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| valencian |
Scots languageHi, I have a few questions regarding scots language.I have read something about it, and even looked at wikipedia's version (sco.wikipedia.org), and as in Valencia many people base their nationalism in language (which is threaten by spanish expansion) i'm surprised that no one use it over here. So here are my questions... 1) Do you consider it a language or a dialect? 2) Is it widely spoken in Scotland? 3) What's the relation between nationalist movement and scots language. Thank you very much in advanced for your answers 
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| Babygael |
!Hi, Scots are not engerlish.Scotland as a conquered country (by the engerlish) speaks english with an accent .The accent comes from having to speak engerlish as a second language which after all this time has become the norm! Indeed in some cases you cannot tell a scotsman/woman from an engerlishman........one day this state of affairs will be history!!! No longer will our soverign country bear the hall marks of their conquerors. Nationalist on the whole will stand by their culture. |
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| Avatar |
Its a language, im sure some may say its a dialect of English, but then I could say English is a dialect of german.
I believe around 33% of the population speak Scots.
I dont think there is one, theres no relationship between the movement of Gaelic either. |
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| Highlander |
Re: !
I live in Scotland and I never knew we were conquered! When did this happen? If we were conquered why do we have democratically elected members of parliament? Strange sort of conquering going on!Maybe it makes sense to babygael. It down to linguists really on the dialect/languag thing, they are the experts on laguages some say it is a dialect others say a language. And then Avater comes along just to stir it up and say English is a dialect of German. Isn't it also strange that it is called Scots when it was never spoken by the majority of Scots ever, it is very regional! Sounds like Scottish imperialism to me! |
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| macnumpty |
It was originally called Inglis, as at that time it was basically a dialect of English. Then changes happened down South which didn't happen in Scotland, and vice versa, to the extent that one of the main sources for linguists on these matters, the SIL Ethnologue, has Scots as a separate language, albeit as part of a wider 'English' language family.
Highlander does have a point of sorts though: Scots doesn't appear to have taken in the Highlands, where the language choice is either English or Gaelic. 'Scots' is probably best considered as an umbrella term for Lallans, Doric and Ullans, the three main dialect groups. As to the the dialect of German point, though, remember that that's how English started. Yesterday's dodgy German evolved into today's good English, just as yesterday's shaky English has evolved (and is still evolving) into today's good Scots. |
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| billalba |
Highlander... 1707 springs to mind..
Unionists have their heads so far up themselves that they cannot see the truth.. |
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| Avatar |
The way I understand it "olde english" is a branch of the germanic language that developed over on the mainland and was brought over to Scotland and England by Germanic tribes, and developed into Scots in the lowland and northern isle areas of Scotland and developed into English down in England.
True enough, I suppose you only need to look to Ulster where Scots was also spoken and probably still is to an extent to see a bit of that. |
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| Aventinian |
Re: Scots language
My friend, a linguist of some description, once told me with some air of authority that it was considered by him and others to be an English language. So a separate language from English, but clearly of the same family.
Not these days, no. It influences the English spoken in Scotland, but generally you'll only hear it in poetry etc.
f**k all, pardon the French. |
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| Aventinian |
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| One O'Clock Gun |
Perhaps the term 'conquered' is meant more subtly?? Possibly meant as conquered in a cultural sense? To give a modern analogy- in the way that some Asian countries see the growth of 'American' culture as 'taking over' their traditional culture (particularly with the younger generations??) Just a thought. |
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| macnumpty |
Olde English as we know it came over to England (and Southern Scotland) with the Germanic tribes who settled in the area from the 5th Cent. onwards, it then gained extra Nordic influences with the landing of the Vikings (the Vikings were almost wholly responsible for Norn in the Shetlands until it died out). The influence of England, especially in the South would probably have been responsible for the strength of English, and the development into Inglis, then Scots. We're almost certain that Scots was an offshoot of English that has since gone its own way, rather than a language that evolved at the same time, and it looks like the first major splits would have started around the 13th Cent., with the initial split actually at the Humber-Ribble Line in Northern England. Scots probably only really got going in its own right c. the 15th or 16th Cent.
