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Resources for Lowland Scots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 69 17 July 2010 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Scots is not a dialect of English, because "English" means Modern English. The evolution of Scots and English diverged at the start of the Middle period. Many Scottish people don't talk Scots at all, but rather "Scottish Standard English" (SSE), which is a dialect of English with some borrowings from Scots. Take "kirk". It is a Scots word used in Scots to describe a church, the church or church as an abstract. This word isn't used in SSE, except as "the Kirk" -- an affectionate nickname for the Presbyterian kirk. But I can assure you that in my village we cried wir kirk "the kirk". 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5784 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 10 of 69 17 July 2010 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Modern Scots is 100% a dialect of English.
There was a time in the past where it looked to be developing into a seperate written standard and if this path had been continued it would one day have been worthy of being called another language in the same vein as the Scandinavian languages. However with the subsequent act of the union the Scottish written standard was not further developed and withered away to be replaced by standard English. That some big heads in Edinburgh and London wrote things down in certain ways however says little about the language the people in Britain actually spoke. Modern Scots is just institutionalised bad spelling based on anti-London sentiment. As to people in Scotland not speaking Scots...thats just picking and chosing to match your viewpoint. People in Scotland speak Scots. Languages and dialects evolve over time. Convergance is part of this with English dialects- a few decades ago someone in Scotland may well have just as well been speaking a different language to southern from southern England. Today however Scots is a lot closer to English norms just like all British dialects. Its just the way of things. Edited by Tyr on 17 July 2010 at 7:51pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6013 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 11 of 69 17 July 2010 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Look, no academic would agree with you. There is a recognised different between SSE (Scottish English) and Scots. This is encoded in various places, including the European treaty on minority languages.
Quit trolling -- you're not very good at it. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5784 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 12 of 69 18 July 2010 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's patently untrue. There are scholars who claim Scots as another language then there are many who claim its a dialect of English.
Oh please. Disagreeing with you != trolling. Perhaps the reason I'm not very good at it is, I dunno, because I'm not trolling but simply stating facts which sit uncomfortably with you? Edited by Tyr on 18 July 2010 at 3:26pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5354 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 13 of 69 18 July 2010 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Personally, I am not sure where to place Scots, as either a dialect or a language. I would have to agree with Tyr that I have seen scholars who place Scots in both categories.
If there were not any underlying political issues surrounding Scotts, I wonder into which category it would be placed? On a good day I might consider Scotts to be a separate language, but on an average day I tend to see it as a dialect. I mean, if I tried learning Scotts, as some others have mentioned, it would appear rediculous to those who speak it as their native tongue. Now how crazy is that, a language that one has to be born into to speak, without providing the sense of making fun of the native speakers? Besides, so many people always state that Frisian is the closest living language to English...if this is the case, then where does Scotts fit into the picture? 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 14 of 69 18 July 2010 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
The reason is that Frisian and English are at best only partially mutually intelligible, and this reinforces the idea that they are separate languages. It appears "safer" for people to say that Frisian rather than Scots is English's most closely-related living language. However reducing Scots to little more than a form of "bad" English is inapplicable and shows a lack of understanding of descriptive linguistics. Modern linguists can disagree on the classification but that doesn't mean that they then pass value judgements proclaiming the superiority of one over another. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5354 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 15 of 69 18 July 2010 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah I was being a bit facetious with my remark about Frisian and English. I don't see how aligning Scots as a dialect of English autmatically makes it a form of "bad" English. From how I understand it, dialects of English are all equally as good (from a linguist's perspective), though only in the general population's mind may they be considered "bad" or "improper". As mentioned in my post earlier, I honestly believe that this is one of those cases where the matter is more political than anything else. Of course many people of Scottish origin will have reason to want Scots to be recognized as its own language, but on the other hand, I am just not sure that I can buy into it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5784 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 16 of 69 18 July 2010 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree with tracker.
There is a bit of an attitude amongst many to see dialects as bad English and queen's English being the correct form which everyone should work towards speaking. This sort of attitude tends not to come from those who speak standard English but those who speak the dialects putting down themselves. I...really hate this kind of attitude. All dialects are just as valid and right as the others. Luckily its no longer the 1960s where the only people allowed on TV were those who spoke the Queen's English but still we've quite a way to go for acceptance of dialects. Sure, people should learn to speak 'proper English', it helps them get through life and be understood. But the way things are now when a teacher in school will tell a kid off and correct them for saying something dialectical...Not great. I can really see where the Scots fans are coming from with trying to correct this and being proud of their dialect but- why are they so special? Imagine its 1950 and you're a farmer living out in a remote part of Northern Britain. One day a man from Oxford comes to visit you. When you open your mouth to speak he has great difficulty understanding anything you say however. If you live north of the Scottish border- then thats his fault. You're speaking Scots. Its another language. He should have learned the language or brought an interpretor. You live two miles south however just over the English border- you're an idiot who can't speak proper English. And before anyone dares to suggest it- no, this man south of the border is not merely someone in England who speaks Scots. He may well bop you on for saying such a thing. He is 100% speaking English. And its not just in the far north you get this. Send the man from Oxford out to Cornwall or Norfolk or Lancashire and you could well get the same situation of him not being understand the natives despite them all speaking English. The further back in time you go the more pronounced these differences get- why I said imagine its 1950 as these days things are quite standardised and dialects drastically lessened. We should all be proud of our dialects and old ways of speech should be recorded whether it be Scots, Tyke, Norfolk, Geordie or whatever. To say one set of dialects are more special and different than the others just because they lie north of an arbitrary historical line however...Its just wrong. Edited by Tyr on 18 July 2010 at 8:18pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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