Talk:St Kilda, Scotland

message: The article states that only Rockall is further from the mainland, yet if you look at a map, The Shetlands are clearly further away. People should check facts before scribbling what ever they think on here.
:What are the facts then? They are not as clear cut as you may believe. The Shetland Islands as a group are closer to the mainland than St Kilda as a group. Only if you look at the main islands of the groups, or if you do not consider Fair Isle a part of the Shetlands (this is no clear issue either), then the Shetlands are further from the mainland than St Kilda. You should look better at the map before scribbling what ever you think on here.--Ratzer 20:45, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many people do just call it "Kilda", but only informally. The official name in English is St Kilda, and common practice in British English is not to include a full stop after a contraction (as opposed to an abbreviation, i.e. where the final letter of the abbreviated word is retained). So St Kilda, with no full stop, is the appropriate way to do it. See WP:ENGVAR. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 22:07, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Early Talk

message: What is the overall area of the archipelago?
670 ha according to Haswell-Smith (2004) making it the 50th ranked island by size according to his definition. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  area? 

message: Why isn't the name St Kilda as used in the Ordnanace Survey  and every book I've ever seen on the subject? It seems that only widkedia-derived articles use this spelling. --JBellis 18:39, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The name St Kilda is actually commonly used.  Ordnance Survey prefer to use native names for places, and St Kilda always has been (and still is) Hiort to Gaelic speakers. Lianachan 13:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: St Kilda, while remote, is still part of Scotland...
Does anyone know?
* What is its postcode and area telephone number?
* What is its constituency?
* What is its local authority? 
None of this really matters as long as no-one lives there permanently but it would interesting to find the answers.
:It'll be Western Isles council, and the same for constituency. Grinner 10:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Postcodes - the Geoplan Postcode Atlas does not show St. Kilda (not surprising) but it would probably have a HS prefix as the Western Isles. Mail to the military base would get a BFPO address, I suppose.Tony Corsini 09:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Location

message: In 1931, the Marquess of Bute was the 4th, who died in 1947; his son the 5th Marquess died in 1956.  Which of them bought St Kilda?  —Tamfang 16:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: says that Sir Reginald MacLeod sold St Kilda to the fifth marquess John Crichton-Stuart, 5th Marquess of Bute--JBellis 19:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  which Marquess? 

message: I have created a Template:Infobox Scottish island for use with Scottish islands which is based on the existing Template:Infobox Scotland place but which contains parameters which may be more useful for smaller islands which don't have their own police force or Lord Lieutenant. See Talk:Hebrides for more information and Dubh Artach for an example. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Island Template  

message: Watchers of the page will have noted the lengthy addition to the History section posted by an Anon IP. I have dropped this individual a short note requesting that they provide references. This section was already atrocious in this regard and will almost certainly need splitting into various sub-sections. I am planning various other additions in the hope of getting the article up to GA standard sometime this year. If others are planning anything similar it might be helpful if we co-ordinated our efforts. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have transferred material over to History of St Kilda, perhaps work can be done on making the main page section shorter. --MacRusgail 10:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Clean-up

message: Good work on the creation of the template and the new Stac pages. However, I'm not sure what the current purpose of the History of St Kilda page is - it simply repeats what exists here. Do you intend to extend it? As this article builds up to GA candidature - which I hope is imminent, assuming it becomes more stable soon. My suggested strategy is as follows - if the article passes GA and continues to grow the easiest way to reduce its size would be to summarise the Architecture section and move some of that material onto the individual island articles. I don't think the existing history section can be summarised without losing material that is important to an understanding of St Kilda in general. Ben MacDui (Talk) 14:34, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The idea will be to shorten the text on the main page, and have a link going into the history page. The computer's complaining that the article is too long, so most of the history stuff can go into the appropriate article. There can be a separate article for the geography of the island etc. --MacRusgail 15:39, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I use "complaining" in a metaphorical sense! Of course it doesn't add any information - the point was to transfer the history section over there, and make the section on the main page considerably shorter, as has been done with other articles, e.g. Scotland, Devon etc. The history should have its own page. It isn't a redirect, by the way, but a new article.--MacRusgail 14:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Template, New 'History of' page and GA candidature