Yeh, it was even used in the Northern Ireland Transitional Assembly last week! Yours, A linguistic geek 
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| valencian |
Thank you all for your answers I see nationalism hasn't used it as the main element of identity (here it has been used that way).
Does any of you speak it as mother tongue? |
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| Anthropos |
Re: Scots language
1) Modern Lowlanders mostly speak Scottish dialects of English rather than Scots, and Scottish writers, unless they are making a cultural/political point, mostly write in Standard English, with a greater or lesser amount of dialect being used for various reasons, such as reported speech or local vocabulary. There has been some attempt to recreate some sort of ‘Scots language’ but this has mainly been a literary and political phenomenon, and such attempts to recreate a Scots language are not likely to succeed in the long run, partly because there is a lack of Scots words for many modern phenomena. However more problematic is the visible artificiality of such efforts, which preserve one-to-one translation in a way that gives the written Scots a parasitic relationship with English. This is of course because the writers are native English-speakers. If you contrast today’s synthetic Scots with the living Scots of the 16th century, the contrast is immediately obvious. 2) See above 3) There isn’t one, to give the brief answer. Many European nationalist political movements were concerned with the defence of a linguistic culture (Flemish nationalism for example), but the SNP has never had a linguistic culture to defend. The only linguistic culture they could defend is Gaelic, but there are so few speakers that the idea is a non starter. Some members of the SNP do like to babble about the Scots language, but it is nothing anybody takes too seriously. |
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| Anthropos |
I doubt it (that it was meant more subtly). Such nonsense is probably not worth even responding too, if people are gonnae whine away with their laughable victimhood fantasies there is really nothing you can say that will make them see reason, you are just wasting your own time that could be more profitably used on something else. |
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| garye |
Aye, me. |
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| billalba |
Obviously we weren't conquered...but I dont know what you call our ports being blockaded an army on our border, trade war being threatened and not being able to trade with our historical trading partners in europe is???
i.e. In effect we were conquered!!!! |
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| Avatar |
Yeah, its a bit like claiming you have free will with someone holding a gun to your head and telling you to sign all your money over to them. Conqured we were. | ||||||||||||
| Anthropos |
Oh bollocks! We were nothing of the sort. The Treaty of Union left the 3 pillars of Scottish life (Church, Law and Education) in the hands of Scots, which would not have been so in a conquered country. The English got what they wanted, security on their northern border, and the Scots got what they wanted, access to English economic resources. The only thing Scotland lost was control of Foreign policy, which given the size and wealth of the country was not much to be regretted. These victimhood fantasies about being 'conquered' or being a 'colony' are absolutely absurd. |
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| Anthropos |
You still have free will even if someone is doing as you say in the above scenario. The man still signs of his own free will, nobody makes him do anything. |
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| Avatar |
not really when you consider that every biological feature is geared towards survival, its just an illusion of free will. |
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| Maol.Chaluim |
.. also monetary and economic policy, with the obvious implications that has for control of many aspects of domestic policy. |
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| Babygael |
Anthropos ye'd dae better spittin' in the wind!! Not mentioning that pathetic excuse  of a ermhighlander!!! Can you imagine if the real macoy's were to mysteriously return!! You'd be TOAST BABY!!!
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| Aventinian |
So all the parliamentarians who'd held ideological positions that were pro-union since the Glorious Revolution and before were just doing so because of some perceived gun at their head. And the hugely obvious benefits of union were not apparent to anybody in Scotland. Face it, the only reason that anyone was anti-Union in 1707 were bizarre concerns about law and religion that never arose. |
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| Anthropos |
If you are going to enter into a free trade area comprised of Scotland, England and the English colonies, then logically it will follow that you will not have control over the currency. As for economic policy, Scottish and English economic policies were the same: make money, so it is really a non issue. Of course if things hadn’t worked out then the union could have harmed Scotland economically, but in fact the opposite was true and after a few decades where nothing much happened the money started rolling in from the tobacco trade, which was then reinvested in other emerging industries with the result that Scotland had the fastest rate of economic growth in Europe . In the 18th century Scots were a judicious and enterprising people who went out and took the opportunities the world offered. Contrast that with the bunch of pathetic whingers today pretending to be conquered.
