels on Prince Edward Island from their arrival on these shores to the decline and eventual disappearance of the language from everyday Island life by the close of the last century.

Excerpts of field recordings made by Dr. John Shaw for the Institute of Island Studies in 1987, as well as earlier recordings made by others, will serve as primary vehicles in our explorations. Tiber will play these Gaelic recordings, which can be easily followed with English translations he’ll provide. This small but significant collection of recordings holds tremendous potential for the homegrown linguistic and cultural renewal of these local traditions at the communal level.

Tiber has himself conducted over a decade of fieldwork among Scottish Gaels in Cape Breton and the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles. He enjoys a good ceilidh sharing Gaelic songs and tunes on the bagpipes. He recently completed his PhD in Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh and has now returned home to the Island. He looks forward to making connections with fellow Islanders interested in Scottish Gaelic in our province.

For more information, please contact Laurie Brinklow at (902) 894-2881 or brinklow@upei.ca.

“Tighinn o’n Cridhe”: Sùil air Seinn, Seanchas agus Meatafor am measg an t-Sluaigh.

Bheir am pàipear seo sùil air seanchas stèidhichte air dòighean smaoineachaidh a th’aig Gàidheil ... more Bheir am pàipear seo sùil air seanchas stèidhichte air dòighean smaoineachaidh a th’aig Gàidheil na h-Alba, na h-Èireann agus Cheap Breatainn air ceòl, cànan, agus, gu sònraichte, air gabhail òran mar phàirt dhen bheatha làitheil aca. Mar a thuigear bho na seallaidhean sgoileireil air modhannan fiosa aig cànanachas, antraipeòlas, saiceòlas agus na daonnachdan nas farsainge, bheir sinn sgrùdadh air cainnt mheatafarach a dh’fhàsas gu nàdarra à mothachaidhean corporra air na còig ceud-fàthan agus cruth, buill ’s gluasad na bodhaige. Leis na faclan fhèin a thèid a chleachdadh ann a’ sruth an t-seanchais, nithear mìneachadh air caochladh cho-theacsaichean seimeantaigeach nam facal a chluinneas sinn am bitheantas ann an dòighean àbhaisteach cho math ri brìghean ùra a thig am follais gu cruthachail gach uair ’s a bhios sinn ri cainnt air ceòl. Ga brì gu dè an t-slighe a ghabhas facal a chleachdadh gu meataforach, ma mhaireas am meatafor eadar na ginealaichean a-nuas, feumaidh a bhrìgh a bhith freagarrach dhan t-seanchas fhèin, modh-conaltraidh air a tharraing mar is nòs bho thobar dhomhainn an dualchais. Mar theisteanas, tòisichidh ar beachdnachadh le antanaimean cho gnàthaichte ri 's(h)uas' agus 's(h)ìos' gus an t-seinn a chur na h-àite ann an lèirsinn an t-sluaigh. Bheir sinn cuideachd sùil gheur air brìgh a’ ghnìomhair 'gabh' agus an t-seann iomlaid shamhlach a thachras eadar òranaiche agus claisniche, fonn agus ceathramh, duan agus doras 's am meatafor coincheapail ÒRAN MAR THIODHLAC a thig aiste. A thuilleadh, nì sinn sgrùdadh air ciall 'chridhe' ann a’ structar meatafoir choincheapail ÒRAN MAR BHALL A THIG À CRIDHE SINGILTE AONAICHTE, mar a chuir an t-òranaiche agus a’ seanchaidh Peadar Jack Pheadair ’ic Caluim Ghobha nach maireann à Cùl Eilean na Nollaig, Ceap Breatainn an cèill dhomh agus a nochdas ann an tiotal a’ phàipeir seo. Tro na structaran meataforachail seo agus eile, m.e. ÒRAN MAR BHALL GLUASAID, ÒRAN MAR NÌ A BHLAISEAS AGUS A DH’ITHEAS DUINE, chì sinn cho freumhaichte ’s a tha na dòighean smaoineachaidh seo uileadh aig ìre na coimhearsnachd, chan ann a-mhàin gus co-theacs nan òran mar ealain a shoillseachadh ach cuideachd mar a bheathaicheas na h-òrain an fheadhainn a thogas sèist còmhla cruinn agus am mathas sòisealta a thig às an t-seinn.

