Dictionary of the Scots language.

[headscratcher4]

http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/

[JAR]

Here's something on Shetlandic: Shetlandic (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/zet/contents.htm)

[Mendor]

Ah, ye've foond A Tait Wanchancie (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/wan/).

Here's anither wabsteid aboot Scots (http://www.scots-online.org/)

an here's wan in Scots (http://http://www.fleimin.demon.co.uk/Bletherskite/Bletherskite.htm).

(Ah didnae ken aboot Headscratcher's steid. Gey intrestin.)

[JAR]

Originally posted by Mendor
Ah, ye've foond A Tait Wanchancie (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/wan/).

Here's anither wabsteid aboot Scots (http://www.scots-online.org/)

an here's wan in Scots (http://http://www.fleimin.demon.co.uk/Bletherskite/Bletherskite.htm).

(Ah didnae ken aboot Headscratcher's steid. Gey intrestin.)
Mendor, do you speak Scots as a first language?

[Mendor]

To quote Reverend Lovejoy: "Short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but."

No, I don't speak Scots as a first language, I speak English with heavy Scots influence. My mother and generations prior to hers speak something that might be Scots. But now that Scots and English have mixed so much, and the public perception is so much that Scots is "bad" or "dialectal" English rather than a language in its own right*, it's very difficult to tell what is "Scots" and what is "English with Scots influence". There is a continuum between what is clearly a different language from English (although such examples are rare) and what I speak, which is known as SSE (Scottish Standard English).

I can understand spoken and written Scots fine (although some items of vocabulary would trip me up). If I were to try to speak it, I think I'd embarrass myself, because I've not been brought up to speak it, and I don't really have the idiom of the thing. I can write it -- with a dictionary -- but I always get the feeling I'm getting it wrong.

The position of Scots at the moment is complicated (as you might have guessed!) If you want further reading, try particularly that www.scots-online.org site I mentioned.


* It's questionable, of course, whether it is a language in its own right. Given a) that I'm sure it's possible to produce a text in Scots that an English-speaking person couldn't understand and b) the UK government have pledged to protect Scots under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, I believe that it is. But, as ever, there is debate on this.

[headscratcher4]

Provided for the additional amusement (and time wasting value) of those interested in the Scots language, as well as other language topics:

http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/

[mummymonkey]

There is no separate language. It's laughable that we might have to pay for signs in "Scots". Sure, we speak with a heavy accent and there are (a few) words that are not used elsewhere, but a similar claim can be made by most English regions as well as Wales and Ireland.
In the past there was probably more of a case to be made for Scots as a separate language, but I see no reason to resurrect it (more accurately them as there were various local tongues) or indeed make up a new invented language as seems to be happening now.
My kids brought a poem from school which claimed to be in Scots. It was just English written as spoken locally with a few obviously made up conjoined words. It's nonsense and clearly political. Some people here just can't face the fact that they speak English.

Edit spelling

[mummymonkey]

Originally posted by headscratcher4
Provided for the additional amusement (and time wasting value) of those interested in the Scots language, as well as other language topics:

http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/ Very interesting site thank you. One thing I noticed was the example text sounds odd to me. This part:

"and we will go meet her Wednesday"

I noticed that a couple of the British speakers tripped up over it and tried to change it to a more natural (to them):

"and we will go to meet her on Wednesday"

I would say "and we will go and meet her on Wednesday".

I wonder if this was done deliberately?

[Doubt]

I think we need a guide to Welsh. I suspect that it would be several hundred pages.

[Shaun from Scotland]

seeyonwebsitesawaloadipishsoitisyabamsye

[Mendor]

Originally posted by mummymonkey
It's... clearly political.This is the crux of it, I think.

Everything linguistic comes down to politics eventually. "A language is just a dialect with an army and a navy" -- Some linguist or other

The question of whether Scots is a language is a political one, IMO.

However, I remember reading a study that said that while nationalists* were more likely to call Scots a language and unionists* to call it slang or English, nationalists* actually used Scots less than unionists*. Make of that what you will.


*The study's terms

[richardm]

Originally posted by mummymonkey
There is no separate language. It's laughable that we might have to pay for signs in "Scots".

I must say I agree with this. I don't mind signs going up in Gaelic, particularly for place names.

However, doing the same for "Scots" seems to me to be the direct equivalent of seeing signs for "Toon Senta" in Newcastle, and just as unjustifiable.

[epepke]

Originally posted by mummymonkey
Very interesting site thank you. One thing I noticed was the example text sounds odd to me. This part:

"and we will go meet her Wednesday"

I noticed that a couple of the British speakers tripped up over it and tried to change it to a more natural (to them):

"and we will go to meet her on Wednesday"

I would say "and we will go and meet her on Wednesday".

I wonder if this was done deliberately?

I'm sure it was. Consider the comparison:

snow peas
go meet

Both are of the form o+frontal consonant+o.

As for "her Wednesday," it was probably to get an "r" next to a "w" for comparison with the "w" after a full stop.

