“A’ Buain”: briathrachas agus gràmar
Anne Frater, like Tormod a’ Bhocsair, is from Lewis, although I’m only seeing one somewhat Leòdhasach thing here.
aithnich, -neachadh: v., recognize
bonn, buinn, buinn: nm., base, bottom, foundation; sole (of a shoe) (in this case); tails (of a coin)
buain, buain: v., reap, harvest
caoran, -ain, -ain: nm., bottom row of a peat-bank
Cruithneach, -nich, -nich: nm., Pict
diùlt, -adh: v., reject, deny
fraoch, fraoich, no plural: nm., heather
freumh, -a, multiple plurals possible: nm., root; radical; source (Frater has freumhaichean for the plural, which is probably what I would have defaulted to, but AFB gives freumhan. Dwelly lists both as possibilities)
làrach, -aich, -aichean: nf., site (cf. làrach-lìn “website”); ruin; impression (in this case)
loisg, losgadh: v., burn (in both transitive and intransitive senses)
Lochlannach, -aich, -aich: nm., Viking
mòinteach, -tich, -tichean: nf., moor; peat-moss
riasg, rèisg, rèisg: nm., soil
spaid, -e, -eachan: nf., spade (all senses)
taraisgear: the English translation gives this as “peat-irons”; it’s not in AFB, Dwelly, or the Stòr-dàta
the Leòdhasach thing I see here is chun chaoran (for standard chun a’ chaorain), treating gu (—> chun or gun (in parts of Lewis) before the definite article) as a normal preposition that’s followed by the dative. in the standard language (and in most other dialects, I believe), when gu is followed by a definite noun, that noun is in the genitive: chun na mara “to the sea”, chun nam bailtean “towards the cities”, etc.
Dwelly says caoran with this meaning is also a Lewis word.
this is pretty straightforward grammatically; there are just three things I’d note:
diùltadh an gearradh: lit. “refusing their cutting” or “refusing the cutting”, but more idiomatically “refusing to be cut”. I think officially this should be in the genitive (i.e., *diùltadh an gearraidh/diùltadh a’ ghearraidh), but as you will quickly learn, usage by native speakers is a lot more flexible (and a lot less demanding of the genitive) than the standard grammar.
bitheadh is an older form of biodh, now more common; I was taught that bitheadh is supposed to reflect the pronunciation with hiatus (i.e., bith-eadh) and biodh the monosyllabic pronunciation (i.e., beadh), but in my experience almost everyone writes biodh regardless of what their vowels are.
in the dative singular, feminine nouns are theoretically supposed to slenderize their final consonant — thus leis a’ ghaoith vs. *leis a’ ghaoth. in practice, this does not occur in all dialects, but is still common in the Western Isles.
you can also see in freumhaichean fraoidh a tha diùltadh the colloquial elision of ag/a’. this drops out frequently in speech and occasionally in writing as well (more often in verse or informal writing than in prose).
feuchainn is difficult to translate literally here — the English translation of the poem in the Struileag book just leaves it out altogether and gives the first line as “A spade into the turf:”.
