Talk:Benbecula

Flag
I'm wondering why there's a link to http://www.fotw.net/flags/gb-heb.html, where it is stated that Benbecula has no flag? mat_x 14:15, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Tricolour flags were virtually unknown in the British Isles." Before when? This one dates from 1848. Joestynes

I concur. The whole Flag section seems mostly nonsense to me. There doesn't appear to be anyone around to defend it though. mat_x 18:43, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Text moved from main article. No conclusive evidence at the External Link about flag. Google throws little up either.

Benbecula is a tricolour flag.

Tricolour flags were virtually unknown in the British Isles and it has been widely suggested, especially with Benbecula's small population which hardly warrants a flag, that this is a modern design.

Craigstrome merged here
See Articles for deletion/Craigstrome. Johnleemk | Talk 08:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Catholic?
Is there any reliable source for most of the population being Roman Catholic? My experience is that the population is fairly evenly split. Velkyal 13:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Etymology
The gaelic name is Beinn na Faoghla which means the hill of the fords. It is call this because it is a relatively flat island with one prominent hill and the island lies between North and South Uist and is joined to both islands by tidal fords. I will check back in a week with the intention correcting this error if no-one has challenged the information passed on to me by older and wiser heads. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Macljotr (talk • contribs) 22:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Older and wiser heads" they may be, but if you cannot supply a verifiable source per WP:CITE the information is likely to be removed. Ben MacDui (Talk) 07:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

B/BH/F
I put something into the article about B/BH/F but I was far too tired to write coherently, so it was quite rightly expunged.

What I was trying to get at was that the English name is in fact simply an old Latinisation of the Gaelic name.

The article already alludes to the fact that the accent on the island generally doesn't distinguish between BH and F, devoicing BH so that to other Gaelic-speaking ears it sounds the same as F. The Latin name is used by some as evidence to suggest that the modern Gaelic F is likely a corruption of an older BH in the name. In fact, the fact that there is a B in Benbecula at all suggests two possible explanations: The latter seems unlikely, as it would suggest that the Gaelic name has been corrupted extremely heavily over the years, when Scottish Gaelic is generally considered fairly conservative. Prof Wrong (talk) 11:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * that the B was previously not lenited at all -- a Latin ear would have transcribed BH as U
 * that the B was lenited, but the Latin was taken from a written source.


 * Humm, it's actually the other way round, because Norse f was borrowed as Gaelic f. What seems to have happened next was voicing of [f] > [v] which isn't unexpected in Gaelic at all following gen pl nam. The fact the [m] has disappered would support that. Don't ask me to find a source for this, I'm just applying general rules about Gaelic phonology here.
 * I *think* we got an old spelling mistake here. Ben- is quite clearly peighinn or beinn, leaving us with -becula to figure out. Now we're missing two fricatives in this word but have two unwanted stops, b and c. It looks much more to me that we have a case of sloppy spelling, the punctum delens being lost and two letters transposed: (peighinn nam) ḃeulaċ > beulac > becula. The eu for ao is not hard to explain, as therer is a certain amount of confusion in Gaelic spelling due to [ɯː] developing from historical [eː] (written éa in Old/Middle Irish, eu later on in Gaelic while the ao innovation was then used for [ɯː]).
 * Transposed letters in "weird" placenames are as common as muck.. I guess it would hinge on finding the oldest references to BBC in Norse/Latin/Irish manuscripts to see what the spelling looked like, but I wouldn't mind betting I'm close... Akerbeltz (talk) 14:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

County
There is no mention of Benbecula previously being part of Inverness-shire, the same might also apply to other islands in the Western Isles. --jmb 16:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

External links modified
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population
I checked the population. It is 1330 not 1303. If you have a reason to not use the census figure, please be explicit and also state it. I note that the "usually resident" population is referred to, but is this useful? It's much better just to stick with what the census says, first, and make some comment otherwise... ? https://www.cne-siar.gov.uk/strategy-performance-and-research/outer-hebrides-factfile/population/island-populations/ also — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.196.13 (talk) 18:43, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Clarify template
You have added this to a sentence in the Tenancy section. The sentence structure may be a little clumsy but I don't know what you think needs clarifying.

You also seem to think that the existence of a mermaid is 'dubious'. I don't think anyone would disagree, which is why it is described as a 'myth'. I am at a loss to know how this could be made more clear, but if you have a suggestion about this or the Tenancy section I'd be happy to help in re-framing it. Ben  Mac  Dui  12:16, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


 * User:Ben MacDui I simply replaced the maintenance tag added by an IP in this edit when they replaced text which they themselves had removed earlier when it did not have the maintenance tag. They have not been active since 2017 so little chance of checking their intention. The book Borderlands by Mike Dash seems to be behind the source  but as thinkaboutit is user generated I think it should be removed as a source.  The first mention of our mermaid was by an IP in 2014. The Scotsman source seems to be a lightweight piece; maybe more weight should be given to 'mermaid stories like this do bring in the tourists' and move the text to an Economy section or remove it altogether.SovalValtos (talk) 15:50, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


 * The mermaid story was recorded in 1965 or earlier and by all accounts dates to the 19th century. There is even an investigation by the National Museum on record.
 * If we don't know what we are supposed to be clarifying then I don't see the point of the clarify tag and I'll remove it unless anyone can provide a specifc objection. Ben   Mac  Dui  14:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed.SovalValtos (talk) 14:11, 30 May 2020 (UTC)