message: Can I suggest small articles be written on the wren and the two mice of the islands? --MacRusgail 19:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fauna 

message: I added some pictures of newer buildings, and the hideous tracking station. I think St Kilda is too often portrayed as a wildlife reserve, and/or somehow prehistoric/mediaeval place - perhaps a few of the images may alleviate that notion.--MacRusgail 18:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added pictures of buildings 

message: I have to find a lot of the images are possibly too small now, but then again I am short sighted. On some of them it's hard to see much detail. --MacRusgail 16:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image size  

message: Although there seem to be few, or no, primary sources dating from the Norse period, it does seem apparent that the islands were affected by Norse expansionism.
Firstly, there is the evidence of placenames such as Soay, which point at settlement.
Secondly, the island's parliament is interesting, because I'd suggest tentatively that it resembles the þings of Iceland, Faroe and the Isle of Man.
Thirdly, I was interested to hear that the island's mouse is similar, if not related to a type in Mykines, which would suggest further connections.
Fourthly, the cleitean, while a Gaelic word, is obviously cognate with klettr (?sp) which is Norse for something rocky.
It's difficult to find solid evidence, but the placenames, and the dialect suggest that there must have been some kind of settlement, albeit minor in the islands. --MacRusgail 20:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Norse heritage

message: One should be careful not to endow the cleitean currently visible with great antiquity: Their lifespan, in Hirta's harsh environment, cannot possibly have exceeded a few centuries at most, provided of course they were properly maintained (which, by the way, is no longer the case for most of them today since the departure of the last St.Kildans).
Archaeological evidence has revealed several periods of occupation:
- the Bronze Age;
- the Iron Age;
- a period extending from the 6th-8th centuries until the 15th century in Gleann Mor in the northern part of the island;
- the 10th century (brooches of the Viking era),
but no proof of any continuity has been forthcoming.
Two incised crosses were found in reused stone blocks, the first one in a village house (could it not have been a foundation stone?), the second one in a cleit, but it really takes an act of faith to see vestiges of early christianity in them.
See Alex Morrison, An Introduction to the Later Settlement History of St. Kilda, dans A Rock and a Hard Place; Perspectives on the Archaeology of St. Kilda, Scotland, World Archaelogical Congress 4, University of Cape Town, 10th-14th January 1999.
C. Lassure (cerav@pierreseche.com)</br>
As of now a contributor to Wikipedia</br>
--Christian Lassure 21:59, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How old are the cleitean?

message: I am glad to report that this article nominee for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of August 15, 2007, compares against the  six good article criteria:
:1. Well written?: Yes, very well-written (I made a couple of minor changes).
:2. Factually accurate?: Accurate, also well-referenced
:3. Broad in coverage?: Yes. One suggestion- I'd like the article to include the present name of " Skildar, the old name for an island much nearer the west coast of the Outer Hebrides." from the "Origin of name" section
:4. Neutral point of view?: Yes.
:5. Article stability? Yes
:6. Images?: A very impressive and comprehensive collection of good-quality images.
If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. 
— Lurker (said · done) 14:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Successful [[Wikipedia:Good articles|good article]] nomination

message: Sands visited several Scottish islands including St Kilda and Papa Stour. He is variously described as a journalist who worked for Punch magazine, a poet and an MP. He may have come from and/or been MP for Ormiston.
I am drafting a short biography article  about him and have gleaned some basic info, but I can't find any definitive corroborating evidence he was ever an MP. He was possibly one in 1875 and assuming Ormiston refers to the village in East Lothian, it was part of Berwickshire (UK Parliament constituency). It has a list of the MPs that held the seat - John Sands isn't included. 
The sources I have which mention him being an MP are:
* Maclean, Charles (1977) Island on the Edge of the World: the Story of St. Kilda. Edinburgh. Canongate. Page 117.
* "Perthshire - L Archives 2003-2" Rootsweb.com
Details of his political career are scant and some sources that refer to his St Kilda visit at length do not mention it all. It is possible there was another Johns Sands with whom Maclean confused the writer who visited St Kilda.
If anyone has/can find any other details please let me know. Many thanks. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Sands 