There's also a minimal pair: "snack" vs. "snake." "Six spoons" tests some observations about West African languages. "These things" twice provide extra information about two phonemes extremely uncommon other than English. "Stella," "spoons," and "scoop" test for palatalization, and there are several instances of "r" to test for trilling, "r" and "l" as allophones, and retroflex tongue.

It's been a long time since I did any linguistics work, so there's probably a lot more than I spotted, but I get the impression it's very carefully designed.

No "j," though, which seems strange. I'd have put "aged" before "blue cheese."

[Mendor]

Originally posted by richardm


I must say I agree with this. I don't mind signs going up in Gaelic, particularly for place names.

However, doing the same for "Scots" seems to me to be the direct equivalent of seeing signs for "Toon Senta" in Newcastle, and just as unjustifiable.
Geordie doesn't have a history of use in literature and communication stretching back centuries.
Geordie, insofar as I understand it, derives from Modern English; Scots does not.
Geordie is, generally, not seriously used for modern-day literary purposes (I'm sure there are exceptions, but it shows nothing like the usage Scots has)
Newcastle doesn't have a national poet that used Geordie (even if Burns did like apostrophes a bit too much)
Geordie doesn't have a pressure group campaigning for its use as a language.
Geordie hasn't been accorded recognition by the UK Government under Part II of the European Charter on Minority and Regional Languages.
Having said all that, given the rather obvious lack of support for signs in Scots, implementing signage in Scots seems to me to be a great big waste of public money. At the moment.

I'm not against the Scottish Parliament publishing a Scots leaflet on its website (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/visitor/parlguide-scots.pdf, or the Nedspeak Leaflet as The Sun preferred to call it), because I can't imagine the cost of that would be more than a fraction of a penny per taxpayer, given that this leaflet is already available in a variety of other languages. (I would imagine that someone from the Scots Leid Campaine or someone similar would have done the translation for free.) Despite my support for Scots, I remain unconvinced about the utility vs. costliness of doing much else with it -- at the moment. Attitudes may, and I hope will, change.

(Ah dinnae think the Pairlament's buikie is owerset gey weil, masel.)

[epepke]

Does anybody know if Scots (whether you call it a dialect or language) is closer to or further away from British Standard English than is, say, Frisian?

[Mendor]

It's definitely closer to British Standard English than Frisian is, whatever you call it.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Mendor
It's definitely closer to British Standard English than Frisian is, whatever you call it.

That makes it clearer. The distance between Frisian and English is close to the minimum of what I would consider separate languages.

By the way, a Glaswegian goes into a London food shop and asks, "Is that a bun or a meringue?" The shopkeeper says, "No, you're quite right. It's a bun."

[richardm]

Originally posted by Mendor
[list]
Geordie doesn't have a history of use in literature and communication stretching back centuries.


Sure it does. It is actually a hold-out of a language derived from Anglo-Saxon, although of course the word "Geordie" came along in the 18th Century (probably). Quite a fair bit of it is directly Anglo-Saxon. The example that springs to mind is "Gannin t' the hoppins?' " - you could say that to any passing Angle or Geordie, and they'd both understand that you were asking them to the fair.


Geordie, insofar as I understand it, derives from Modern English; Scots does not.


See above.



Geordie is, generally, not seriously used for modern-day literary purposes (I'm sure there are exceptions, but it shows nothing like the usage Scots has)
Newcastle doesn't have a national poet that used Geordie (even if Burns did like apostrophes a bit too much)
Geordie doesn't have a pressure group campaigning for its use as a language.
Geordie hasn't been accorded recognition by the UK Government under Part II of the European Charter on Minority and Regional Languages.



I'd clump all of those together, really.

Scots is given a lot of attention because of the pressure groups. Same thing is happening with Cornish, but with limited success, which seems odd on the one hand because it's a genuinely different language, but on the other hand it's a resurrected language spoken by just a few people. Nevertheless, the political pressure is there, and that's what makes the difference.

[Mendor]

Originally posted by richardm
Sure it does. It is actually a hold-out of a language derived from Anglo-Saxon, although of course the word "Geordie" came along in the 18th Century (probably). Quite a fair bit of it is directly Anglo-Saxon. The example that springs to mind is "Gannin t' the hoppins?' " - you could say that to any passing Angle or Geordie, and they'd both understand that you were asking them to the fair.
[stockanswerthatMendorknewhe'dhavetocomeoutwith]
Well, maybe there should be signs saying "Toon Senta" :D
[/stockanswerthatMendorknewhe'dhavetocomeoutwith]

But seriously...

I think I may have overreacted to your word "unjustifiable". If you meant "unjustifiable politically" -- i.e. would require spending vast amounts of money that could well go elsewhere -- I agree with you.

If you meant "unjustifiable linguistically", I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

But the one thing we seem to agree on is that it all comes down to politics *hawk*spit* in the end...

[richardm]

Originally posted by Mendor

I think I may have overreacted to your word "unjustifiable". If you meant "unjustifiable politically" -- i.e. would require spending vast amounts of money that could well go elsewhere -- I agree with you.


Then we are in agreement :)