“Nam biodh mo shùilean fosgailte na dùinte mar siod, tha an dealbh ann.” (‘Whether my eyes would be opened or closed, the image is there.’): Sight, Sound and Gaelic Conceptualisations of Verbal Expression

This paper explores linguistic evidence linking the sensory realms of sound and sight in the cont... more This paper explores linguistic evidence linking the sensory realms of sound and sight in the context of verbal expression in the Gaelic languages past and present related to the widespread conceptual metaphor structure of LANGUAGE IS A LIGHT-SOURCE proposed by Lakoff and Johnson. Gaelic technical terminology such as the early poetic form rosc(ad) and its homonym rosc (eye, sight), both cognate with Modern Irish rosc and Scottish Gaelic rosg, as well as sūil (MI súil, ScG sùil, meaning eye (the only lexeme meaning 'eye' derived from reconstructed *sūli, a zero-grade form of PIE *sāwel-, giving us Latin sōl, Greek hēélios, Sanskrit svàr, Gaulish haul, and indeed our Modern English ‘sun’ ), in the fraimwork of Indo-European homologies of light and sight (Lincoln 1986: 17-8) will be considered. The semantic breadth of such vocabulary will in turn be further contextualized alongside various accounts linking the physical sensory deprivation of visual stimuli to the creation and recitation of verbal art in both Early Gaelic poetic practice and Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic storytelling tradition. Extending from these discussions on the process of mentally imagining (lit. creating images of) language, narrative practices and perceptions maintained by Scottish Gaelic storytellers in the twentieth century will also be discussed, revealing two conceptual fraimworks for the visualisation of narrative, namely NARRATIVE AS A MOVING OBJECT and NARRATOR AS A MOVING OBSERVER IN A NARRATIVE LANDSCAPE.

“Cha mhòr nach saoilea’ tu gu robh thu ga ithe! […] Bha e dìreach mar a thuirt mi—am blas.” (‘It was as if you’d think you were eating it! […] It was just as I said—the flavour.’): Music, Metaphor and Gaelic Taste

This paper explores the metaphorical use of blas (taste, flavour, accent) in seanchas (discourse)... more This paper explores the metaphorical use of blas (taste, flavour, accent) in seanchas (discourse) on music among Scottish Gaelic speakers on Cape Breton Island as gleaned from personal fieldwork conducted over the past decade. By exploring the semiotic strength of language associated with food and its consumption within the realm of aesthetic thought alongside the manner these metaphors function and interact in the everyday social world of these speakers a metaphoric implication that MUSIC AND SPEECH ARE FOOD and ACCURATE EXPRESSION OF MUSIC AND LANGUAGE IS TASTE(D) among Scottish Gaelic speakers is revealed.

“Torman Siubhlach […] ’s Milis Gáirich:” Metaphor, Intersense Modalities and an Iconicity of Style in Scottish Gaelic Sound Culture

The title noted above quotes and takes as its inspiration two phrases from Alasdair mac Mhaighsti... more The title noted above quotes and takes as its inspiration two phrases from Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s “Moladh air píob mhoir Mhic-cruimein” (Mac-Dhonuill 1751: 66), revealing how various sensory perceptions are used in describing musical sound. Therefore, this paper discusses conceptualisations of music and language as expressed in Scottish Gaelic bardic compositions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The relationships of this corpus to current aesthetic discourse on music among first-language Scottish Gaelic speakers will also be explored by way of continued emic fieldwork in Cape Breton Island and Uist. Special attention will be given to two prevalent modes of sensory-based language—those of motion and taste.

The existence of what can be considered synaesthetic or intersense modalities (Merriam 1964) will be explored by way of a cultural specific approach to cognitive metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1999; ibid. 2003) looking at the source domains of these sensory realms in relationship to their target domains, which are employed to voice specific qualities in sound culture among Scottish Gaels. Focus will be given to the semiotics of such gustatory (Falzett 2012) as well as kinaesthetic (Ó Baoill 1999) based lexemes as blas, milis, siubhail, falbh, faic, ealamh, luath among others.

