v1.0
Published 01/10/24
fosglan m. [ˈfɔs̪kɫ̪an], [ˈfʌs̪kɫ̪an],
Cf. [fɔsɡɫɑṉ] (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: Lewis), / fɔsgLan/ (AFB˄: Lewis).
gen. fosglain -[aɲ], also fosgalan [ˈfɔs̪kəɫ̪an] etc., ‘porch, entrance chamber’ is derived from ON for-skáli m. ‘lobby, hallway’ (NO), lit. ‘fore-hall, fore-room’, and compared with Scots (Orkney) forskal (cf. Marwick 1929, s.v.: [ˈfɔrskəl] ‘a porch, lobby’) in Christiansen (1938, 4, 19: fosgalan); McDonald (2009, 354) supports the derivation. MacLennan (1925), however, derives fosglan from the verb SG fosgail [ˈfɔs̪kəl], [ˈfʌs̪kəl] ‘to open’.
Cf. Alexander Carmichael in CG II, 280: fosglan air an fhosglan ‘an opening on the opening – porch’.
While Christiansen notes the reminiscence between fosglan and the verbal noun SG fosgladh m. [ˈfɔs̪kɫ̪əɣ], [ˈfʌs̪kɫ̪əɣ] ‘opening’, McDonald suggests the scarcity of medial -sgl- in Gaelic favours the Old Norse derivation. In fact the cluster -sgl- is reasonably well attested in Gaelic, e.g. brosgladh ‘flattering’, fuasgladh ‘resolving’, gurasglaich ‘bedraggling’, iomasgladh ‘miscellany’, mosgladh ‘waking’, tasglann ‘archive’ (AFB˄). Nevertheless, an oblique ON for-skála would be expected to yield SG *forsgal *[ˈfɔʂkɑɫ̪], *[ˈfʌʂkɑɫ̪], with [ʂ] /ʀs/ and with stressless [ɑ] after shortening (in unstressed position) of an original long vowel. However, in addition to forskal, ON for-skáli gives Scots farskal and faskal (SND˄, s.v. forskal), and it is possible that a Scots *foskal (or faskal with subsequent a ~ o alternation in Gaelic) provided the etymon for the Gaelic word: SG *fosgal yielding fosgalan, with the addition of the nominally diminutive, but here agentive, suffix -an [an], and subsequently fosglan, with syncope, as in SG fosgladh, above. Besides fosglan, Dwelly (1911) lists osgalan
With loss of initial f- via back-formation, for example after the article: (dat.) an fhosgalan (in which fh- = zero) > an osgalan.
with a cross-reference to fosgalan, although an entry for the latter only appears in his appendix (Dwelly App.).
SG fosglan seems to be more or less restricted in use to Lewis.
Although the Skye author Eilidh Watt (1908–1996) uses the word in a short story (Watt 1983, 232).
It is frequently translated ‘porch’ (CG II, 280; MacBain 1911; Dwelly 1911; MacLennan 1925). Christiansen gives the sense ‘bislag [“entry, entryway”]’, AFB˄ ‘foyer (in older houses, used as storage space for medium-sized tools such as creels, spades etc.), and ≈Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄ ‘a porch where creels, spades etc. were kept; a structure like a porch in front of a blackhouse or shieling; a structure to the front of older blackhouses used for keeping lambs etc., through which one had to go to enter the living quarters’. Martin (1703, 22) writes of the houses on Rona,
SG Rònaigh (< CSc. *Hraun-ø̨y ‘(the) boulder-pile island, (the) stony island’) lies about 70 km (44 miles) north-north-east of Lewis (Cox 2022, 847–56).
that ‘every tenant hath his dwelling-house, a barn, a house where their best effects are preserved, a house for their cattle, and a porch on each side of the door to keep off the rain or snow’ – Martin’s ‘porch on each side of the door’ being the fosglan.
Although Martin is translated more literally by Leòdhasach (1897, 102): fosglan (porch) aig gach taobh dheth an dorus (‘a fosglan (porch) at each side of the door’).
The structure is more fully described in MacLeòid (1960, 339–40): Bha am fosglan a’ cur dìon air an tigh. Bha àite ann dh’an each. Bha àite ann dha na h-òisgean. Bha cùil ann do fheamainn a’ chladaich air an robh meas aig a’ chrodh. Bhiodh srathair ann, ’s cléibh, ’s cliath, cas-chrom, cas-dhìreach, plocan, ploc-lomaidh, agus iomadh treallaich a bhitheadh goireasach do dhaoine bha strì ri muir ’s ri tìr (‘the fosglan gave the house protection. There was room for the horse. There was room for the hoggs (lambs). There was a corner for the seaweed the cattle liked. There would be a saddle, and creels, and a harrow, a foot-plough, a spade, a mallet, ?an adze, and many implements of use to people wrestling sea and land’).
Derivatives: The word occurs in the open compound fosglan a’ chaolain ‘rectum’ (An Stòr-Dàta 1993; Mark 2004; AFB˄), with genitive of SG caolan m. ‘intestine’;
AFB’s source is Mark (pers. comm. AFB’s editor Michael Bauer). An Stòr-Dàta˄’s source (s.v. fosglan a’ chaolain) is the BBC. Dr Uilleam MacCoinnich’s list of medical terminology (n.d., s.v. Briathrachas Leigheis˄) translates Eng. rectal as ‘de fhosglan a’ chaolain, dhen chaolan-dhìreach’, but Eng. rectum as only ‘caolan-dìreach’, and the translation ‘de fhosglan a’ chaolain’ may have been a relatively late addition. At any rate, MacCoinnich’s list was apparently not one of the sources used for An Stòr-Dàta 1993 (pers. comm. Dr Caoimhín Ó Donnaíle). It was compiled between 1976 and MacCoinnich’s death in 1996, sent to the Library at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in 2003 (possibly in March of that year) and published online about 10 years later (pers. comm. Marine Venturi).
cf. fosgladh a’ chaolain ‘idem’ (MacLeod 1999, 87; AFB˄).