 Maclean ( 1972 ) similarly suggests it may come from a corruption of the Old Norse name for the spring on Hirta , Childa , and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda . He also speculates that it may refer to the <unk> , <unk> who may have brought Christianity to the island , or be a corruption of the Gaelic name for the main island of the group , since the islanders tended to pronounce r as l , and thus habitually referred to the island as <unk> . Steel ( 1988 ) adds weight to the idea , noting that the islanders pronounced the H with a " somewhat guttural quality " , making the sound they used for Hirta " almost " <unk> . Similarly , St Kilda speakers interviewed by the School of Scottish Studies in the 1960s show individual speakers using t @-@ initial forms , <unk> to / h / , e.g. ann an t @-@ Hirte ( [ <unk> ̪ <unk> ̪ ˠ <unk> ̪ ʲə ] ) and gu Hirte ( [ kə <unk> ̪ ʲə ] ) . 