message: When I was copyediting, I noticed two hectare and metre quantities in the Area and Summit section of the infobox that did not have conversions to square miles (or acres) and feet. I think they probably should have conversions, though the infobox has no built-in place for them. Other geographic infoboxes such as the one for Lethbridge, Canada, have built-in lines for conversions. I'm wondering if (a) we should add the conversions to the St Kilda infobox in particular and (b) if the infobox template for Scottish Islands could be improved by adding places for the conversion numbers and units. Finetooth (talk) 04:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was bold and added them to the infobox. I used acre with hectare and feet with metre, but I was not sure of the abbreviation for acre Ruhrfisch  ><>°° 04:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks - according to United States customary units its is just 'acres'. Re (b) above, whilst its is more than likely that an FA adventure will need both units I think its just clutter myself and wouldn't trouble the existing infobox template. In any decent article it will be spelled out in the text anyway, and none of the successful GA's have needed it, so far at least. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 12:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox conversions

message: I changed some en dashes to em dashes per what I thought was the standard defined at WP:MOSDASH; per Sandy's recent edit I may have misunderstood it.  I'll post to her talk page and ask. Mike Christie (talk) 16:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dashes 

message: Some sentences perfectly put things into perspective: "By 1758 the population had risen to 88 and reached just under 100 by the end of the century. This figure remained fairly constant from the 18th century until 1851, when 36 islanders emigrated to Australia on board the Priscilla, a loss from which the island never fully recovered." hahaha, oh man. Wikipedia rules. 24.84.9.62 (talk) 07:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed!  I love this line:  "Launched when the wind came from the northwest, two-thirds of the messages were later found on the west coast of Scotland or, less conveniently, in Norway." 98.111.85.100 (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  this article is great 

message: Hi folk,
I appreciate this isn't an article I'm involved in, but I thought I'd better make some amendments and let you know what I've done.  I changed the line in the intro that included marine as part of the mixed classification as it seemed to imply that there was such a UNESCO classification.  I also changed the line in the Nature Conservation section.  In both cases the references provided don't include the word marine at all.  Regards, Psychostevouk (talk) 16:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A belated thanks for fixing this. Ben MacDui 09:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  UNESCO Designations 

message: Hi there
I couldn't read the article thoroughly, but it seems there is no information as to the whereabouts of the first inhabitants and how they got there. If the literature offers any solution, it would certainly be interesting to mention it in the article. Cheers--Zenit (talk) 23:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The archaeological evidence suggest that the first settlement occurred during the Neolithic. It's pretty safe to assume they arrived by boat, but what they were called is unknown. Ben MacDui 09:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks a lot.--Zenit (talk) 01:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Early inhabitants

message: Should this article reference the findings of Professor Andy Meharg and his team regarding the effects of pollution on the island population? This puts a very difference perspective on the factors leading to the failure of the settlements. --Norsktrad (talk) 20:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's there. See the "Evacuation" section. Ben MacDui 22:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

text: It may indeed - but with emphasis on the "may". I am not aware of any direct evidence for any impact on St Kildan health. Indeed they are generally referred to as having been more rather than than less healthy than the norm prior to the "boat cough" and the effect of tetanus. I think one of the more interesting aspects of the tale is how successive generations re-interpret it. It'll be interesting to see the additional evidence when it is published - although as far as I am aware there is no reason to suppose this was a factor on Mingulay. I'll take another look at the wording asap. Ben MacDui 11:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Ben MacDui 21:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Pollution of soil by arable farming?

