v1.0
Published 01/10/24
ball-laoghan m. While the female cuckoo wrasse, Labrus mixtus, is a mix of pink, orange and red, with three black spots on its back, the mature male has a blue head and an orange body, with blue stripes and mottled patterns running its length and on the edges of its fins (British Sea Fishing˄, s.v. wrasse).
The form blalaoghain is included in a list of fish names in a Scottish Gaelic text written in an unconventional orthography: adag
‘Haddock’, from English (MacBain 1911).
is caiteag,
Cf. caiteag, caoiteag ‘whiting’ (Forbes 1905, 40, 392), s.v. cuidhteag.
aon trosg,
‘Cod’, s.v. trosg.
da langa,
‘Ling’, s.v. langa.
trolla,
Cf. SG traille ‘great forkbeard or forked hake, Phycis blennioides’ (Garvie 1999, 84).
falmor,
‘Hake’, s.v. falmair.
agus blalaoghain (Christiansen 1938, 4). Christiansen (p. 14) links blalaoghain
Incorrectly typeset as blalaogh.
with SG blaghan m. ‘whiting or pollock’ (Dwelly 1911), noting Dwelly’s source as Forbes [1905, 39] and remarking that Henderson states ‘bliug i samme betydning’ (bliug with the same meaning), by which is probably meant bliong, s.v., but which Henderson (1910, 121, 205) translates as ‘lythe’. At any rate, Forbes’s entry on blaghan is followed by an entry on blalaoghan ‘the wrasse’, and any link with blaghan seems spurious. The author of the above list thinks blalaoghain is from ON blályr, i.e. ‘blue + pollock’, but its editor suggests Norw. blålangen (with the suffixed article) ‘the blue ling, Molva dipterygia’.
McDonald (≈2009, 342–43) gives both SG blaghan and blalaogh as likely loans under the heading ‘blályr, blálanga (Icelandic, modern Swedish)’ (for the latter, leg. blålyr, blålånga); he later (≈2015, 132) gives SG blaghan, blalaogh and blalaoghan as likely loans under the heading ‘blålyr (Norw.), blálanga (Ice.)’.
A number of forms of the Gaelic word are found:
1. blalaoghan (Forbes ibid.; so An Stòr-Dàta 1993); bla-laoghan (Lewis – Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: [bɫɑɫɤɣ:ɑṉ], presumably for [bɫɑɫɤ:ɣɑṉ]), where the hyphen though not the phonetic transcription indicates second element stress; and blalaoghain (Lewis – Christiansen ibid.), which purportedly shows genitive inflexion of the second element, but see below.
2. blà-laoghan (Skye – Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄; and Gairloch – Wentworth 2003: [b̥Lɑ ˈLɯːɣɑn]). A monosyllabic word ending in a short vowel is unexpected in Scottish Gaelic, and the lengthmark on blà provides authenticity of form if not clarity of meaning. In spite of the lengthmark, however, the vowel would be pronounced short in unstressed position. Some dictionaries cite blà m. ‘sea; green field’ (e.g. Shaw 1780), although the first sense is likely to be a figurative extension of the second, cf. EG blá f. green, lawn, level field, plain’ (eDIL˄, s.v. 3blá), but cf. also the first element in SG blàth-mhial m., bleidh-mhiol f. ‘whale’ (Dwelly), from EG bleḋṁíl (later bladhmhíla) ‘whale, sea-monster’ < bleḋ f. ‘whale, sea-monster’ + (len.) míl nt./m. ‘animal’ (eDIL˄).
3. blath-laoghan (Lewis – Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄; and Lewis and Skye – AFB˄: /bLaˈLɯː.an/, although from the recording provided post-stress [ɣ] appears to be present). This form uses the final digraph th for [h], which appears before pausa in words such as cath m. ‘battle’ and math adj. ‘good’, which have short vowels. However, blath seems to be for SG blàth ‘warm; warm-hearted; pleasant, kind; affectionate’ (Dwelly), although pronounced with a short vowel in unstressed position, which is supported by the alternative meaning ‘simpleton; harmless, innocent person (MacDonald 1946, 45); mug(gins), sucker, dupe (AFB˄: blath-laoghan); softie; person without refinement, boor (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: bla-laoghan)’.
4. bal-laoghan (Lewis – Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄), which looks as though it contains a stressless form of SG ball m. in the sense ‘spot, mark’.