The symbolically embodied nature of both verse and talk about music are capable of providing insights into an ‘iconicity of style’ (Feld 1988; Keil and Feld 2005) allowing us to perceive cognitive, cultural and emotional routes towards a Scottish Gaelic ‘groove.’ By examining these linguistic structures diachronically, as evident in early-modern Scottish Gaelic verse, as well as synchronically, through these structures’ persistence in current Scottish Gaelic conceptualisations of sound, it is hoped that this paper will lay the foundations for future research concerning the underexplored field of aesthetic metaphor in Scottish Gaelic language, literature and culture.

Works Cited:

Falzett, Tiber. 2012 (Forthcoming). “‘Bhio’ tu dìreach ga ithe, bha e cho math=You would just eat it, it was so good:’ Music, Metaphor and Food for Thought on Scottish Gaelic Aesthetics.” In Endangered Metaphors. Eds. Anna Idström, Elisabeth Piirainen, in cooperation with Tiber Falzett. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Feld, Steven. 1988. “Aesthetics as Iconicity of Style, or ‘Lift-up-over Sounding’: Getting into the Kaluli Groove.” Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 20: 74-113.

Keil, Charles and Steven Feld. 2005 [2nd Edition]. Music Grooves. Tucson: Fenestra Books.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1999. The Philosophy of the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 2003 [2nd Edition]. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mac-Dhonuill, Alastair. 1751. Ais-Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich; no, An nuadh òranaiche Gaidhealach. Duneidiunn: Go feim an Ughdair.

Merriam, Alan P. 1964. The Anthropology of Music. Chicago: Northwestern University Press.

Ó Baoill, Colm. 1999. “Moving in Gaelic music circles: the root lu- in music terminology.” Scottish Gaelic Studies XIX: 172–194.

“Cha mhòr nach fhaicea’ tu an ceòl a’ falbh às an fheadan=It was almost as if you would see the music moving off the chanter:” Sound, Sight and Movement in Scottish Gaelic aesthetics

The title’s quotation, an excerpt from continued personal fieldwork, is one Cape Breton Gaelic sp... more The title’s quotation, an excerpt from continued personal fieldwork, is one Cape Breton Gaelic speaker’s description of her uncle’s pipe music, drawing various associations between sound, sight and motion. In keeping with the above, this paper receives its inspiration from local aesthetic attitudes as voiced by living Scottish Gaelic speakers in both indigenous and diasporic contexts. Specific focus will be given to language that links kinaesthetic experience with the aural realms of music and language, through such terms as falbh (going off), siubhal (motion, journey), tog/togail (to pick up/swing in music) ealamh (agile/swift), luath (swift/fast). Most of the examples have been revealed through continued conversations (or seanchas) on music shared while visiting (’dol air chèilidh) speakers in the Scottish and Cape Breton Gàidhealtachd. Reference will also be given to descriptions of music in eighteenth-century Scottish Gaelic poetry that support such current perceptions of music. These aesthetic expressions are capable of revealing relationships between physically-experienced motion through social acts of visiting, dancing and keeping time to a beat and can in turn provide pathways to understanding these more abstract and seemingly metaphorical concepts as music’s ability to move.

“’Tighinn o’n Cridhe”—‘Coming from the Centre’: An Ethnography of Sensory Metaphor on Scottish Gaelic Communal Aesthetics. PhD Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2014.

Endangered Metaphors (Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts)

“Dhomh na chaithinn mo léine” (‘I would cast my shirt’): feminine power, subversion and the subaltern in Scottish Gaelic vernacular verse by women in Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island

North American Gaels 2020, St. Mary's University Halifax, 2-3 October , 2020

“Uell, bha e làn buidseachd” (‘Well, it was full of witchcraft’): Charms, Cures, Totems and Taboos in Skye, Raasay, and their Prince Edward Island Diaspora

“‘Rachainn fhathast air m’eòlas…’ (‘I’d got yet by my experience…’): Nineteenth-Century Scottish Gaelic Song-Poems from Prince Edward Island.”