message: Scientists from Aberdeen University have found evidence that the inhabitants on the remote Scottish islands of St Kilda unwittingly contaminated the soil, which may have been a factor leading to the evacuation of the islands in 1930.
Professor Andy Meharg and his team have been studying samples of soil from different parts of Hirta, the main island of the St Kilda archipelago. Samples were collected from grazing lands, from fields, and from midden pits where in the past waste was collected for manuring. Analysis showed that levels of toxic chemicals from some of the fields and from the pits even now remain at high levels - which may have affected the fertility of the land.
The pollution occurred when manuring practices on St Kilda became more intensive. The pollutants - including lead, zinc, cadmium and arsenic - can mainly be attributed to the use of seabird carcasses in the manure that was spread across the village fields.
Prof. Meharg explains: 'Tens of thousands of birds were captured each year, so a considerable amount of waste was generated. Seabirds tend to have elevated levels of a range of potentially toxic metals in their organs. When traveller Martin Martin visited in 1697 he commented on the island's fertility, but a deterioration in the crops is recorded by the mid-18th century. Our samples from the field systems show chemical concentrations that would be considered unsuitable for agriculture under modern UK legislation because the foodstuffs might be harmful to health.'
Robin Turner, Senior Archaeologist for the islands' owners The National Trust for Scotland, is amazed at the results of the survey: 'Up to now we thought of St Kilda as an idyllic society living in blissful harmony with nature. The demise of the community is always blamed on external pressures, firstly from the landlord, then from visitors and latterly from the increased expectations of the population. Now we can see that the islanders were unwittingly poisoning the soil on which they relied. This makes the story even more interesting for us today. The message is: not only do we need to live in harmony with our environment, but we need to be very sure that any apparently sensible changes we make don't have unexpected side-effects. It is even more ironic that this community might have been affected like this by their principal natural resource - one that had sustained them for hundreds if not thousands of years.'
These results have led to a major research award from the Leverhulme Trust. Over the next few years, this which will allow Prof. Meharg and his team to compare St Kilda with other islands which housed communities with a strong reliance on birds - especially Mingulay and Foula. Scientists from Aberdeen and Stirling Universities will also be able to use samples from recent archaeological excavations on St Kilda to follow the contamination pattern back in time.
http://www.kilda.org.uk/frame12.htm
:It's there. See the "Evacuation" section. Ben MacDui 22:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It may indeed - but with emphasis on the "may". I am not aware of any direct evidence for any impact on St Kildan health. Indeed they are generally referred to as having been more rather than than less healthy than the norm prior to the "boat cough" and the effect of tetanus. I think one of the more interesting aspects of the tale is how successive generations re-interpret it. It'll be interesting to see the additional evidence when it is published - although as far as I am aware there is no reason to suppose this was a factor on Mingulay. I'll take another look at the wording asap. Ben MacDui 11:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Ben MacDui 21:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Poison in Paradise

message: Could somebody please check that my wording reads correctly? It's two-thirty in the morning here. Ottre 15:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Ben MacDui 21:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion of recent structures section 

message: Only as a side note, I find it very interesting that Gaelic spread to this extremely remote, tiny island.  Obviously the inhabitants were not originally Celtic themselves if they were there since the neolithic, and it seems unlikely the old idea of a "Celtic invasion" could have happened on such a remote island of only 180 people.  I had kind of hoped they would be speaking something altogether different (not that I have anything against my own language).  Just makes me wonder how Gaelic got there. I mean if the islanders didn't have our diseases yet and didn't know about George II they clearly didn't go to the mainland much! -Dubhghaill  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.60.145 (talk) 18:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Anglophone people tend to think monolingualism is the norm - not being nasty, it's just what happens. But we need to remember that multilingualism was and is the norm across swathes of the planet. There are clear Norse elements on St Kilda, the placenames show that - and the sheep. But We shouldn't make the error of assuming that it was simply a case of all or nothing for either language. There may well have been long periods of functional bilingualism. I doubt the Norse totally ignored it but it was hardly paradise on earth either so probably not as much of a target for a full takeover as, say, Caithness or the Hebrides. Akerbeltz (talk) 02:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I beg to differ. St Kilda is most certainly a paradise compared to Caithness : ) Ben MacDui 11:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL sure, endless forests for timber, rich monasteries, farmland that stretches to the horizon, warm dry summers and mild wet winters... why bother sailing to Normandy :b Akerbeltz (talk) 13:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

text: It may indeed have been abandoned and resettled depending on climatic changes etc, similar to the Norse in Greenland. But small populations do support bilingualism - though the only one that springs to mind is that of a population where the men speak a different language from the women. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: None of the societies I know of which do that are European, and some of them separate the males and females for long periods of time. The odds are against there being two community languages in St Kilda for very long - the place and the population are too small. Extremely unlikely - I could see it happening in Lewis, Skye, Mull etc, but not in St Kilda. Unless of course, Soay and Hirta spoke different languages - both were inhabited at one point.--MacRusgail (talk) 22:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it's rather unlikely; just not impossible. Akerbeltz (talk) 01:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language  