Uh hu, meanwhile back in the real world………………………
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| Scott2006 |
On the Scots language - it's been almost completely dead since before the age of the wireless radio and BBC English being given its paramount place in pronounciation of the King's and Queen's English.
The literary version of the Scots language exists in societies that promote it and obscure PhDs that propound it. Most school children nowadays get some Burns or local poetry about once a year if in primary education and outwith that they'd be lucky to have it discussed for an hour or two throughout their entire mandatory education. We mostly now speak English with an accent, have the occasional sets of words that exist at local levels that add a bit of colour to the language but doesn't challenge the English language as spoken in the media in any serious instances outside of the bamery that was Rab C. Nesbitt for its portrayal of a corrupted working class Glaswegian pastiche or the Doric speaking by one actress after a fashion in River City. On the other points about economic benefits of Scottish membership of the British trading system and Empire after the Union of 1707: from the 1750s or 1760s until the First World War it was probably in the interests of the Scottish economy to be an active participant in the trade and exploitation of resources from poorer colonies to see a certain level of prosperity enjoyed by the Scottish population in varying degrees of success. This still leaves the periods of time from 1707 to the events of 1745 when large sections of Scottish opinion varied markedly from the that of the limited franchise Scottish Parliament and its successor again limited franchise elected Scottish members of the British Parliament in both Houses of Parliament. The question arises by what authority can a sovereign parliament (with sovereignty residing with the people ultimately) that boasts it speaks for only a few thousand out of a population of over 1 million have the right to vote itself out of existance? A majority of the Scottish people were never asked if they wanted to lose their parliament. Today that same question has never been asked of the Scottish people at any time over the three centuries that have elapsed... I hope one day it can be put in a referendum to the Scottish people highlighting the differences to the limited remit of the present parish council compared Labour&LibDem powered Scottish Parliament. |
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| Aventinian |
The ways of the age, I suppose. The idea of sovereignty resting with the people is a very overstated concept, particularly in Scotland. Quite simply, the Crown in Parliament was sovereign, before the Union and after, with some minor restrictions.
And absolutely no Scottish people were ever asked if they wanted to create it, nor was anyone from the previous kingdoms that existed here asked if they wanted to form part of Scotland - instead they were subjects of royal intermarriage, invasion, ethnic cleansing and so forth. |
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| Babygael |
You Aventinian, give your support to the biggest racists EVER, the brit empire!!
How dare you call anyone a racists???? you make me barf!! You are either are a Scotsman, or you are not! You have untill MAY to make up your mind!! |
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| Avatar |
Ah yes, typical Brit nat fantasy. Of course the formation of the UK was an ideological event which ocurred in order to spread civilisation throughout the world, teaching quaint little natives how to use forks and wipe their arse
Im sure the benefits were felt eventually, im also sure the buses ran on time in Nazi France too. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that things are not that black and white - being conquered or even living under an occupation force isnt going to be an entirely negative experience. |
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| Aventinian |
The British Empire itself has actually been a force for good in that regard, we were one of the first nations to stop slavery and went to great expense to police the ban on the slave trade. There's a huge history of progressive actions, fights for the benefits of others and so forth. I certainly doubt you'd be saying this had you been a Jewish or French person in Europe, being liberated under the Union Jack. Anyway, when did I ever say I support the British Empire. It's such a broad spectrum, it's like saying I support an individual: it has many different characteristics, many mistakes from which it has had to learn and so forth. I suppose I support myself, it doesn't mean that I take pride in everything I have done. It's a ridiculous notion that I have to support everything a government has done. I agree with some of the notions of imperialism put forward by a few of its intellectual advocates, that is all.
I am not a racist myself, but I certainly think you are. What else would you call this bizarre obsession with putting down some supposed enemy in "the English" and blaming them for everything that goes wrong?
I'm not in your eyes, I know that, but I don't care because I think you something of a fool. But yes, I have a Scottish identity - I'm not particularly proud of it and it doesn't matter to me a great deal.
