Resources for Lowland Scots? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Resources for Lowland Scots?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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Tyr
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5783 days ago
316 posts - 384 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish

Message 25 of 69

19 July 2010 at 5:38pm | IP Logged

Quote:

The historical origin of Scots has to be tied to the Danelaw, when Anglo-Saxon was influenced by the variant of Old Norse spoken by the Danish vikings. While Middle English was being formed in the south by the influence of Norman French on Anglo-Saxon, the kingdom of Mercia was being faught over by Scotland and England.

The bit that we got was massively less affected by Norman in vocabulary, grammar and phraseology than what was spoken in the south of England. The bit of Mercia that England got was more affected by the Normans than Scots, but not as much as southern English.

If we relabel Middle Scots as Anglo-Danish and Middle (southern) English as Anglo-Norman, we can see that the northeast of England is in a transitional place -- it is a dialect continuum between the Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Norman languages.

In fact, it's linguistically fair to describe Geordie as a dialect of Scots -- this definition is only rejected because of the association of the names of both languages (English and Scots) with a particular country. The arbitrary line that you mention doesn't unfairly favour Border Scots, but it unfairly disfavours Geordie by describing it as something it is not.

The same situation occurs with regard to Gallician and Portuguese. Standard Portuguese is based on the southern dialect spoken in and around the capital and there is a strong dialectal different between the north and south. In fact, the northern dialects in Portugal bear a closer resemblance to Galician than Standard Portuguese. This again does not prove that Galician is just a Portuguese dialect, but that the linguistic border has been badly defined for political purposes.

If the existence of a dialect continuum between two languages proved them to be the same language, then the continuum between Portuguese and Galician, Galician and Asturian, Asturian through Cantabrian into Castillian, Castillian through to Catalan, Catalan to Occitan thence to French, and Occitan to Genovese and through the Italian dialects right down to Sicily would "prove" that 30% of Europe speaks a single Romance language, 30% a single Germanic language and 30% a single Slavic language.

I think you have your history a bit muddled there.
Northumbria always used to be fighting the Scots (I'm talking real old school Gaels here, not modern Scots) and eventually the Scots managed to take over northern Bernicia (i.e. Lothian and the SE of Scotland) at just the right time that they could keep it.
For a long while the people in this area still saw themselves as Englishmen in Scotland however after the Scottish Wars of Independance a new Scottish national identity began to emerge which was principly centred on the lowland English rather than the highland Scots (rather funny really when you think about it)

But aye, the just that the north is more Scandinavian influenced and the south more French influenced is certainly there. They still however remained the same language. As I said with Scotland as a independant country it could have one day developed a language off on its own in the same vein as the Scandinavians or Iberians. As things stand though the union was formed and the world modernised and standard English came to dominate not just the Scottish English or the other Danish influenced Englishes but all the other Englishes in the country too.

Geordie as a dialect of Scots- Scots is a dialect of Geordie more like. :P.
But seriously- thats just the thing. Though Geordie is a very different and unique dialect you don't get too many people seriously suggesting its not English.
And Geordie has historically not been alone in its uniqueness. Take Norfolk for instance. From what I've read back in pre-industrial times the Norfolk dialect was said to be more akin to Friesan than what was spoken in London. Then in other parts of the country too you had weird unique and hard to understand varieties of English.

There isn't really a dialect continuum in the UK. Geordie has more in common with Scottish dialects than with far southern English dialects however Scots and Geordie also have lots of things not in the other. And then in other places you will find much the same baring no relation to the neighbours.

True, you could stretch it to the furthest if we're looking at languages a few hundred years ago of one big Romance dialect continuum stretching from Lisbon to Naples. But there you had clear different standards- Scots is largely make it up as you go along spelling everything phonetically and having to sound stuff out to understand what its saying.
And in the Romance continuum you have a clear huge variety of changes. In English you don't have too many. People in Scotland these days tend not to speak so hugely different to people in England. They certainly spell things the same.
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JimC
Senior Member
United Kingdom
tinyurl.com/aberdeen
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

Message 26 of 69

19 July 2010 at 5:47pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

JimC wrote:

Fit rare, noo that a ken that Scots is considert te be a tongue o it's ain oan here, av jist became bilingual!

A'though am a city loon in Aiberdeen, a can spik the Doric lik the country chiels.

Funny though av niver wrote it doon afore

Jim

Dae ye say "av" in Doric? Ah thocht it wis "hae" -- "ah hae". That's hou we speak doun in the Central Belt, anyhou....

Will revert to English for a bit. My first post was obviously a little tongue in cheek. I have never studied Scots at all with the exception of learning "The Puddock" at school Most of it is still in my head after almost 40 years!

The best I can do is to tell you how I would say something and you can take it from there. No guarantees that it will correspond with anything that you may have heard before. Doric scholars may well disagree with me.

Trying to think about it, it seems to me that "hae" seems to be used it a question, but not in an answer. For example, I would ask "Div ye hae a sweetie?" but would expect the response "aye, av goat een" I suppose that "ah hae" could probably be used as well, but less so.

However in the two phrases I used "av jist" and "av niver", it would definitely be "av". "ah hae jist" and "ah hae niver" just wouldn't work, in my opinion. At least it's not something I would say.

Hope that helps.

Jim

PS Couldn't resist looking up "The Puddock" here it is below

The Puddock
by John M Caie
A puddock sat by the lochan's brim,
An' he thocht there was never a puddock like him.
He sat on his hurdies, he waggled his legs,
An' cockit his heid as he glowered throu' the seggs.
The bigsy wee cratur' was feelin' that prood,
He gapit his mou' an' he croakit oot lood:
"Gin ye'd a' like tae see a richt puddock," quo' he,
"Ye'll never, I'll sweer, get a better nor me.
I've fem'lies an' wives an' a weel-plenished hame,
Wi' drink for my thrapple an' meat for my wame.
The lasses aye thocht me a fine strappin' chiel,
An' I ken I'm a rale bonny singer as weel.
I'm nae gaun tae blaw, but th' truth I maun tell-
I believe I'm the verra MacPuddock himsel'."
A heron was hungry an' needin' tae sup,
Sae he nabbit th' puddock and gollup't him up;
Syne runkled his feathers: "A peer thing," quo' he,
"But - puddocks is nae fat they eesed tae be."

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NightEcho
Newbie
Canada
Joined 5246 days ago
2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 27 of 69

19 July 2010 at 8:18pm | IP Logged

Tyr wrote:

Quote:

One problem you'll encounter -- you might already be well aware, but I'm pointing it out in case you aren't -- is that Scots tend to look funny at foreigners who learn their language. They have a tendency to see their language as just bad English, even though of course this isn't true at all. This has the rather unfortunate implication that, if you speak to somebody in Scots but you don't appear to actually be from Scotland, they might make the mistaken assumption that you think they can't speak proper English...

Its not just bad English however it is just different English. They look at anyone learning the 'Scots language' funny for good reason.

If you want to learn English of a different dialect rather than boring standard London or American English though then be very careful, particularly with some like Scots. They have a habit of exagerating their differences and saying they use all sorts of altnerative words where as said, people would tend to just use a more universal word.
Take church for instance. Scottish people would say they're going to church. They'd only say kirk with reference to the nickname of the church of scotland.

Its rather sad really, with the London-centric media and the globalised world regional dialects are becoming less and less distinct. Northern British is also steadily being pushed ever further north- there's a old film from around 1960 called This Sporting Life set in Yorkshire however the people speak something more akin to what you'd hear in Newcastle than modern Yorkshire. I just hope this doesn't continue and the line can be held at the north east.

I am no linguist, but from a common point of view of a Canadian who speaks English, all the writing people are doing in "Scots" looks like they are simply spelling an accent. If an areas pronunciation varies to the point where it is difficult to understand, does it become a new language? Or are these different British dialects considered different because of the time in history they developed? A Scottish accent to me sounds as variant from English as an Australian accent, or a Texan accent. A Newfoundland accent here is Canada is even harder for me to understand than most Scottish accents.

Ever hear someone say "A B, C D Fish?", "M N O Fish..." "S T R, C M?"

There you just spoke Newfoundlandese.

"Eh Bee, See the Fish?", "Them em no fish", "Yes they are, see them?"

Is that a language too now?

Edited by NightEcho on 19 July 2010 at 8:19pm
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

Message 28 of 69

19 July 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged

Tyr wrote:

I didn't say otherwise.

Tyr wrote:

For a long while the people in this area still saw themselves as Englishmen in Scotland however after the Scottish Wars of Independance a new Scottish national identity began to emerge which was principly centred on the lowland English rather than the highland Scots (rather funny really when you think about it)

I didn't say otherwise. But it is clear that though they thought of themselves as English, there were marked differences in the way they came to speak from those south of the Humber.

Tyr wrote:

But aye, the just that the north is more Scandinavian influenced and the south more French influenced is certainly there. They still however remained the same language. As I said with Scotland as a independant country it could have one day developed a language off on its own in the same vein as the Scandinavians or Iberians.

I really don't know how you're choosing to define "language" here. It was a language and it is a language as far as I'm concerned, and as far as you're concerned it isn't. We both clearly define languages differently. I feel that there are enough independent differences in grammar, phonology and vocabulary between Scots as it is still spoken by older (mostly rural) folk and English as is spoken by people of all classes and ages in the home counties.

Tyr wrote:

As things stand though the union was formed and the world modernised and standard English came to dominate not just the Scottish English or the other Danish influenced Englishes but all the other Englishes in the country too.

This is true, but the dominance of English does not preclude the continued existance of Scots. Scots is currently being wiped out and replaced by English, but this couldn't happen if Scots didn't exist in the first place.

Quote:

Geordie as a dialect of Scots- Scots is a dialect of Geordie more like. :P.
But seriously- thats just the thing. Though Geordie is a very different and unique dialect you don't get too many people seriously suggesting its not English.

But that, as I say, is because of the assumption in the name "English". If Standard English was relabled as Londonish, and no changes were made to the language, Geordies would say "I speak Geordie", not "I speak Londonish". The language name becomes propaganda -- see also "Spanish"...

Tyr wrote:

There isn't really a dialect continuum in the UK. Geordie has more in common with Scottish dialects than with far southern English dialects however Scots and Geordie also have lots of things not in the other. And then in other places you will find much the same baring no relation to the neighbours.

There are some marked differences in neighbouring regions, but that's perfectly normal in a dialect continuum. There is no halfway: it either happens or it doesn't. At some point changes are so big that linguists agree that they define the boundaries of a language (= a group of dialects) -- eg the split of o/e to ue/ie in central Iberia. This is such a prominent feature that it on its own is almost enough to delineate the a language boundary between the dialects of central Iberia from the Gallo-Portuguese of western Iberia. In other languages it's a bundle of changes that co-occur that forms the boundary. In some languages there is no clear boundary, but the endpoints are different enough to make it clear that there's a change in between.

Tyr wrote:

But there you had clear different standards- Scots is largely make it up as you go along spelling everything phonetically and having to sound stuff out to understand what its saying.
And in the Romance continuum you have a clear huge variety of changes. In English you don't have too many. People in Scotland these days tend not to speak so hugely different to people in England. They certainly spell things the same.

Ignore spelling -- a language is first and foremost a spoken thing.

As I keep saying, most Scottish people speak English, but that does not detract from the fact that Scots is something different

NightEcho wrote:

I'll reiterate what I've already said several times -- most Scottish people speak English, even if they also speak Scots. Understanding a Scottish person speaking to you is normally simply a matter of understanding a Scottish accent, as he is more likely to speak to you in English than in Scots, even if he does speak Scots. Understanding a man speaking Scots is likely to be much harder as you're going to have to deal with a Scottish accent, Scottish words and Scottish grammar. Phonology, lexicon and syntax -- these are the three main components of language.