message: I have found a newspaper cutting from Read's Weekly Journal Or British Gazetteer (London, England), Saturday, May 4, 1751 that reads:
By the Master of a Boat from St Kilda we are told, that Cod and Ling are in such Quantities round that Isle, that the Inhabitants frequently catch them by a Hook and Line.
It seems they did do some fishing. Richerman (talk) 00:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It is my guess that this was either shore fishing or casual fishing from a boat whilst they were out fowling. The statement in the article is rather glib and needs amending - it should probably say that they did not indulge in organised fishing trips or similar. I will revert asap. Ben MacDui 08:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Done - see this diff. Thanks for pointing this out. Ben MacDui 18:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Nicely done :) Richerman (talk) 19:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The inhabitants eschewed fishing? 

message: The question has been posed: "- Is this sheep on Soay or Hirta?  (Are the Soay sheep ear-tagged?)"
First of all, I don't know for sure and User:Jonesor who posted the image seems to be no more. However, access to Soay island is strictly limited by SNH (in addition to being difficult to achieve) and I would be very surprised if it was taken there - and even more so if it was and not mentioned in the image description. It is clear that Hirta sheep are tagged, and it is stated  here that they are not on Soay "Even the wild Soays have to have ear tags, except on Soay island which no-one can get to as the cliffs are too precipitous." It is not the most reliable possible source, but I think this answers the questions. Ben MacDui 18:13, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's much what I thought.  I often have trouble enough catching my Heb and Shetland lambs on flat ground when I see them every day, and I imagine it must be pretty near impossible with even more agile sheep on an inaccessible island when they're weeks or months old by the time they're seen.  Richard New Forest (talk) 19:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sheep image questions 

message: The reference to this Hammond Innes book is currently uncited. There are any number of "customer reviews" clearly stating the link but they are hardly individual RSs - even if collectively they would sway a jury. The book is on sale for the modest sum of $145. Ben MacDui 08:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Atlantic Fury

message: How does a population of 180 last for two millenia without encountering inbreeding issues? 71.173.2.53 (talk) 06:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: They were isolated, not completely cut off. See e.g. the "Religion and tourism in the 18th and 19th centuries" section. Ben MacDui 08:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly, and compared to certain other inhabited islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans, e.g. Pitcairn, or the Chatham Islands, they're not as isolated as they could be.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:56, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gene stagnation? 

message: I was about to offer a contribution from the Daily Telegraph obituaries which claims that Soay sheep, "are in size and strength similar to deer."  This should be easy to check but appears to be in flat contradiction to the statement that they are small in size!  FWIW I would expect larger animals to do better in extreme weather though I assume St Kilda benefits from the Gulf stream & the article doesn't have much detail on climate.  Any thoughts?  JRPG (talk) 09:38, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it means that sheep in general are of a size and strength similar to deer. It says in the Soay sheep article that they are "much smaller than modern domesticated sheep but hardier, and extraordinarily agile" and it says here they are tiny - one third the size of most modern domestic sheep. And what's more, it seems that they are getting smaller due to climate change see: .  Richerman   (talk) 10:38, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soay sheep. 

message: I heard a lot of newborns in Saint Kilda died in a thing they called Eight-days sickness, infantile lockjaw o tetanus infantum. There are studies about that:
* Aspects of neonatal death in St Kilda, 1830-1930
* St Kilda, the neonatal tetanus tragedy of the nineteenth century and some twenty-first century answers
More sources:
* http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/eightday_sickness
* http://www.electricscotland.com/history/stkilda/chapter10.htm
* http://www.grianpress.com/SKW/Connell/29.html
* http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/PDF/LPS36/LPS36_1986_27-35.pdf
* https://books.google.es/books?id=kCOJyr5hL9oC&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=eight+days+sickness+saint+kilda
* https://books.google.es/books?id=XExpCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT61&lpg=PT61&dq=eight+days+sickness+saint+kilda
Would it be interesting to add it to the article? Paucabot (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eight-days sickness 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on St Kilda, Scotland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081205153801/http://www.unep-wcmc.org:80/sites/wh/stkilda.html to http://www.unep-wcmc.org/sites/wh/stkilda.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120219034116/http://islandaircrashes.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/page4.html to http://islandaircrashes.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/page4.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120219033909/http://www.radiance.org/runrig_big.html to http://www.radiance.org/runrig_big.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 00:54, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Mention should be made of the death of the last inhabitant -  and others refer. Jackiespeel (talk) 15:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last St Kildan 