I was actually thinking more in terms of retaining the protestant succession, preventing European invasion, allowing for wider international trade and the like. It was a very ideological thing for many parliamentarians of the time, have a look at some of their recorded speeches. Unless there were a great many cynical and barefaced liars at the time, I doubt you can deny that they had a belief in the Union.
Scotland was never conquered and never lived under an occupation force though, in fact there were very few drawbacks to Union. A remoteness of power perhaps, which was more apparent in the days before transport was easy and news spread so freely. Aside from that, there were so many positives to the Scottish people that it is difficult to ignore the idealists who opted for it. But of course, there will always be the fundamentalists who simply chant 'bought and sold for English gold'. |
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| Avatar |
Of course there were a few who did believe in the union, and even if we accept that that belief stemmed from an ideological perspective, the majority of the other parliamentarians were bribed/bullied.
In 1653 there was an occupation force I believe, granted it was before the union of parliaments. Anyway my point is that Scotland was conquered, not perhaps in the obvious way of an army invading and annexing the territory. If we take a modern day example of say Iran and Iraq, now say Iran want to secure all that area and increase their influence, also a few parliamentarians in the Iraq government are Iranian sympathisers. Iran bribes the rest of the parliamentarians and puts an army on the border to threaten the rest. The Iraqi government then votes itself out of existence because they cant win a war and their country is really poor and in chaos. Now as far as I can see that would still be Iran conquering Iraq. What im saying is that Just because that went well for maybe 200 years doesn't rewrite history to make it sound more favourable. |
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| Aventinian |
I'd disagree with that perspective. In fact the contrary is pretty much the conclusion of that recent book by Christopher Whatley. Equally however, opportunism was by no means reserved to the Unionists as a read of this demonstrate: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=845972004
Yes, indeed, I was meaning after. But even then, it was not an occupying force as such, it had a good deal of support north of the border (as much as it did south of it anyway) and it was a result of a series of events of which we were very much involved in.
The English army was not threating the Scots to vote through the Union. In fact, they were there for maintaining civil order on the command of Scots. You can hardly blame the conditions of Scotland as being the sole reason for Union - it was damn near inevitable post-1688 in my opinion. |
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| Avatar |
You usually find that occupying armies will have good levels of support from people in their occupied territory.
Thats an interesting read.
Ive never heard that before. |
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| Corby Boy |
Scotland has never been conquered. Take Billabla's point about the blockading, but countries have held out despite threats of invasion and blockade.
So, no Scotland has never been conquered militarily, unlike that of Wales (unfortunately) or militarily colonised in part like Ireland. Bought and sold by self serving (Scottish) autocrats who could only see £ signs offered by the English to secure their northern border - that's a different matter. In some respects that's even worse. But as a nation the Scots have been too tough a nut to crack militarily and that is something to be proud. Wallace and Bruce would be turning in their graves to think otherwise. |
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| scotslanguage |
For information about the Scots language visit www.scotslanguage.com | ||||||||||||
| Aventinian |
Norman Conquest?
Ah, but I think that was bluntly disproven by old Christopher Whatley a good while ago. Many had a firmly ideological basis for their views - to be frank, the benefits in 1707 were overwhelming and obvious. |
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| Anthropos |
The Normans only conquered England, not Scotland. The only time Scotland was conquered was by Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century, and the Protectorate period was not very long. |
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| Jimbo |
Also conquered but not subjugated by Longshanks & Co 1296-1306. Some may argue slightly longer, until such times perhaps that Bruce had asserted himself on the Scots throne. Aventinian. The Normans were brought here on the invitation of David1 who was on very friendly terms with his Norman/English neighbour. They did not come as conquerors of Scotland. |
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| Corby Boy |
Christopher Whatley or not, the fact of the matter was that the populace of Edinburgh at the time were trying to burn the doors down, because the union proposal was so unpopular.
