Real dialect words gathered island by island — Lewis to Islay.
Gaelic isn't one fixed thing — it's whatever the people on your bit of coastline decided to call it. This page collects real words gathered island by island, so you can see the variety for yourself: a beginner's first taste of just how much personality one small language can hold.
Everything below comes from real word-lists (one hand-compiled on Lewis, one from an Islay glossary) and has been checked against Am Faclair Beag, the standard online dictionary — so what you're seeing is real dialect, not a guess.
Every shape below is a real dialect area. Click one to filter the whole page down to just its words — then click it again to see everything at once.
A schematic layout, not a survey map — roughly north (top) to south (bottom). Colours match the tags used everywhere below.
Select a sgìre to see its words here — or scroll down, everything is also in the full list.
Pull a random word from all 180+ entries — a good way to find something you'd never have searched for.
Your word will land here…
Search, filter by theme, or jump straight to the entries where two areas genuinely disagree — that filter is the whole point of this page.
Nothing matches that — try clearing the search or the sgìre filter.
Hover a label to see it highlighted — the forefinger and little finger (both also in "The Fingers" above) are the two that split cleanly by region.
The five-finger naming rhyme is shared across most of the Gàidhealtachd — a middle finger called "long lad" and a ring finger named for an abbot are the kind of detail no textbook bothers to mention, but a native speaker grows up just knowing.
Spot a mistake or have an idea? Tell Steven directly — it goes straight to his inbox.
Change the site language, switch to dark mode, or jump straight to your notification preferences.
Manage your daily proverb and games email/push preferences on My Account.
Manage notifications →