Trusaiche blogaichean
Le Gordon Wells
“Fàilte oirbh gu còmhradh eile ann an-seo aig Comann Eachdraidh Sgìre a’ Bhac …”
Alasdair Campbell (Alasdair Tuxy) is interviewed by Coinneach MacÌomhair at Breivig Pier.
And with CIALL assistance, another wordlinked transcript has now been created on the Clilstore platform:
Powered by WPeMatico
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Le Gordon Wells
Island Voices has created a new playlist on the YouTube video channel for the collection of recordings made about Uist’s taighean-tughaidh – thatched houses. First contributions have come from Tommy MacDonald, telling some of the history from the site of Tobhta Mhic Eachainn and its connection to the “French Macdonalds”, and then quizzing his wife Betty on her memories of being raised in a taigh-tughaidh.
These recordings have been broken up into bite-sized manageable chunks.
In the first two from Tobhta Mhic Eachainn, Tommy presents some stories about Neil MacEachan and his son Alexandre – the “French Macdonalds” – from the remains of Neil’s original house, which was later to be visited by the Duke of Tarentum in an act of filial homecoming following the Napoleonic wars. The video descriptions include links to Clilstore online transcripts for both of these clips, which are also optionally subtitled.
The conversation with Betty comes in four parts. In the first section Betty recalls who built her house (her grandfather), and aspects of her childhood life on the croft, including the herding and milking of the cattle, as well as some of the thatching process as she remembers it.
In the second part Tommy and Betty go on to discuss some of the stiff challenges that would be entailed in keeping a traditional thatched house on a par with modern standards. Talking about the cèilidh culture of earlier times, Tommy recalls how stories would be shared between family members and visitors – some of which remain unexplained to this day.
In the third section Betty and Tommy’s attention turns towards food and drink, and the important place of staples such as eggs and milk – and sometimes rabbit. Services such as electricity and water were a relatively recent introduction. They recall some of the other thatched houses in the area, with a handful having been done up to meet modern standards.
Finally, in the fourth part, Tommy and Betty share memories of more recent times, when a thatched house was converted into a hostel for tourists, under Betty’s mother’s care. In the early days visitors would often stay for weeks, helping out on the croft, and they are fondly remembered. To end, more stories are shared of amusing and perplexing incidents.
Again, Clilstore links are available in the video descriptions, with auto-translatable subtitles an additional option for learners or non-speakers of Gaelic.
The seventh video in the playlist is a longer “omnibus” edition of the Tommy and Betty conversation, which is presented without transcript or subtitles.
With Tommy planning further recordings in the community we can expect more additions to this work in progress in coming weeks, with ongoing CIALL support and in collaboration with the UHI archaeologists based at Cnoc Soilleir.
Powered by WPeMatico
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Le Gordon Wells
Kenny Murdo (Rev Ferguson) and his sister Christine are in conversation with Coinneach MacÌomhair in this video from Comann Eachdraidh Sgìre a’ Bhac, with memories of Sràid a’ Bhac, Bùth Bellann and their careers. This “Clilstore treatment” provides an online wordlinked transcript with the video embedded. You can get a translation of any word you don’t know by clicking on it: https://clilstore.eu/cs/11883
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
Comann Eachdraidh Sgìre Bhac have been busy recently, placing translatable subtitles on more of their videos. It’s only a year since the first one went up – A Tour of Upper Coll/Cuairt Chuil Uaraich – with Coinneach MacÌomhair and Maighread Stiùbhart.
Now, with the help of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and the Western Isles Development Trust, student placement Ellie MacDonald has added another 8 videos to the subtitled archive. That’s a substantial piece of work which deserves hearty congratulations!
You can now view the “box set” in this dedicated playlist:
There are hours of fascinating discussion and reminiscence there. And learners or non-speakers of Gaelic can also follow the conversations with the help of the subtitles, not to mention the option of slowing down the speed of the video to help you catch what’s being said, using the YouTube Settings wheel.
Mealaibh ur naidheachd, a chàirdean!
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
The second Digital Fèis for Aire air Sunnd is now scheduled for 11th and 12th August, taking the place of the May event which had to be postponed. Here’s the updated programme. Island Voices will be represented again, with new video playlists, and there will be additional Gaelic representation from the “Gaelic Crisis” writing team in the interdisciplinary forum on the Friday.
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
In the second Aire Air Sunnd July webinar a fresh panel discusses “Climate Change, Heritage, and Wellbeing”. This follows on from the previous week’s discussion of the not unrelated topic of Mapping Placenames & Stories of North Uist.
Followers of Island Voices will recall that earlier discussion in the CEUT Gaelic group addressed the theme of coastal erosion in a historical context, with mentions of stories of the last person to walk from Heisgeir to North Uist as well as the no longer evident Baile Siar to the west of today’s Baile Sear. The retention of CEUT chair Uisdean Robertson on the panel from last week provides continuity in this regard, while project officer Sharon Pisani reprises the role of webinar chair.
Here’s some of the CEUT description of the webinar from their Facebook page:
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
This week the St Andrews team of Alan Miller and Sharon Pisani completed the round-up and review of the Aire air Sunnd survey and activities, following on from Jess Wood and Gordon Wells. Their specific focus was on “Digital use and activities”, presented online again and available to view on YouTube.
These YouTube screenshots will give a quick impression of the range of topics covered: from digital accessibility in the North Uist community, through use of social media, special areas of interest such as Gaelic place names and climate change issues, and on to forthcoming events and ongoing needs – including further guidance on digital opportunities and potential.
The screenshots give a taste. The “full meal” is available here:
That’s the fourth video in the series of reports – all gathered together on this CEUT YouTube playlist:
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
Following on from the North Uist “Wellbeing” survey, Gordon Wells this week reviewed the Island Voices contribution to the Aire air Sunnd project led by Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath.