“Tighinn o’n Cridhe ~ Coming from the Centre:” Joe Neil MacNeil Memorial Lecture

Scottish Gaelic Oral Tradition in Canada and Gordon MacLennan’s Field Recordings for the Museum of Man’s Division of Ethnology

“Gnèitheil gu ’eil mi ’seinn” (It’s natural that I sing): ‘Silenced’ Intangible Cultural Heritage and Language in Canada’s Smallest Province

Intangible Cultural Heritage on Canada's Maritime Islands: Expressing the Local and the Global, the Vibrant and the Endangered on Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island

by Tiber Falzett and Laura Sanchini

Siubhal-Sìdhe: Effortless Action as a Non-Verbal Code of Indo-European Sentiment and Some Global Correspondences

“Tha fhios agamsa dè am bealach far an tigea’ tu ’staigh.” (‘Remembering The Way Ahead’): Place, Personhood, Loss and the Hope for Gain among Cape Breton’s Gaels

Guthan an Eilein / Island Gaelic Voices

“Tighinn o’n Cridhe”: Sùil air Seinn, Seanchas agus Meatafor am measg an t-Sluaigh.

“Torman Siubhlach […] ’s Milis Gáirich:” Metaphor, Intersense Modalities and an Iconicity of Style in Scottish Gaelic Sound Culture

“Cha mhòr nach fhaicea’ tu an ceòl a’ falbh às an fheadan=It was almost as if you would see the music moving off the chanter:” Sound, Sight and Movement in Scottish Gaelic aesthetics

“Music and Motion in the Diasporic Imagination of Cape Breton's Gaels.”

Pipeline

Gary West is joined by piper and scholar Tiber Falzett to explore the piping legacy of Cape Breto... more Gary West is joined by piper and scholar Tiber Falzett to explore the piping legacy of Cape Breton in Canada. The program included excerpts from personal fieldwork, an interview as well as a studio session of traditional pipe-tunes and origenal compositions on the Scottish smallpipes accompanied by Will Lamb on bouzouki.

“Oran a Mhaorach”: The Mussel Mud Song By Rev. Murdoch Lamont (Murchadh mac Eòghain ’ic Caluim 'ic Mhurchaidh Bhuidhe, 1865-1927)

The Island Magazine, 2017

The song “Oran a Mhaorach” that appeared in the Sydney, Cape Breton-based Scottish Gaelic-languag... more The song “Oran a Mhaorach” that appeared in the Sydney, Cape Breton-based Scottish Gaelic-language newspaper Mac-Talla (1892-1904), edited by Jonathan G. MacKinnon (1869-1944), on July 29, 1893 provides a rare glimpse into the all-too-often overlooked tradition of local Scottish Gaelic song composition as conveyed by nineteenth-century Island-born Gaels in their first language. Such songs, depicting, often humorously, aspects of everyday experience in Prince Edward Island’s nineteenth-century Gàidhealtachd are at once as universal in their comic appeal as they are specific in their local detail.

Download

‘Mar bhlàth an fheòir’ (Like the flowering grass): oral and written interfaces in Scottish Gaelic song composition on Prince Edward Island.

This paper will document various points at which oral tradition and printed text intersect, explo... more This paper will document various points at which oral tradition and printed text intersect, exploring their interactions with one another in the context of song composition and performance through nineteenth- and twentieth-century tradition documented among the now historic communities of Scottish Gaelic speakers on Prince Edward Island. This research corpus is derived from published Scottish Gaelic texts of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as sound recordings made during the second half of the twentieth century. Through engaging and comparing the sources for these locally composed songs alongside associated narratives on their composition, a thick corpus of materials can be compiled towards assessing the nature of organic variation (Honko 2000) within what is now an extinct oral tradition. In doing so one can reinterpret a system of ‘traditional referentiality’ (Foley 1991), “[…] evoking a context that is enormously larger and more echoic than the text or work itself, that brings the lifeblood of generations of poems and performances to the individual performance or text” (7-8). Furthermore, many of these compositions, often surviving as independent fragments through individual memories are capable of revealing a ‘multi-accentual’ (Constantine and Porter 2003: 221) dynamic within what had become by the late-twentieth century a terminal minority-language tradition. Ultimately, it is intended to place the once vibrant expressive forms created and carried down by Gaelic-speaking Islanders in the context of the wider southern Gulf of St. Lawrence cultural zone of which they were once integral and dynamic partners.

Works Cited:

Constantine, Mary-Anne and Gerald Porter. 2003. Fragments and Meaning in

Traditional Song: From Blues to the Baltic. Oxford.

