Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh is an Irish linguist who is Professor of Gaelic and Vice Principal and Head of the College of Arts / Colaiste nan Ealain at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

. He was born in 1966 in Dublin, Ireland.

Career

He earned a BA Hons and an MA from

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

in Irish and

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

. Subsequently, he was awarded a scholarship to study

Scottish Gaelic phonology There is no Standard language, standard variety of Scottish Gaelic; although statements below are about all or most dialects, the north-western dialects (Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Northwest Highlands) are discussed more than others as they r ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, where he completed a PhD on Gaelic historical phonology. He lectured at the

from 1993 to 2001, where he set up ''Ionad na Gaeilge'' ("the Centre for Irish Studies"). He was assistant professor at the School of Celtic Studies,

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) () is a statutory independent research institute in Dublin, Ireland. It was established, under the Institute For Advanced Studies Act 1940, by the government of the then Taoiseach, Éamon de Vale ...

, between 2001 and 2004 before returning to Scotland in 2005 to take up an endowed chair in Gaelic at the Department of Celtic and Gaelic, University of Glasgow, 2005–10. He was appointed to the first ever established Chair of Gaelic in Scotland at the

in 2010. At the

, he has held the following positions: * Head of Celtic and Gaelic, 2007–10; * Deputy head of the School of Humanities / Sgoil nan Daonnachdan, 2010–11; * Head of the School of Humanities / Sgoil nan Daonnachdan, 2012–14; * Vice Principal and Head of the College of Arts / Colaiste nan Ealain, from 2015 onwards. He is Director of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

-funded project
Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic / Dachaigh airson Storas na Gaidhlig
which include
Corpas na Gaidhlig
In March 2022 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

Research

His research work focusses on

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

, in particular its

dialectology Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now c ...

, history, terminology and

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

Publications

He has published widely, both papers and books, such as: * ''Scottish Gaelic in Three Months/Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks'' (1998)

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:OMaolalaigh, Roibeard Scottish Gaelic language 1966 births 21st-century linguists Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Linguists from the Republic of Ireland Linguists of Irish Living people Irish-language writers Academics of the University of Glasgow Academics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh