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Resources for learning Scots | ||
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| davidwelsh Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5530 days ago 141 posts - 307 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, Norwegian, Esperanto, Swedish, Danish, French Studies: Polish, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Pali, Mandarin | Message 1 of 41 04 January 2010 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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NB These resources are for Scots, not Scottish Gaelic...
Scots Language Centre Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech Itchy Coo (Children's Books in Scots) Scottish Language Dictionaries Dictionary of the Scots Language The Luath Scots Language Learner by L. Colin Wilson A Scots Grammar by David Purves The Essential Scots Dictionary by Iseabail MacLeod and Pauline Cairns (Scots/English) Scots: The Mither Tongue by Billy Kay The Edinburgh Companion to Scots by J. Corbett; Derrick McClure; Jane Stuart-Smith (ed.) Edited by davidwelsh on 04 January 2010 at 8:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snesgamer Groupie Afghanistan Joined 6612 days ago 81 posts - 90 votes Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic | Message 2 of 41 05 January 2010 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What exactly differentiates Scots from Scottish English? I know the two are not the same, but not exactly in what sense.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 41 05 January 2010 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Starting at the beginning:
The Anglo-Saxons invaded the west coast of Great Britain around about 550-600 AD. Their kingdoms reached as far round the coast as Edinburgh. So to start off with, labelling Anglo Saxon as "Old English" is incorrect, as Anglo Saxon did not originate in what we know of as "England". What happened next is that a couple of hundred years later the northeastern Anglo Saxon kingdom, Mercia (aka Northumberland or Northumbria, ie everything north of the river Humber) was invaded by Danish vikings. The language of the area was changed markedly by this, more so in vocabulary, but also in grammar. After the vikings left, Mercia was fought over by the then-new countries of Scotland and England. After much toing and froing, an agreement was reached to split the territory at the Tweed river, and this border has survived with only minor modifications for the last millenium. It was only after this settlement that the Normans invaded England, and it was the Norman invasion that is considered the main trigger for the changes in English that cause it to be relabelled as Middle English, which some suggest should be termed "Anglo-Norman". English then started incorporating more and more French words while Scots kept (or as an Englishman might say "retained") a broader Germanic vocabulary. Northeastern English Anglo-Danish dialects (eg Geordie, Mackam, Yorkshire) started to move away from the Scots and incorporate more features from Anglo-Norman Middle English, leaving a continuum of dialects between Scots and English. The Modern English period is generally regarded as beginning in either the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England or her successor King James I of England, also known as James VI of Scotland (or "James the Scotland 6, England 1" as one comedian likes to call him). (This leads to the lovely idea that the trigger for Modern English might have been a Scots speaking court relocating from Edinburgh to London, but as scholars of English like to call it "English", most refuse to entertain this notion.) Anyway, after the union of the crowns (1603), there was a bit of a push to "improve" the speech of Scottish children: ie make them speak English instead of Scots. This accelerated after the Act of Union (1707). Of course, it's impossible to get rid of every idiosyncratic feature from one speech community in an area where they remain in the minority, so some features of Scots have been incorporated into modern SSE (Scottish English). Some examples: "outwith" = beyond the limits of. That is outwith my remit "needs done" where many English speakers would say "needs doing" More use of "the", particularly in dealing with institutions. he's in hospital->he's in the hospital A comparison: Standard English: I need driving to school as the bus driver didn't wait for me. Scots: Ah need driven tae the schoul cos the bus driver didnae wait oan me. Scottish English: I need driven to the school as the bus driver didn't wait for me. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5470 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 4 of 41 05 January 2010 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Good explaination OldAccountBroke.
Let me add a few things. Here is a chart of how the Scots of 300 years ago would be classified linguistically. 
However, what is nowdays called Scots, refers mostly to a mixed language formed by heavy English influence on the early modern Scots of 300+ years ago (though more Gaelic has crept in over the years as well). Consequently, here is no longer a clear line between Scots and English. The adjective 'broad' is generally used to refer to how much Scots one uses in their speech. Personally I don't like this use of the adjective because it insituates that Scots isn't even a dialect, but an accent! Here are two short sentences repeated to show the type of variety you can encounter in Scots: -Strong Scots (unlikely to encounter): I widnae o thocht tha it wis the hairst nou. Dae ye ken those bairns? -Average Scots (likely to encounter): I widnae o thought tha it wis autumn nou. Dae ye ken those children? -Weak Scots (very likely to encounter): I wouldnae of thought tha it was autumn now. Doo ye know those children? -Scottish English (very liekly to encounter): I wouldn't have thought that it was autumn now. Do you know those children? Bear in mind that this is completely made up by me, but is what I've observed during my time in Scotland. The Western Highlands were Gaelic speaking until quite recently and you are not likely to encounter any Scots there. Strong Scots (for nowadays) is still alive as the main working language in Glesca, Aiberdeen and Shetland. Shetland actually has an interesting dialect which was formed as a mix of the Scots spoken by Lowland Scottish immigrants and the Norse language Norn that was previously spoken there (now extinct). 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gamauyun Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5649 days ago 26 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Romanian, German | Message 5 of 41 05 January 2010 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Aren't both England and English named for the Anglo-Saxons, who called their language Englisc? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5923 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 6 of 41 06 January 2010 at 12:41am | IP Logged | |||||
"He's in the hospital" is part of American English; I've only heard "He's in hospital" from British speakers. Do you think this might be from Scottish English?
Interestingly, AmE would prefer "I need to be driven to school as/because the bus driver didn't wait for me." "I need driving" sounds incredibly weird to me. I thought it was neat how Scottish English would have 'to the school' while both BrE and AmE use 'to school'. Weirdness. Thanks for your post. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 41 06 January 2010 at 12:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Most spoken Scots would elide the vowel from "dae"/"do" so average and weak's more like "d'ye". You've also missed "thae bairns" or "thae waens". I'd maist lyklie say "d'ye ken thae waens". Now... not sure about "widnae o". To me that's always been "wuidnae hae", but weaking off to almost "a", with just the weakest whisper of an H before it gives us the spoken form "Ah wuidnae (h)a..." The "of" thing is not unique to Scotland -- I see "of" used in this sort of perfective construction in emails from English colleagues at least as often as from Scots, and I've seen it written on webpages from all over the world. If we look at the full formal English form "I would not have done it", we can reduce it to "I wouldn't've done it". Now the word "of" phonetically uses a "v" consonant. In rushed speech, "of" is reduced commonly to either a schwa vowel or simply a short "vv" sound, identical the sound of 've in "would've". "would of" arises when people are asked to use "full words" when the perfect in modern speech isn't really a word anymore as far as the brain's concerned, but basically a suffix. It would be an unlikely coincidence for this confusion of the verb "to have" and the word "of" to have occurred in Middle Scots in the vowel ("hae" and "o" are the Scots equivalents of "have" and "of", and there's no vv sound in either) and then recurred independently and spontaneously across most of the English speaking world on the consonant sound in Modern English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5470 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 8 of 41 06 January 2010 at 1:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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You're right, that sounds better, looks like I confused 'I wouldnae a' with 'A wouldnae o'.
Yes it's not the best sentence, I was just trying to fit in various Scottish characteristics. lynx: What about 'it needs washed' versus 'it needs washing'? Which is used in American? I once heard some Canadians making fun of Canadian dialect, I remember the words 'anyhoo' and 'aboot': those are obviously of Scottish origin. There are surely other Scots influences in America. Yous maybe? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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