Etymology of Skye
Encyclopedia
Skye
Skye or the Isle of Skye is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre dominated by the Cuillin hills...
in the Inner Hebrides
Inner Hebrides
The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...
of Scotland. Skye's history includes the influence of Gaelic, Norse and English speaking peoples and the relationships between their names for the island are not straightforward.
The Gaelic name for the "Isle of Skye" is An t-Eilean Sgitheanach (or Sgiathanach, a more recent and less common spelling). The meaning of this name is not clear. Various etymologies have been proposed, such as the "winged isle" or "the notched isle" but no definitive solution has been found to date and the placename may be from a substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
language and simply opaque.
For example, writing in 1549, Donald Munro
Donald Monro (Dean)
Donald Monro was a Scottish clergyman, who wrote an early and historically valuable description of the Hebrides and other Scottish islands and enjoyed the honorific title of “Dean of the Isles”.-Origins:...
, High Dean of the Isles wrote: "This Ile is callit Ellan Skiannach in Irish, that is to say in Inglish the wyngit Ile, be reason it has mony wyngis and pointis lyand furth fra it, throw the dividing of thir foirsaid Lochis".
This was by no means the first written reference. Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
sources refer to the Scitis (see the Ravenna Cosmography
Ravenna Cosmography
The Ravenna Cosmography was compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around AD 700. It consists of a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland. Textual evidence indicates that the author frequently used maps as his source....
) and Scetis can be found on a map by Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
. A possible derivation from *skitis
Asterisk
An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star...
, an early Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic word for "winged", which may describe the island's peninsulas that radiate out from a mountainous centre, has also been suggested.
Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar
Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar is an Old Norse kings' saga, telling the story of the life and reign of King Haakon Haakonarson of Norway. The saga was written by the Icelandic historian and chieftain Sturla Þórðarson, in the 1260s...
saga and a skaldic poem in the Heimskringla
Heimskringla
Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...
from c. 1230 which contains a line that translates as "the hunger battle-birds were filled in Skye with blood of foemen killed". According to other authors, it was referred to in Norse as skuy (misty isle), *skýey or skuyö (isle of cloud). It is not certain whether the Gaelic poetic name for the island, Eilean a' Cheò "isle of the mist" precedes or postdates the Norse name. Some legends also associate the isle with the mythic figure of Queen Scáthach
Scáthach
Scáthach is a figure in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. She is a legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trains the legendary Ulster hero Cú Chulainn in the arts of combat...
.
| Pronunciation | |
|---|---|
| Scots Gaelic: | An t-Eilean Sgitheanach |
| Pronunciation: | əɲ tʰʲelan s̪kʲiə.anəx |
| Scots Gaelic: | An Cuan Sgìth |
| Pronunciation: | ən̪ˠ ˈkʰuən s̪kʲiː |
| Scots Gaelic: | Eilean a’ Cheò |
| Pronunciation: |ˈelan ə ˈçɔː |
|
| Scots Gaelic: | sgiathan |
| Pronunciation: |ˈs̪kʲiəhən |
|
| Scots Gaelic: | Sgitheanach |
| Pronunciation: |ˈs̪kʲi.ənəx |
|
The problems with the proposed Gaelic etymologies can be summed up as follows. Firstly, the Gaelic word for "winged" is sgiathach and sgiathanach is not attested in Gaelic except in the place name and the ethnonym
Ethnonym
An ethnonym is the name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms and autonyms or endonyms .As an example, the ethnonym for...
Sgiathanach "person from Skye". Secondly, the recorded pronunciations all point towards a clear [a] preceding the -ach ending: s̪kʲiəhanəx, [s̪kʲiə.anəx], or [s̪kʲiaːnəx]. This means the form Sgiathanach is very unlikely to be based on the Gaelic plural of "wing" (sgiathan), which contains a schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
([s̪kʲiəhən]) and would represent a highly unusual adjectival form based on a plural noun. Thirdly, the diminutive
Diminutive
In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
/nominaliser
Nominalization
In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a verb, an adjective, or an adverb as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation...
ending -an would result in [s̪kʲiəhan] a form sciathán attested in the modern Gaelic languages. The Old Irish attested form is scíath (cognate with modern Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
ysgwydd "shoulder") with a reconstructed Celtic form *skeito-, which suggests the Irish form sgiathán is an innovation and an unlikely root for Sgiathanach. Finally, deriving the name from Scáthach involves two main problems: there would be a case of unexplained palatalisation of [s̪k] to [s̪kʲ] and an unexplained extra element -an-.
The roots of the Roman and Greek forms, Scit- and Scet- (meaning unknown), could be the root of Sgitheanach as they would regularly develop into Old Gaelic [s̪gʲiθ-] and be an entirely logical source for the attested Norse Skíð. It would also lead to modern Sgitheanach via a regular suffigation of -an and -ach to form an ethnonym and adjective. This would also explain the use of an apparent root form in An Cuan Sgith(e) the Little Minch
The Minch
The Minch , also called The North Minch, is a strait in north-west Scotland, separating the north-west Highlands, and the northern Inner Hebrides, from Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides...
(the strait
Strait
A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...
separating the Outer Hebrides
Outer Hebrides
The Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
from the Inner Hebrides
Inner Hebrides
The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...
) and the older Irish form of Scíth rather than the modern An tOileán Sgiathanach, for example: Do ṡiuḃal sé Scíṫ agus an dá Uiḃeast agus Beinn a’ Ṁaola... "He travelled Skye and the two Uists and Benbecula...". In this case the interpretation of the name as "winged" may simply be a case of folk-etymology.
In April 2007 it was reported in the media that the island's official name had been changed by the Highland Council
Politics of the Highland council area
Politics of the Highland council area in Scotland are evident in the deliberations and decisions of the Highland Council, in elections to the council, and in elections to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Scottish Parliament...
to Eilean a' Cheò. However, the Council clarified that this name referred only to one of its 22 wards in the then impending election, and that there were no plans to change signage or discontinue the English name.