message: The r-l reversal, mentioned in the name section, seems to be quite common in village societies where there is no written language, all over the world. Percy Chatterton notes the reversal in his 40yrs of living alongside Hanubada Village in Port Moresby. The local language is Motu which some 100k native speakers. He observes more than one complete cycle of l to d to r, and back to l. For example Ela (turtle) beach now has a pressure group insisting that the correct name is Era. To the western ear, which first wrote the word Ela more than 130yrs ago, there is a big difference between l and r. More to the point, these were all trained linguists who recorded these languages in precise IPL. It's unlikely that they got Ela wrong. It is the locals who have changed their pronunciation. IPL was the norm throughout the Pacific, and it is the reason for the odd spelling found in Polynesia. When creating written laws, signs, etc., local authorities simply replaced the complex IPL characters with the closest looking Roman letter. Polynesian languages are full of diphthongs. The ng character in IPL was replaced by a simple Roman g. Thus Pago Pago is spelled without the n, but is pronounced pango pango. The word for school is aoga, but pronounced "a-onga".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.185.78.52 (talk) 04:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flipflop of r-l-d 

message: Transferring a comment put on the article by Bazzerface
:(I served on St Kilda on several occasions from 1967 to 1969 and never saw 12m waves hit the beach in Village Bay.  Almost certainly the western sea-facing cliffs of the island would have had such high waves hit it.  A 12m wave hitting the beach would have wrecked the entire village area including the actual National-Trust preserved village.  I think this report of such waves may come from here which quotes, "Waves heights of up to 40ft (12m) battered the west coast (of Scotland) for much of the day, with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science saying that one of its monitoring buoys had recorded a wave of 52ft (16m) at 15:00 - the highest it had ever seen.) 
JRPG (talk) 22:23, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Waveheights 

message: During 1957 construction of Road and Radar Station, they install a Zebra crossing on Mullach Sgar.
what is a anachronism since there scarcely any traffic or inhabitants for using it.
There is Picture of this uploaded on Wiki commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pedestrian_Crossing_on_St_Kilda_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1296926.jpg
2A02:A03F:A48:1600:B862:2B87:74CF:4407 (talk) 15:31, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks to me like a joke ..in the same style as the 'International Sea & Airport Lounge' Thanks for sharing but I'm not sure it would be appreciated as a photo on this page when there is so much else needing to be shown.  I've spent hours looking at the National Trust photos & wishing I could go to St Kilda. JRPG (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

text: I think that it is a joke, but it may also have been used for driver training. When I was on St Kilda about 20 years ago, there was a bus stop sign nearby (at the time the only vehicles were army landrovers).  AlasdairW (talk) 23:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks AlasdairW. This is a featured article so we need to cite everything wherever possible, particularly for a non essential photo. Is the 'bus stop' still there, do all bases train drivers? We could probably just say the crossing was on a road leading to the base.  JRPG (talk) 20:37, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I was only on St Kilda for 2 weeks as part of a NTS workparty. This 2002 BBC news item mentions the crossing and says it was a joke (sorry the link probably only works for readers in the UK). There was discussion of repainting in 2002/3. The crossing appears to have still been there for the 2015? workparty. I don't know about the bus stop - I have a group photo taken there, but online searches turn up bus stops in Melbourne. AlasdairW (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Pedestrian Crossing on St Kilda 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: This article has recently been massacred and no longer meets the featured article criteria. There are unsourced statements, poor quality sources, repetition of sources when cite bundling should be used, missing urls, bare urls, missing titles, dead links, stubby paragraphs that should be merged, disconnected lists of trivia in the final sub-section, and the lead is in breach of the Manual of Style. I will not be engaged on article improvements because the editor doing most of the damage is an old enemy of mine and trying to engage will just cause disruption. If the article is not improved, it should be taken to featured article review for demotion. DrKay (talk) 13:23, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article review 

