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Pronunciation
Scots Gaelic:	An Tairbeart
Pronunciation:	[ən̪ˠ ˈt̪ʰaɾʲapərˠʃt̪] ⓘ
Irish:	An Tairbeart
Pronunciation:	[ənˠ ˈt̪ˠaɾʲəbʲəɾˠt̪ˠ]

Tarbert (Scottish Gaelic: An Tairbeart) is a place name in Scotland and Ireland. Places named Tarbert are characterised by a narrow strip of land, or isthmus. This can be where two lochs nearly meet, or a causeway out to an island.

Etymology

All placenames that variously show up as tarbert, tarbat or tarbet in their anglicised form derive from either the Irish or Scottish Gaelic an tairbeart, commonly translated as "the isthmus" today.^[2]

Both these words derive from two Old Irish elements, tar "across" and a nominalised form of the verb ber "to carry".^[3] The /ɾ/ in tar was assimilated to /ɾʲ/ as a result of being next to the historically palatal /bʲ/ in Old Irish, causing the change in spelling from tar to tair-. So the literal translation would be an "across-carrying". The reason for this is that all tarberts are in fact located at or near old portage sites.

In English language spellings the first syllable "tar" has generally remained constant but the second syllable "bert" has variously been spelled as "bart", "bert" "bat", "bad" etc.^[4]

Examples

Places named Tarbert include:

Scotland

Tarbert, Gigha, on Gigha^[5]
East Tarbert Bay and West Tarbert Bay on the Isle of Gigha
Tarbert, Jura, on Jura
Loch Tarbert, Jura, on the west coast of the island of Jura
Tarbert, Kintyre the town at the northern end of the Kintyre peninsula, Argyll
West Loch Tarbert, Argyll in Argyll
East Loch Tarbert, Argyll also in Argyll
Tarbert, Harris, a ferry port in the Western Isles
West Loch Tarbert, an inlet between North and South Harris
East Loch Tarbert also by Harris in the Western Isles of Scotland
Tarbert, on Canna^[6]
Tarbert Bay, on the island of Canna
Tarbert, on Salen Bay,^[7] Highland
Glen Tarbert, between Loch Linnhe and Loch Sunart
Tarbert Hill, above the town of West Kilbride
East Tarbert Bay and West Tarbert Bay on the Mull of Galloway

Ireland

Tarbert, County Kerry, a ferry port on the estuary of the River Shannon in County Kerry.
Tarbert, County Laois, a townland in County Laois

Canada

Tarbert, Ontario

References

^ Foclóir Póca An Gúm 1992
^ Dwelly, E. The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary 1901
^ MacBain, A. (1911) An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language Stirling. Eneas MacKay. 1982 edition by Gairm ISBN 0-901771-68-6.
^ "Tarbert History: Who Named it, 'Tarbert'?" Archived 2008-12-20 at the Wayback Machine Tarbert.info. Retrieved 13 September 2008.
^ "Tarbert, Argyll and Bute". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
^ "Tarbert". GeoNames. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
^ "Tarbert, Highland". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 18 May 2021.