Scottish Gaelic is a minority language of Scotland spoken by approximately 58,000 people, or 1% of the Scottish population (speaker numbers from the 2011 Census available in National Records of Scotland 2015). Here, we refer to the language as ‘Gaelic’, pronounced in British English as /ɡalɪk/, as is customary within the Gaelic-speaking community. In Gaelic, the language is referred to asGàidhlig/kaːlɪc/. Gaelic is a Celtic language, closely related to Irish (MacAulay 1992, Ní Chasaide 1999, Gillies 2009). Although Gaelic was widely spoken across much of Scotland in medieval times (Withers 1984, Clancy 2009), the language has recently declined in traditional areas such as the western seaboard and western islands of Scotland and is now considered ‘definitely endangered’ by UNESCO classification (Moseley 2010). Analysis of the location of Gaelic speakers in Scotland and maps from the most recent Census in 2011 can be found in National Records of Scotland (2015). Figure 1 shows the location of Gaelic speakers in Scotland as a percentage of the inhabitants aged over three in each Civil Parish who reported being able to speak Gaelic in the 2011 Census.

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The epithet meranach is found in Irish sources from the eleventh century. The same element may be present in the Irish surname Merna(gh) and perhaps also in the early thirteenth-century Scottish epithet Marrenah. It is suggested that the underlying element is meránach (‘delirious, mad, insane’), which survives in Scottish Gaelic mearan(ach). The rich variety of forms which survive (or survived until recently) in Scotland are discussed. Parallels are drawn with the use of dásachtach as an epithet of the Scottish king Domnall mac Causaintín (†900AD) and the survival of dàsanach, dàsannach and related forms in Scottish Gaelic. These epithets may in origin have referred to the persons classified as mer and dásachtach in early Gaelic law. The epithet méránach / méranach from mér (‘finger’) is also considered in the context of the name Gofraidh Crovan / Gofraidh Mérach; the epithet Crovan is explained as deriving from crobh+án rather than crobh+bhán as has been previously suggested.

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