Adopting a slightly different format to Jess Wood’s presentations last week, Gordon speaks to camera on Zoom while screen-sharing key points from the Island Voices Aire air Sunnd webpage. Speaking in Gaelic he reinforces the point that using this language does not exclude non-speakers or early learners, given the multilingual technical resources that are now available online.
His video recaps the various recordings that have been created for the project in the past year or so, including the “Gaelic Crisis” presentation, and the Progress Report, as well as the recording sessions with community members covering storytelling, artefact description, and environmental issues. In so doing, it also shows how the YouTube subtitling and auto-translation functions can be put to effective use, and includes a quick demonstration of the Clilstore platform too, while emphasising the alternative effectiveness of recorded speech in a world where written communication is often taken for granted as the default norm.
Summing up, Gordon stresses the untapped value of various recording collections (in addition to Island Voices’ own), noting in particular how open resources such as Tobar an Dualchais have the potential to bring present and past communities together in a new manner to support North Uist cultural wellbeing, offering innovative ways of forward-looking engagement with the island’s Gaelic heritage so positively valued by all. At the same time, it needs to be recognised that community-wide engagement in such activity is dependent on community-wide comfort with the new digital tools that enable it. This is probably an area of work that needs closer attention.
Here’s Gordon’s talk on YouTube:
You can get a wordlinked transcript, with the video embedded, in this Clilstore unit: https://clilstore.eu/cs/11436
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
In our second community recording for Aire air Sunnd there are two new features. Firstly we’re very grateful to the Tobar an Dualchais project, and of course to the next-of-kin, for making a recording of Ruairidh na Càrnaich available for discussion in the same manner we used for “Còmhradh air Blàr Chàirinis“. This was a suggestion and request that came from the Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath Gaelic group themselves, to which Flòraidh Forrest at Tobar an Dualchais responded immediately and most helpfully, going the “extra mile” to additionally commission a transcription of the recording, which has also been a great help in creating a Clilstore unit for the full YouTube clip. It was Ùisdean’s idea to pick this particular clip, in which Ruairidh talks about historical coastal erosion in North Uist, in a recording made in 1958. With climate change now such a “hot topic” it makes particularly interesting listening to hear how it was thought about and discussed in times gone by.
Secondly, we also experimented with a “hybrid” format for the meeting, with most of the participants meeting together in Sgoil Chàirinis, while a couple of others joined in on Zoom. Obviously, it’s easier to hold a conversation with people all in the same room together, though that does pose recording challenges, particularly when folk are quite naturally more likely to all talk at once, and you’re trying to use the ordinary everyday recording equipment we all now have to hand in our phones or laptop computers. So it was interesting to see how that would work with some people also joining in remotely. We’ve done some editing with the final recording to select “best bits” where the recorded conversation is clearest. So we have missed some parts out, but hopefully viewers will still get a good idea of how the discussion went, after listening to Ruairidh’s high quality audio recording in full.
We have again added Closed Caption subtitles as an optional extra, and these can be auto-translated into a wide range of languages, including English, from the original Gaelic, using the YouTube settings wheel. It may be worth bringing to the attention of Gaelic learners that you can also slow down the playback speed of the clip (without altering the pitch!) if there are any parts that you struggle to follow in real time.
Members and supporters of Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath, the North Uist Historical Society, listen to and talk about Ruairidh na Càrnaich’s Gaelic discussion of Uist coastal erosion with John MacInnes, as presented on the Tobar an Dualchais website. Part of the Ideas Fund “Aire air Sunnd” project, in which the Universities of Aberdeen, St Andrews, and the Highlands and Islands team up with Island Voices to provide research support for well-being initiatives on the island.
The full details of the recording of Ruairidh na Càrnaich are as follows: Cunntas Air Crionadh Nan Cladaichean Ann An Uibhist A Tuath, Roderick MacDonald, (contributor), John MacInnes, (fieldworker), ref: SA1958.171.B4, the School of Scottish Studies Archives, the University of Edinburgh. Permission, which is gratefully acknowledged, has been granted for this use only.
The full transcript is also available as a Wordlinked Clilstore unit here – http://multidict.net/cs/11280 – and here – https://clilstore.eu/cs/11280.
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico
Le Gordon Wells
The Aire air Sunnd Digital Fèis was a celebration of community heritage spread over two days in September 2022, held at the old Carinish School, now headquarters for Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath, the North Uist Historical Society. Digital activities involved digitising artefacts from the community, recording stories, listening to Gaelic voices, and exploring heritage places through virtual reality. A cèilidh was also held with music and drama from young people of North Uist.
The fèis was held as part of the Ideas Fund “Aire air Sunnd” project, in which the Universities of Aberdeen, St Andrews, and the Highlands and Islands team up with Island Voices to provide research support for well-being initiatives on the island. The recordings in the video below were made by the St Andrews digitisation team, and can be viewed as separate items alongside several clips in English on the CEUT site.
This selection of Gaelic videos has been brought together in a single clip on the Island Voices YouTube channel to enable optional auto-translatable subtitling. This means that even if you have little or no Gaelic you can still listen to the original spoken descriptions while reading the subtitles – whether in Gaelic, or English, or another language – at the same time.
Another alternative for conscious learners of Gaelic who don’t want to use subtitles is to try this Clilstore unit, where video and scrollable transcript are available on the same page, with one-click access to dictionary translation of individual words: http://multidict.net/cs/11235 or https://clilstore.eu/cs/11235.
Tadhail air Island Voices – Guthan nan Eilean
Powered by WPeMatico