'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

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