Our books

If you look at the top right hand corner of Reading Gaidhlig's home page, you will see the link "Group Zeitgeist". Clicking on this will allow you to see the books most popular with, and (a separate list) most characteristic of, this group.

Most popular is Teach Yourself Gaelic. The most popular dictionary is Dwelly - as it should be, because it is the best. Unfortunately, the awful MacLennan is nearly as popular. I put this down to its deceptive attractiveness - it's the right size, the right price, it has both keys. It's just not actually useful. The English is very dated (it was first published in the 1920s), and the two halves don't match. If you have not yet succumbed to its treacherous charms, don't bother.

Another very popular title is also one with a rather calculated appeal - The Lazy Way to Gaelic. Trust me, I yield the Lazy crown to nobody, and there is no Lazy Way.

How do your Gaelic books compare? Have you ever found MacLennan useful? Any other Gaelic book you've regretted buying? Anything you'd like to reccommend, and watch shooting up the list? Do share.

Edited for rogue apostrophe

Thamks mta, for this valuable information.

I have 6 of the top 10 most held books..... 1,2,4,5,7,9.

I don't have Dwelly. My dictionary if the Teach Yourself one, by Boyd Robertson and MacDonald.

What makes Dwelly so good?

This seems to be a new edition

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Illustrated-Gaelic-English-Dictionary-Akerbeltz/dp/19071...

Also... just stumbled upon this survey....very interesting

http://www.akerbeltz.org/rannsachadh/gaeliclearners.htm

What makes Dwelly so good, despite being even older than MacLennan (first published in parts, from 1911), and despite lacking an English key, is that it is bigger and more comprehensive than any Gaelic dictionary, before or since.

Dwelly was a scrupulous and thorough lexicographer, and was working at a time when rich, idiomatic Gaelic was still the everyday language of a large part of the Highlands.

It is used today by everyone who has a serious interest in Gaelic, learners and native speakers alike, and consequently has unparalelled authority.

Dwelly, an Englishman of Cornish ancestry, started collecting Gaelic words at the age of nineteen, and not only wrote and illustrated the dictionary, but typeset and printed every word of it himself. It contains more than words and definitions, there are stories and proverbs, diagrams and specialised vocabularies on everything from butchery to heraldry.

It took him 35 years, and it is one of the great dictionaries of the world.

Edited to remove a stray "the"

>3 LesMiserables: Thanks for this link - I had not heard of this edition. I'd really love to know what makes it worth £55 - my copy cost me about £18, and you can still get a hardback for about £20.

I assume they must have actually reprinted it, instead of photographing the original plates, as is usually done, and perhaps they have incorporated Dwelly's separately published Supplement. I'd hope for a really good introduction, in addition to Dwelly's own fascinating one, and perhaps some guide to some of the more interesting entries. I'd certainly get it, if it looks worthwhile.

Not much detail on Amazon , as it is not yet published.

Edited for extra information on pricing

>4 LesMiserables: Very interesting indeed, LesMis! It seems clear that Gaelic is seen as a badge of Scottishness - a relatively recent development.

Encouraging, also, that over 45% of those responding rated "understanding Gaelic literature" as "very important".

Edited to refer to original message.