5. blar-aoghan (Wester Ross – Dwelly App., ascribed to CR, which Wentworth (2005˄, 659: blàr-aoghan) takes to be for Charles Robertson), blàr-aoghain (Gairloch – Wentworth ibid.: /pLɑ ˈrɯːɣɑn/) and blàr-raoghain (Gairloch – Wentworth 2003, s.v. wrasse: blàr-raogháin [b̥Lɑ ˈrɯːɣɑn]), whose first element might mean either ‘white-marked’, an extended sense of SG blàr adj. ‘white-faced (of cattle, horses etc.)’, or, perhaps less likely, ‘seabed’, an extended sense of SG blàr m. ‘plain, field; ground, floor’ (Dwelly), although SG grunnd m. might normally be expected for ‘seabed’.
With primary stress on its second element, the compound would be expected to consist of a nominal element (a noun in the radical case) followed by an adjectival element (either an adjective or noun in the genitive case). However, the final element is probably radical SG laoghan m. (< laogh m. ‘calf’ + the diminutive suffix -an) rather than genitive laoghain: despite its occasional occurrence, laoghain does not seem to be supported by the pronunciation.
Indeed, on two occasions laoghain may be being used as the ‘grammatically correct orthographic’ form in anticipation of a genitive form, although the accompanying transcriptions do not show final palatalisation; on the other occasion, laoghain occurs in an unconventional (and inconsistent) orthography. Note that Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄, s.v. bal-laoghan, records a derivation from SG laodhan m. ‘pith, pulp’, a folk etymology justified by the wrasse’s supposed soft flesh and the word’s figurative use for ‘softie’ (see (3), above).
Alternatively, if the word’s original structure in fact consisted of an adjectival element (an adjective or radical noun bearing primary stress) followed by a nominal element (a radical noun, lenited as the second element of a closed compound), we can only assume that primary stress has shifted, a development perhaps promoted once the sense of the first element had become obscure and/or under the influence of compounds such as ̩ ball-ˈdòbhrain m. ‘mole (on the skin)’, with ball m. ‘spot’ and genitive of dòbhran m. ‘otter’.
Cf. SG ̩brù-ˈdhearg f. (originally masc.) ‘robin’, most probably developed from a closed compound adjective ˈbrù ̩dhearg ‘red-breasted’ consisting of brù f. ‘breast’ and (len.) dearg adj. ‘red’, as occurs in Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair’s ‘Allt an t-Siùcair’: A’ dol thar Allt an t-Siùcair am madainn chùbhraidh Chèit, is paidirean geal, dlùth-chneap den driùchd ghorm air an fheur; bha Richard ’s Robin brùdhearg ri seinn ’s fear dhiubh na bheus, ’s goic mhoit air cuthaig chùl-ghuirm, ’s gug-gùg aic’ air a’ ghèig (≈MacPhàrlain 1813, 68).
In support of this is the fact that, while [ɫ̪] nominally has no lenited form, forms in [r] ([ɾ]) infer lenition from radical [ʀ] ([ɍ]). If this is correct, an original closed compound ˈball- ̩laoghan m. *[ˈb̥ɑuɫ̪ ̩ ɫ̪ɯːɣan] in the sense ‘mottled calf’ might yield [ ̩b̥ɑɫ̪ ˈɫ̪ɯːɣan] (bal-laoghan) via vowel reduction after stress shift; [ ̩b̥ɫ̪ɑˈɫ̪ɯːɣan] (bla-laoghan, blà-laoghan, blath-laoghan) via metathesis; and [ ̩b̥ɫ̪ɑˈrɯːɣan] (blàr-aoghan, blàr-raoghain) via differentiation; and no doubt folk etymology played its part in their development. An alternative hypothesis would have ˈblàth- ̩laoghan as progenitor, yielding [ ̩b̥ɫ̪ɑˈɫ̪ɯːɣan] and in due course [ ̩b̥ɑɫ̪ ˈɫ̪ɯːɣan] and [ ̩b̥ɫ̪ɑˈrɯːɣan], but the sense ‘soft calf’ seems less applicable – the notion the fish has soft flesh seems spurious – and consequently less credible, whether or not the compound existed independently in the sense ‘softie (of a person)’.
Finally, although the Norwegian word for the male cuckoo wrasse is blåstål lit. ‘blue steel’ – the female is rødnebb lit. ‘red nose’ – there seems to be no reason for assuming that ON blár adj. ‘blue’ (or its stem form blá) was borrowed into Scottish Gaelic.
In the case of SG Blàbheinn ⇐ ON *Bláfjall ‘(the) blue mountain’, SG (len.) beinn f. ‘mountain’ has been substituted for ON fjall nt. via morphemic substitution, cf SG Sùlabheinn ⇐ ON *Súlafjall ‘(the) mountain of the column’ (Cox 2009, 23–24).