Fletcher of Saltoun was not one for being bought and sold. Bottom line some in the Scots Parly were in favour some were not. A small majority carried it. The benefits were not overwhelming appreciated by any means. Intimidation from down south was the most overwhelming factor at the time. |
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| Aventinian |
Fletcher was a murderer on the run from the law, not to mention that he actually argued in favour of union when the holder of the Crown more suited him. But I suppose he's a better role model for Nationalists than your most hated apostate: the Duke of Hamilton. Anyway, it doesn't take the whole population of Edinburgh to start a large riot. I accept that, at this point, the union was unpopular - but so what? That doesn't mean that the Parliamentarians from Scotland were somehow corrupted. Intimidation from down south? I remind you it was the English Commissioners of Union that Queen Anne had to sack for being hostile to the concept, not the Scottish ones. |
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| Aventinian |
That's interesting, I've been looking into it since you wrote that and I have to say I never imagined the Normanisation of Scotland was quite so cordial. |
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| Jimbo |
Yes, it was a slow process at first but once a few got hold they spread through the aristocracy like wildfire, marrying every free heiress in sight. It was David's father, Malcolm Canmore, who decreed that English should be spoken (PCeltic was the language of the time) in honour of (some say to placate) his wife Margaret, an Athling. The decree was of little or no interest to the commoners and PCeltic continued but amongst the aristocracy French became the fashionable language in David's time. She was the queen for whom Queensferry (north & south) is named. I'm sure I'm right in saying that her chapel is the oldest building standing in Edinburgh Castle. May I suggest David 1 by Richard Oram. |
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| mairead |
The Scots language is still spoken in most parts of the country but with many different dialects. EG the Glasgow speak is much different from Aberdonian dialect and the Ayrshire dialect. It appears to change slightly from county to county.
Gaelic, I am happy to say in making a comeback too. BG. we were not conquered, we were unfortunately 'united' against the will of the ordinary people. |
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| Babygael |
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| Aventinian |
I wouldn't call that Scots though. That's English, with some Scots influence and a regional accent. |
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| FreedomNow |
If you try and write down the Scots dialect and compare it to plain English they look quite different. Infact you could argue that it is a different language.
Excuse me sur kin ye pleez tell me whin the next train tae Glasgo is? Compared to; Excuse me sir can you tell me when the next train to Glasgow is? Of cousre the dialect differs from east to west coast, Glasgow to Ayrshire, Ayrshire to Galloway. Unfortunately our original tongue isn't widely spoken at all and is really limited to the Highlands and Islands, although it was once the dominant tongue in the whole country before English influence eroded it's presence. IMO it should be taught in all schools. I certainly would have found it more interesting to learn a Scottish language than French. |
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| Aventinian |
It's no different to any number of other English dialects in this country.
That sort of thing isn't what I would call Scots, which I do identify as an English language, but not part of the English language. |
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| Anthropos |
If you write down many of the dialects of the English language they would not look very much like Standard English, for example a Jamaican might say: Hey mon can yah tell me wheen da next train ta Glasgo heez? I am not sure what your point is, though if you want to study historical linguistics there are several places it is taught. |
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| Scott2006 |
With a new government in Holyrood more likely to be interested in filling in the gaps in Scottish linguistic history - I was wondering if they might find the money to decipher the Pictish language which could provide jobs for linguists, historians, archaeologists & computer experts if say one of the latest super-computers was hired or rented for a short time to examine the problem.
The inscriptions and written forms of dead languages throughout Scotland have as much if not more to do with the living history of the Scots languages and should get as much money invested in research which has been taken by Gaelic lobby as about the only indigenous language still in existance. |
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| Dave Coull |
Scots isn't just English with a different accent, there are different words in Scots, and there
is even a different use of grammar in Scots. So why is Scots regarded as a dialect rather than a language ? A friend of mine had a bright idea for a PhD, and he managed to get the University of Barcelona interested. Great idea, they said. Of course, you will have to write up your thesis in Catalan. He gave up at that point, which wasn't really necessary. He could have written it in English and then got somebody to translate into Catalan. Besides, anybody who has a knowledge of Spanish and French can find their way around Catalonia. Yet Catalan is a language. Why ? Because the Catalan government says so. There are dialects of German which are more different from standard German than Dutch is, yet they are just dialects while Dutch is a language. Why ? Because the Dutch government says so. A hundred years ago, Norway was dominated by Sweden as part of a United Kingdom. Anybody who can speak Swedish can understand Norwegian if it is spoken slowly, yet Norwegian is a language. Why ? Because the independent Norwegian government says so. That's the difference between a dialect and a language. A language is a dialect with government backing. |
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| Holebender |
It has been said that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. | ||||||||||||
| Anthropos |
I don’t see your point, a language as widely spoken as English is bound to have such differences, that doesn’t make it a different language, there are many words that a Glaswegian and an Aberdonian wouldn’t share but we don’t talk about the Glaswegian language. Australians have developed their own words as have various areas of America, and India is developing its own varieties of English as other places. To try and answer your question, the problem is that while you could have a amiable blether in your local Scottish dialect (or indeed anywhere else where a variety of English is spoken), but if you wanted to write a technical or scientific paper you would find yourself forced into Standard English. It is a dialect because it is not a whole language on its own.
