Scottish Gaelic Place-Names: The Collected Works of Charles M. Robertson

 

If you are drawn to the rich landscape of Scottish toponymy, steeped in language, folklore, and centuries of history, a newly published volume will feel less like a book and more like a cultural excavation. Scottish Gaelic Place-Names: The Collected Works of Charles M. Robertson (£20.00) brings together, for the first time, the life's work of a quietly foundational figure in Scottish onomastics.

🖋 Who Was Charles M. Robertson?

Charles M. Robertson (1874–1951) was not a household name, but his contribution to the study of Scottish Gaelic place-names was profound. A meticulous collector, careful linguist, and passionate observer of Scotland's linguistic heritage, Robertson spent decades documenting Gaelic place-names - many of which have since fallen out of common use, pronunciation, or recognition.

📖 What’s Inside?

This long-overdue collection presents Robertson’s work in two extensive parts:

• Part I: Scholarly Articles (Published and Unpublished)
  This section collects all of Robertson’s academic writings on place-names - some previously scattered across obscure journals or left unpublished. Here, we see his deep engagement with Gaelic morphology, historical landscape naming, and local etymologies, enriched with folklore and dialectal variation.

• Part II: Place-Name Notebooks
  The heart of the book lies in its transcriptions of Robertson’s field notebooks. These hold over 8,000 Gaelic name forms, each annotated with location details, phonological observations, and cultural commentary. These entries are more than linguistic data - they’re living records of oral tradition and community memory.

Additionally, the volume features:

• A scholarly introduction that situates Robertson’s work within the broader history of Scottish Gaelic studies,

• And an exhaustive index that will prove invaluable to researchers, local historians, and enthusiasts alike.

🌍 Why It Matters

In an era where local knowledge and minority languages are increasingly at risk, this book offers more than academic insight - it preserves an entire worldview encoded in landscape. Place-names in Gaelic are not arbitrary; they reflect terrain, history, ownership, myth, flora and fauna, and lived experience. Robertson’s work gives us not just names, but stories.

🔍 Who Is It For?

• Researchers in onomastics, Celtic studies, and linguistic anthropology

• Gaelic speakers and learners looking to deepen their cultural understanding

• Historians, folklorists, and genealogists with ties to Scottish regions

• Anyone with a love for Scotland’s landscapes and the names that define them

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Available now for £20.00, Scottish Gaelic Place-Names: The Collected Works of Charles M. Robertson is not just a book—it’s a key to rediscovering how language shaped land, and how land preserved language.