'Soul and Body, Sound and Hearty': getting to know Bishop MacEachern.

Iain S. MacPherson, Edward MacDonald

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    The examination of a letter written by first Roman Catholic bishop of Prince Edward Island, the Scottish Highlander Angus Bernard MacEachern, written in 1832 to a former parishoner Angus Walker in which the bishop engages in clever code switching from English to Scottish Gaelic and back in order to deliver a message which could only be understood, if intercepted, by another bilingual Scottish Gaelic/English speaker. The paper reveals the historical setting of the 1832 letter and goes on to examine closely the passages of Scottish Gaelic: their meaning in terms of social commentary, their non-standard orthography which provide clues to mainland Scottish dialect variants evidenced by the same, and the descriptions of parishoners encrypted in the author's first language.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)14-18
    JournalThe Island Magazine
    Volume1
    Issue number62
    Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - Nov 2007

    Keywords

    • Scottish Gaelic
    • Scottish Gaelic nineteenth century usage in Prince Edward Island
    • code switching
    • encrypted messages

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of ''Soul and Body, Sound and Hearty': getting to know Bishop MacEachern.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this