51: On documenting Beurla Reagaird

 

Written and published by Linden Alexander Pentecost on the 12th of January 2025, published only on this website and in the UK, like all my publications. This article contains the following sections: A note of dedication; Indigenous people and secret languages; Indigenous traveller languages in the UK and Ireland; Further notes and new works by the author. This article or page contains 1139 Words. 

A note of dedication: This article is dedicated to our other cat, Ophelia, who sadly passed away recently on the 27th of December 2024. This was after my other cat (G)mork(i) passed away in November 2023, which is something I have mentioned elsewhere and dedicated numerous publications to, and have also discussed my cat within many articles, including my article published only on archive.org titled: Second Version Of Scottish Gaelic Dialects Of The Outer Hebrides, And With Comments On Spirituality And On Folk Beliefs (standalone Article, Only Published On Archive.org) which contains a paragraph dedicating the article to him (not in these exact words), the link to which is here,: https://archive.org/details/second-version-of-scottish-gaelic-dialects-of-the-outer-hebrides-and-with-comments-on-
See notes on new works at the end of this article for more notes in continuation.

Indigenous people and secret languages

Very slowly, I feel that the modern world is waking up to the injustices done to indigenous peoples. If we look at the Americas, and say the state of California in the USA, we may come to know that the indigenous languages of California have very few speakers in this day. Indigenous history is, even in this day and age, at risk of being lost, and communities across the world are working hard to ensure that their traditional knowledge and languages can continue. 

Other tribes in north America, like the Taos, have kept their language relatively secret from outsiders. Not being able to learn a language can be frustrating for a linguist, but there are I think very good reasons for this. Whilst I cannot say what the Taos people believe, the general impression I have got is that some indigenous communities are not always keen to share their language with outsiders. Doing so might risk an infiltration of ideas and language that might destroy their culture. One need only look to what has happened in the past, with indigenous people being treated horribly and having their lands and rights taken away from them, to understand why indigenous communities might not want an outside culture to penetrate their own culture too much. 

Sharing their language also runs the risk of having their language and culture misrepresented and misused. A linguist might, for example, have an interest in their language, but might not value or respect the beliefs of said indigenous people, so that when their work is published, it is done so in way which does not truly represent, aid, or help to support the indigenous community and their rights as indigenous people. 

These are things we can observe where European, for example, British culture and language, has interfaced with indigenous cultures and languages around the globe. But it is also something present in Britain itself, which leads us onto the subject of Beurla Reagaird and the Indigenous Highland Travellers.

 

Indigenous traveller languages in the UK and Ireland

Generally speaking, I have found that when we talk of traveller peoples in the UK, they are most often associated with the Romani languages. Indeed, Romani languages are spoken in Britain and in Ireland. But there are also indigenous traveller languages as well. Arguably the most well-known of these languages is Shelta, which is primarily spoken in Ireland. In Munster, in Ireland, another language was spoken, related somewhat to Shelta, called Béarlagair na Saor. In parts of Scotland, the Beurla Reagaird language was, and is still to a degree spoken, by Indigenous Highland Travellers. 

There is very little academic work on how these languages relate to each other. But it would I think be accurate to say that these three languages are all connected to the Goidelic languages in some way, although their precise relationship to Goidelic is ambiguous. In more recent times, these languages have to a degree become more influenced by English. In some cases, it seems that much of the original forms of these languages have become replaced by much English grammar and vocabulary, whilst words from the original languages are still used within this more English-based structure. 

As I have stated elsewhere, I think it possible that these three traveller languages, and other possible traveller languages in the UK and Ireland, may have been pre-Indo-European languages, that is, until the grammatical structure of these languages was replaced in many cases, replaced by a Goidelic or English structure. I hope this article was an interesting read. This will be the first of many new articles on Beurla Reagaird.

Previously I have discussed and published about Shelta and Shelta etymologies, which you can find in my PDF ebooks. I have written about Shelta and Beurla Reagaird in other contexts too, including in my article that was published on Omniglot.com, titled Ancient language and extra-Indo-European language in Britain, the link to which is: https://omniglot.com/language/articles/ancientlanguage.htm In Silly Linguistics last year, an article which I wrote was published about Béarlagair na Saor, titled: The mysterious Béarlagair na Saor - an ancient language of Munster in Ireland? By Linden Alexander Pentecost, In Silly Linguistics issue 69, February 2024. My quite extensive Shelta work and a little work on Beurla Reagaird as can be found in some of my PDF ebooks, with mentions of it elsewhere. 

 

Further notes and new works by the author

 

On the day that our other cat Ophelia passed away, I also made a new website (not the same as www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk, i.e. the website you are currently on. The new website is titled www.clwaideac-na-cuinne.co.uk and will contain material that is entirely unique to that on www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk. I thought that perhaps that day would have been memorable for it being the day I made a new website, but sadly it also became memorable because of our other cat passing away. Nevertheless I will keep the new website and it will be dedicated to her memory as well as to our other cat’s. 

I will also likely be publishing more about Beurla Reagaird in the near future, but I do not yet know in what medium, or where. I may also in the near future create another new website, for more of a blog. I have also had other websites in the past, where I have published things, which are not mentioned here. I will also keep using www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk. 

(Update, I also mentioned a bit about Beurla Reagaird in a Kindle-only ebook publication I published on the 15th of January 2025, titled: THE CIUTHAICH - CIUTHACH: MYSTERIOUS ANCESTORS OF WESTERN SCOTLAND (SMALL KINDLE-ONLY PUBLICATION), BOOK 1 OF SCOTLAND’S ANCIENT CAVE FOLKS.)