I write in response to your appeal in December's Journal for any readers who might be familiar with the language of the Garden of Eden to supply a translation for the concluding solicitudes in Neville Goodman's last column.1
The first two are quite staightforward, meaning ‘blessings with you’ and ‘thank you’ respectively. The first is commonly used to bid farewell. The third one is slightly more complicated and literally translated means ‘good providence to you’.
To appreciate those statements you need an awareness of the culture as well as the language that inspired them. As luck is not a Hebridean concept at all there is no word in Gaelic for it. Most people in the Western Isles still believe that there is a certain order to life, and death, and who in our profession could argue with that. So in wishing people well for the future as you part company we cannot say ‘good luck’ but rather express the wish that providence might be good to them.
Neither of course do we believe very much in Christmas as it is celebrated nowadays, as it has more to do with the birth of Santa Claus some 100 years ago than with a certain event in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.
So I will refrain from wishing you and your readers a Merry Christmas as it will be well past by the time this is published anyway. I will however wish all those who read your Journal and especially my colleagues on the Panel of Examiners a prosperous and happy New Year as they undertake the transition from old to nMRCGP. So far providence has been on their side. Lets hope it remains so.
Leis gach durachd (With every good wish).
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2008.
