Category: Audio

New Blogs on the Block

~ Gordon Wells ~ Leave a comment

Local community voices are finding some interesting new platforms from which to make themselves heard. In addition to the recently launched Guthan/Voices page on Am Pàipear several new blogs have been started, (including audio-blogs!).

Gaelic tutor Archie Campbell started writing “Cò ach esan?” with Blogspot some months back, but has just recently started adding Ipadio phonecasts – which allows him to complement his texts with recorded speech. That’s very helpful for Gaelic learners who need to hear what the language actually sounds like.

Loriana Pauli has just started writing “From the Water’s Edge” in English on WordPress, but also including audio links from her new Ipadio channel.

And the Gaelic learners in Berneray now have a class blog, “Guthan Bheàrnaraigh”, also on WordPress. The first written contribution is by Rita Dix, on her 1985 meeting with Prince Charles.

All these “new voices” promise to provide interesting material to share – whether directly from their own sites or channelled through Am Pàipear, our local community paper. If anyone else locally would like to try out making their own contribution but is unsure how to get started, then please contact Gordon Wells on 07879 644984.

Gaelic in the Kitchen

~ Gordon Wells ~ 2 Comments

The Berneray Gaelic classes led by Alison Dix and Archie Campbell were invited into a neighbour’s house to learn how to make oatcakes in the Hebridean manner. Màiri also spoke about her lifelong connection with Berneray, as well as of her training and work experience on the mainland, and her interest in good homebaking. Getting to eat the oatcakes was an extra bonus – not to mention taking home the recipe!

This 5-minute audio recording of Màiri’s good Berneray Gaelic is overlaid with pictures snapped at the time with a mobile phone. It’s the work of a few minutes to put the two together and place the result online. Now Gaelic learners worldwide can listen again and again – perhaps while making more oatcakes in their own kitchen…

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/41353428 w=500&h=375]

Visiting Professor

~ Gordon Wells ~ 2 Comments

Uist welcomed a short visit from Soillse Director Professor Robert Dunbar this week. During his tour he was able to visit the offices of Am Pàipear and Sgoil Lìonacleit, as well as speak with Gordon Wells, Island Voices/Guthan nan Eilean co-ordinator. Originally from Canada, Rob’s first introduction to learning Gaelic was through teachers from Uist – and he’s never looked back!

Here he speaks also about his ambitions for the Soillse research project to engage closely with the local interest in Gaelic – in education, in the family and the community, and in relation to policy and planning.

Public visibility of the Gaelic language in written form may be one of many factors affecting perceptions of its current state and future prospects. Rob takes an interest in linguistic landscapes, and took the opportunity to gather some examples during his visit. (Click to enlarge.)

Bilingual Community Drama

~ Gordon Wells ~ 6 Comments

English tutor Mary Morrison and Gaelic tutor Archie Campbell put on scriptwriting hats recently in a remarkable collaboration that saw cross-community involvement in the staging of a traditional tale – Gille an Fheadain Duibh (The Lad with the Black Chanter).

The story was chosen from the “Thugam agus Bhuam“ collection, as told by Pàdruig Moireasdan, with his own grandson (also Pàdruig) taking the central role – as well as adding to the musical accompaniment.

Here’s the programme.

Originally a Gaelic tale, the full stagescript was written bilingually, giving the option of English or Gaelic for each character – with an English “subtitling” system in place for any members of the audience who might struggle with the Gaelic sections. Could this be a model for replication elsewhere? The local group would be pleased to offer advice and encouragement to others who wish to try it out.

Mary talks here in English about how the project came about, and the high degree of community involvement (of both young and old) in all aspects of the production – dramatic, musical, and artistic.

Archie talks here in Gaelic about the challenge of writing for speech, and discusses how participating in this kind of project can be helpful for learners.

Live Demonstration

~ Gordon Wells ~ 2 Comments

There was an encouraging turnout for last night’s meeting on “Community Voices in a Digital Age”. It started with a presentation by Gordon Wells of some of the easy-to-use online platforms that are integrated in the Guthan nan Eilean project. This included two live demonstrations of the Ipadio audio-recording function which instantaneously converts a telephoned voicemail into a webpage with sound embedded.

First to go was Iain Caimbeul, the project manager for the Soillse inter-university Gaelic research network, who, speaking in Gaelic, explained the main aims of the organisation and what it was keen to explore in partnership with island communities.

