Broadly speaking there are three major Gaelic dialects. One includes the
Western Isles (except Lewis), Skye, Glenelg, Moidart and Western
Lochaber "The Central Western Area". The next area lies around this area
and includes Rossshire, Inverness, Badenoch, Fort Augustus, Laggan,
North Argyll and Mull. The third area includes Lewis, Sutherland,
Deeside, Perthshire, Mid-Argyll, Jura, Mull, Islay and Kintyre. There
are of course variations within this, such as Islay's "go robh math
agad", peculiar to there.
In Uist and Barra, deanamh and words ending in mh are pronounced with a
"oo" sound at the end, whereas in many other places it's a "v". Lewis
Gaelic is so completely out on its own pronounciation wise I know native
Argyll and know of Sutherland Gaelic speakers who have trouble understanding
Lewis Gaelic. In Lewis they have their own words, such as "bu\rn" for
drinking water. Elsewhere it is uisge. The variation between Lewis and
Harris Gaelic is very noticable. As has been pointed out, the
Scandanavian influence is very strong and it seems to me as if Lewis
Gaelic speakers speak it with a Scandanavian accent - completely
different to the rest of Scotland.
However, there are similarities between Lewis and Sutherland Gaelic (but
both different to Harris and the rest of the Outer Isles). For instance,
the both pronounce "adhart" as "ugurst" whereas the dh almost drops out
in most other areas.
For more information on this, see Anthony Dilworth's essay "Central
Western and Peripheral Gaelic". Tony Dilworth was a linguistic
researcher (now retired) with the School of Scottish Studies. He's
currently vice-convenor of the Gaelic Learners' Association. For
thorough research on Gaelic and Scots dialects contact the school.
The School is on-line at:
http://www.pearl.arts.ed.ac.uk/SoSS/
mailto:Scottish.Studies@ed.ac.uk
Arran Gaelic:
http://homepages.enterprise.net/hibou/arran.html
Perthshire Gaelic:
See Cothrom 6, published by the Gaelic Learners Association
P29-33. mailto:cli@sol.co.uk
Sutherland Gaelic
mailto:anceathramh@mail.enterprise.net
(An Ceathramh Gaelic centre in Sutherland)
Wester Ross:
Contact:
Roy Wentworth, 25 Ea\rradal a Deas, Gairloch, Ross-shire IV21 2AU
More info in
Companion to Gaelic Scotland, edited by Derick S. Thomson