message: One question has stuck in my head: have there been any DNA research of the people that were evacuated 1930, or their remaining relatives? I have search net and some scientific library I had access to, but in vain. There have been done DNA research of sheep and birds, but humans, no. Maybe it's not possible to do such research on humans due to privacy concerns? Anybody who knows that put my headache to rest? --Finn Bjørklid (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  DNA research? 

message: has deleted several of the possible origins, with the edit summary  These deleted theories are sourced; why should Coates' opinion of them matter that much? I'm no expert, but the others don't seem to be so outlandish as to be considered WP:FRINGE... Rosbif73 (talk) 11:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Coates' opinion matters because, unlike the authors previously cited in the section, he is an expert on onomastics. Per Coates, the theories I deleted aren't possible. There is no possibility that Hirta could have morphed into Kilda or that the name could have anything to do with the Culdees. Including theories as baseless as these is simply muddying the waters. Zacwill (talk) 12:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have a copy of Coates so I can't comment on that specifically. On the one hand I agree that some of Maclean's speculations are just that, but on the other I can see no reason at all to completely remove theories and information about the development of the name, even if they are de-emphasised. Some of it could certainly end up in a footnote, along with Coates' remarks for example. Part of my reasoning is that otherwise editors will likely come along, wonder why the information is not there, and more than likely try to add the material back in due course. Ben MacDui 12:53, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: My feeling is that not everything that has been written about a subject deserves to be included in Wikipedia. But if this material is to be restored, then a footnote would probably be the best place for it. Zacwill (talk) 13:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

text: I agree. Richard Coates is a notable linguist. Would it not be better to keep all the theories, noting which are "fringe", and adding his opinion. Readers may come to the article unsure about a given theory and would better served by explicitly seeing his arguments. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry but "There is no possibility that Hirta could have morphed into Kilda" is a POV that completely discounts the native languages of St Kilda and the Hebrides back in the day when these names were first written down. /k/ <> /h ~ x ~ ç/ variation is so common in Gaelic not even primary school kids would blink an eye over it and r ~ l variation is equally common. So when we're discussing what is likely, let's remember the linguistic context before we make sweeping statements, shall we? Akerbeltz (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

text: Specifically, let's say the name was Ciolda /kʲiLdə/ (just re-spelling Kilda the way Gaelic would spell it)... all we need to do in Gaelic to get really close to Hirta is to say "going to Kilda" which in Gaelic would change it to a Chiolda /əˈçiLdə/ with the /ə/ dropped more often then not and boom, you have /çiLdə/ which, since English lacks /ç/ most likely would get spelled as *Hilda and as I said, r~l in Gaelic is an equally short bunny-hop. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Would  Richard Coates agree with you? Maybe you should publish a paper? :) Martinevans123 (talk) 14:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I have better fish to fry but I have zero confidence in some expert who comes out with statements that suggests k ~ h variation is hard to achieve in Goidelic. Judging by his CV, his expertise in Celtic, such as it may be, extends to Brythonic elements in English place names. Which makes it twice as strange, as Brythonic has a plethora of initial mutations too. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:54, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, one it assumes it had? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:58, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

text: Isn't this the wrong way round? The Gaelic name is Hiort, anglicized Hirta, and so in order to make this theory plausible, you would need to show that Hiort could morph into Kilda (not vice versa). You would also need to account for the fact that Kilda on its own is not attested as a name for the archipelago. Zacwill (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not up to us to determine whether the theories are plausible, we should only be relating what reliable sources say. And per WP:DUE we should set out . Admittedly I haven't reviewed the sources myself, nor would I have the expertise to do so, but from the arguments made here I don't see a good enough reason to claim that the other theories are not "significant viewpoints". Rosbif73 (talk) 15:07, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

text: Or maybe we should just stick to WP:RS here? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:07, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

text: Martinevans123 (talk) 15:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of names