Scots: Weel, wuid ye credit it? There ah wis, sat oan thon bink, an ma claes needed washit.

English: Well, would you believe(1) it? There I was, sitting(2) on that bench over there(3), and my clothes needed washing(2).

(1) vocabulary
(2) Grammar: English uses present participle, Scots uses past participle for stative constructions*
(3) Scots still makes the tripartite distinction this, that, thon which has been lost from English

* This is one of the Scots structures that has carried over into Scottish English. Perhaps moreso in the second example (needs doing/needs done) than the first.

(Although there's the added complication that many features of Scots also arise in the English of people in areas of North America with a high proportion of Scottish settlers.)
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daristani
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United States
Joined 7145 days ago
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Studies: Uzbek

Message 29 of 69

19 July 2010 at 10:47pm | IP Logged

I'll stay out of the "language versus dialect" argument, because I have no knowledge of Scots, and in addition think the distinction in many cases comes down to a matter of differing definitions or interpretations.

But I do want to thank Cainntear for the above example. I'm American, of Scottish descent, from western Pennsylvania. One of the features of our areal dialect is the past participle, as used above, and in the following examples:

The baby wants fed.

The car needs washed.

The grass could use cut.

When I went away to college in Minnesota, I was sometimes congratulated on my English, usually as a prelude to asking what my native language was. Evidently constructions like the above struck people there as so foreign that I couldn't have been a native English speaker.

Since that experience, I've been more aware of this distinction, and try to avoid it in writing, but had never had any idea where "our" construction might have come from. The fact that it's common in Scots, and that our area did (at least at one time) have a fairly high proportion of Scottish immigrants, suggests that it indeed may have originated from Scots.

Accordingly, this exchange has gotten me more interested in Scots, which is normally pretty far removed from my language interests. So thanks to Cainntear for the above example, as well as to the other participants in this very interesting thread.
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Tyr
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5783 days ago
316 posts - 384 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish

Message 30 of 69

20 July 2010 at 3:01pm | IP Logged

It isn't just Scots do that though. Most other people with strong dialects code switch. When I'm speaking with people from my home town-
"Aye aa'll dee it de morra wen aa gaa t'toon. Et'll nay tek uz fawa minuts lyk. Y'won uz t'get ya summit enall?'
When I'm speaking to outsiders though-
"Yeah, I'll do it tomorrow when I go into town. It'll not take me four minutes. Do you want me to get you something also?'

Scots as something different to what people in Scotland speak- I think the problem there is the name 'Scots'. Scots is modern and active. It refers to the living dialect of the people of Scotland. Rename Scots '18th century Scots' or suchlike then you're valid in saying its different to how people speak today but as things stand dialects evolve. The Geordie of today is a lot posher and more understandable than the Geordie of pre-media times. It remains however Geordie. It has just changed. Scots is the same.

Vocabulary- lots of weird words all over the country that aren't used elsewhere. What is a canny bairn, a stotty, a burn, hacky and ket?
Grammar- I'm pretty sure the use of sat rather than sitting like that is pretty common when in story teller mode like that.
As to the tripartite distinction- that isn't so much done in the north of England however it is done in Yorkshire with yon/yonder.
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William Camden
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Message 31 of 69

20 July 2010 at 3:47pm | IP Logged

Scots seems to me a little like the colloquial forms of Arabic in the Arab world. People speak these varieties and may be uncomfortable with speaking MSA, but the varieties don't have cultural or official prestige. Likewise with Scots. That is how many people speak but they would feel embarrassed writing like that, with the exception of a small number of literary figures.
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johntm93
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United States
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Message 32 of 69

20 July 2010 at 9:16pm | IP Logged

This is kind of off topic, but could some one link me to a video/audio clip of someone speaking Scots? I couldn't find anything on Youtube.

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