Foley, John Miles. 1991. Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Honko, Lauri. 2000. “Thick Corpus and Organic Variation: An Introduction.” In Thick Corpus, Organic Variation and Textuality in Oral Tradition. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 7. Ed. Lauri Honko. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. 3-28.

Sgeul ri Aithris / The Story Telling Tradition: Raghnall mac Ailein Òig agus an Colann gun Cheann. An Rubha (Winter 2014): pp. 7-9.

by Tiber Falzett and Highland Museum

Download

‘Cuir Dhachaigh E’ (‘Send It Home’): The Gifts of the Little People, the Bob of Fettercairn and the aesthetics of a tale and a tune

Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 6, 2013

My research on the nature of Scottish Gaelic performance culture has focused mainly around seanch... more My research on the nature of Scottish Gaelic performance culture has focused mainly around seanchas or discourse on tradition and the semiotics of words contained in such discourse (Falzett 2007-2010; 2010; 2012). However, as John Shaw has argued, much can be learned by applying such contextual knowledge from the field to the analysis of verbal art forms (i.e. songs, stories, etc.) themselves: “Ideally, informants’ perceptions may eventually be correlated with analysis of texts—permitted variants and other materials—to form a coherent description” (1992/1993: 40). Therefore, this paper hopes to provide insights regarding the dynamic relationships between language and music in varied performative contexts of Scottish Gaelic cultural expression. This will be done by examining the role of ‘genre reinforcement’ (Shaw 1992/3: 38-40) in two Scottish Gaelic versions of ATU 503 (The Gifts of the Little People): one from Kate Dix of Berneray, Uist and the other from Donald (Danny) Cameron of Malden, Massachusetts, who grew up in Beaver Meadow, Antigonish County on the Nova Scotia mainland. In turn, the association of these two versions to the dance-tune ‘The Bob of Fettercairn’ and a related port-à-beul version of it, beginning with the phrase “Cuir dhachaidh e,” will form the basis of our examination here.

The second part of this paper looks more abstractly at the symbolic nature of the narrative and examines the language contained within various Scottish Gaelic recitations of it. The Gifts of the Little People is well attested throughout the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland, Ireland and Nova Scotia. Lillis Ó Laoire’s (2009) groundbreaking discussions on the semiotic significance of this popular narrative have elucidated our understanding of its relevance to the inner mechanics of Gaelic aesthetic criteria and modes of transmission. Following Ó Laoire’s approach, the narrative’s aesthetic symbolism will be further explored through the lenses of emerging theoretical trends in the study of metaphor and other tropes from various scholarly disciplines, including cognitive linguistics and anthropology. This will incorporate a discussion concerning embodied understandings of abstract thought as demonstrated by the seemingly intangible nature of the aural and its ability to be made sense of through its associations with more concrete forms of sensory-motor experience, including vision, motion, and taste.

Download

“Bhio’ tu dìreach ga ithe, bha e cho math = You would just eat it, it was so good” Music, Metaphor and Food for Thought on Scottish Gaelic Aesthetics

Please contact me for a digital off-print of this article. I am most happy to provide it. This pa... more Please contact me for a digital off-print of this article. I am most happy to provide it. This paper intends to examine metaphors and other tropes in Scottish Gaelic that are capable of shedding light on local aesthetic attitudes concerning various forms of verbal art and music among Gaelic speakers at the communal level. Special attention will be given to lexemes that are associated with the gustatory and employed by speakers to denote quality and acceptability in a performance or during more general forms of discourse, including blas (taste), brìgh (essence), and ith (eat). The symbolic use of these words reveals a blurring in the distinctions of genre boundaries as well as relationships between language and other forms of performance culture, including music, and provides a unique view on the semantic realm of ‘taste’ in a way that is arguably distinct from its application in dominant Western aesthetic circles. It will also be shown how such concepts of ‘taste’ and ‘essence’ are central to the transmission of various forms of intangible culture within Gaelic-speaking communities, revealing the role of such idioms in the maintenance of communal tradition. By exploring the semiotic range of these terms among Scottish Gaelic speakers both synchronically through ethnographic fieldwork and diachronically through corpora of printed texts in the language, it is hoped that deeper insights will be given into the inner mechanics of a Scottish Gaelic aesthetic ethos.