Sorley MacLean
Sorley MacLean was born at Òsgaig on the island of Raasay on 26 October 1911; Scottish Gaelic was his first language. Before he went to school at the age of six, he spoke very little English. He was the second of five sons born to Malcolm (1880–1951) and Christina MacLean (1886–1974). The family owend a small croft and ran a tailoring business, but they later gave up the croft to move to a better house, which proved detrimental to their finances when the Great Depression took a high toll on the tailoring business. His brothers were John Maclean (1910–1970), a schoolteacher and later rector of Oban High School, who was also a piper; Calum Maclean (1915–1960), a noted folklorist and ethnographer; and Alasdair (1918–1999) and Norman (c.1917–c.1980), who became general practitioners. Sorley's two younger sisters, Isobel and Mary, were also schoolteachers. His patronymic was Somhairle mac Chaluim 'ic Chaluim 'ic Iain 'ic Tharmaid 'ic Iain 'ic Tharmaid; he could not trace his genealogy with certainty to the eighth generation.
Sorley MacLean
According to John MacInnes, MacLean's poetry "exhibits virtually an entire spectrum of language". Some of his poetry is transparent to a fluent Gaelic speaker, but the meaning of other poems needs to be untangled. MacLean coined very few neologisms; however, he revived or repurposed many obscure or archaic words. MacLean often said that he had heard these old words in Presbyterian sermons. According to MacInnes and Maoilios Caimbeul, MacLean's revival of these old, forgotten Gaelic words revolutionized literary Gaelic, by adding senses and a newness and modernity. Caimbeul wrote that MacLean's vocabulary is not "simple", but it is "natural" and arises naturally from everyday speech, although mixed with other influences.