Gaelic language archive unveiled

The archive contains recordings made by John Lorne Campbell

More than 12,000 hours of archive recordings in Gaelic and Scots are to be made available online.

The new digital archive, "Tobar an Dualchais" or "Kist o Riches", is to contain stories, conversations and songs recorded over the past 80 years.

The £3m project will bring together material held by the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh, the BBC, and the National Trust for Scotland.

The Gaelic college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, will help co-ordinate the initiative.

The project's director, Mairead Macdonald, said: "This is a chance for people to hear natural every day Gaelic and Scots.

"A lot of these dialects are dying out so it's a chance for us to hear how people really did speak."

'Sound window'

The archive, which is funded by a number of organisations including the Heritage Lottery Fund and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, is expected to take three years to complete.

It will feature recent recordings by the BBC and older work by John Lorne Campbell.

Mr Campbell and his wife Margaret Fay Shaw devoted six decades to Gaelic culture, gathering songs and stories.

The deputy chief executive of the National Trust for Scotland, Coinneach Maclean, said: "It will be a sound window into life which disappeared some 80 years ago."