Father Henry Cyril Dieckhoff
Born1869
Moscow
Died1950
Fort Augustus
NationalityRussian
Known forwork in Scottish Gaelic lexicography
Scientific career
Fieldslinguistics, Celtic studies

Father Henry Cyril Dieckhoff (Russian: Генрих Кирилл Дикхофф) (1869-1950) was a Russian Catholic priest and linguist.[1] He was born in Moscow, the son of a Lutheran preacher, but spent much of his youth in Germany, as his mother was Catholic and unable to continue living in Russia.[2] He studied in Berlin and was given Holy Orders without permission from the Russian authorities and therefore first fled to England and then Scotland, where he was welcomed as a brother at the Fort Augustus Abbey in 1891.[2] He gained priesthood six years laters in 1897.[2]

Fort Augustus Abbey

He learnt Scottish Gaelic and did detailed research into the dialect of Glengarry and published a dictionary on the dialects, A Pronouncing Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic.[3] His dictionary was unusual for the time as it included detailed pronunciation information not only on the citation forms but also inflected forms of the entries.

References

  1. ^ "Abbey Monks". Fort Augustus Abbey Old Boys Association. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  2. ^ a b c Boy from Moscow on Catholic Herald 11 August 1950
  3. ^ Dieckhoff, H. A Pronouncing Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic (1932)