In the second test run local resident Volker Labitzke, speaking in English, compared his experiences of learning English and Gaelic, and talked about how he felt his language learning helped him to settle in his new home.

In the second half of the meeting there was open discussion of ideas for supporting language, and particularly Gaelic, development in the community. The new “Guthan: Voices” tab on the Am Pàipear website was cited as a new opportunity for “lifestyle” contributions, in writing or speech, from members of the public. Also highlighted were community drama, community lunches,  and community radio, as well as the importance of links to schools and young people, though it was noted that the use of Facebook and Twitter is by no means restricted to the younger generations! The meeting finished with Volker remarking on the enthusiasm within the group, and the desire to see some or all of the ideas mentioned taken forward as a result.

Future meetings may continue to be held in Balivanich, but there is no reason why interested parties in North or South Uist should not prefer to meet closer to their own homes. Or individuals may feel inspired to work on their own! Gordon is happy to assist in any appropriate manner, and can be reached on 07879 644984. It will be interesting to see how, if at all, engagement with the new media affects patterns of language use – a topic which Soillse is keen to explore.

Sing! Sing! Sing! Seinn! Seinn! Seinn!

~ Gordon Wells ~ 1 Comment

Nuair a chleachdas sinn cànan cha bhi sinn daonnan ga bhruidhinn no ga sgrìobhadh. Uaireannan bidh sinn ga sheinn! Ma tha sgeulachd, bàrdachd, no òran agaibh, no aig caraid, nach cuir sibh thugainn e gus an tèid againn uile air a leughadh no a chluinntinn air làrach Pàipear Uibhist? Seo eisimpleir eile dhuibh.

Let’s not forget that a language can be sung, as well as spoken or written. Local Uist residents have been enjoying a series of community singing workshops recently, and sampling some new languages while doing so, including Finnish and Japanese as well as English and Gaelic. And local organiser Catherine Eunson has put together this short movie for Am Pàipear using one of the workshop songs as the soundtrack. See what you can do just with a series of still photographs!

Song, speech, or text. Still or moving pictures – or none at all. Just let us know if you would like to add to our Community Voices in Am Pàipear.

Community Voices

~ Gordon Wells ~ 2 Comments

The Island Voices project is moving into a new “grassroots” phase now. We aim to encourage community members to create their own pieces of work – whether in video, audio, or written texts. Help will be available, either with the language or the technology, to get you started, but it’s your stories, or conversations, or songs, or even movies that the rest of the community would like to hear or see. And with Am Pàipear on board we will have a local outlet for your work, ready and willing to reflect our community lifestyles.

Here’s a Gaelic example. Just click on the graphic below to see what kind of thing we have in mind.

Bear in mind that this is a bilingual project. So English is also welcome, though we’ll try to keep a balance between the languages. If you would like to know more about the project, please get in touch through Cothrom or Am Pàipear, or directly with Gordon Wells on 07879 644984.

Lorna and the Learners

~ Gordon Wells ~ 4 Comments

Community Gaelic classes continue to meet in Berneray. One group is led by Alison Dix, and they are keen to meet and talk with local residents who are fluent speakers. Below you can hear edited highlights of a conversation held with Lorna MacKillop. The learners prepared thoroughly for the meeting by drawing up a list of questions to ask Lorna. The list of questions is here: Ceistean airson Lorna.

With Lorna’s agreement they then recorded their conversation. This has provided them with a lot of listening material for subsequent lessons, as they will be able to go over every aspect of the chat they had. The recording posted here gives just a taste of Lorna’s beautiful Berneray Gaelic, and the treats in store for the learners in the weeks ahead. Click on the image below to hear the conversation.

(Classes organised by CE Bheàrnaraigh with support from Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s scheme for Taic Freumhan Coimhearsnachd.)

New Download Facility

~ Gordon Wells ~ 1 Comment

All 150 Videos in the Series One and Series Two Island Voices collection are now available for download in “avi” format from this page on the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig website:

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gd/ealain-is-cultar/guthan-nan-eilean/

This new facility means that, once you download a particular video to your computer, you won’t need to go online every time you want to watch it. This may be especially useful if there are some particular clips you want to use on a regular basis, or if you’re taking your laptop somewhere where there isn’t a good internet connection.

The page also gives links to the transcripts for downloading in Word format, as well as to the original YouTube locations (already available through the Series One and Series Two pages on this site, which also give links to detailed pdf catalogues for each series).