Well if your definition of a language is something a government backs then you are entirely correct, and under such a definition it would be possible for hundreds of new languages to spring up on a daily basis. Any Arabic speaking state could declare their variety of Arabic a language, or indeed Scotland could have Glaswegian and Aberdonian. |
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| Anthropos |
Yes indeed that saying has been trotted out many times, and no doubt will be again, however Canada, the USA, New Zealand and Australia, all have armies and navy's, so why don't they have languages too? |
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| SLG |
In the past they would have and they still might, in time. You already have American English. However, I expect modern media to slow the divergence between American English and English English that would have lead to the evolution of clearly different languages. |
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| SLG |
There are features of the language local to Aberdeen and Glasgow that are found in common between them, but not in standard English. That might signify a seperate language.
There are many official languages that are clearly unique languages in linguistic terms that lack the ability to evoke complex scientific concepts. Would you argue that these are not in fact languages? |
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| agentmancuso |
It's bad enough having to listen to people pretending that sub-literate proletarian grunting constitutes a separate language just because they suffer from a desperate need to discover significant cultural differences with our southern neighbour, but the idea that the state would waste vast sums of taxpayers' money on esoteric onanism of this kind is utterly outrageous. |
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| SLG |
Yes, I hate esoteric onanisms. | ||||||||||||
| FreedomNow |
Just that it looks different when written down to standard English. |
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| Scott2006 |
So agentmancuso a sum of money equivalent to a grant for 10 PhDs for a project that would cost less than a thousandth of the cost of a certain building in Edinburgh no matter how much the cost of knowledge may escalate - and unlock the actual history of our forebears - which could lead to a new understanding and a higher profile across the world resulting in a tourist boom that could repay the outlay many times over. Would rich tourists from Japan, Europe or America want to go to a land where a dead language has been recently translated into a form that can be put into plain Japenese, French, German etc.? Scotland needs every advantage it can gain to advance the standard of living in the more rural areas - this is a gold mine just waiting to be discovered. So vent your biblical self-pleasuring contempt at some other idea. |
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| Dave Coull |
Anthropos wrote
> a language as widely spoken as English is bound to have such differences, > that doesn’t make it a different language One reason why Scots is a different language from English is because it always was. Both languages developed as particular variations of a common Germanic language, but Scots developed differently from English. There are many words in Scots which are different from English, some of them adapted from Gaelic, for instance. But also there are differences in grammar. > there are many words that a Glaswegian and an Aberdonian wouldn’t > share but we don’t talk about the Glaswegian language. No, there is a Glaswegian dialect of the Scots language. > Australians have developed their own words as have various areas > of America, and India is developing its own varieties of English Exactly, they are developing their own varieties of ENGLISH. The difference is that Scots goes all the way back to before there was such a thing as the English language. Both languages developed around the same time. |
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| Aventinian |
Generally I don't think it is. However to say that virtually anybody in modern day Scotland speaks Scots is a bit of a joke.
Perhaps in practice. |
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| VLK |
There is a fine line between what is a language of its own and what is a dialect of another language. For example, Norwegian and Danish are mutually intelligible languages and some people consider them to be dialects of the same Nordic language but for nationalistic purposes they are considered different languages.
Very recently as Montenegro became independent, there was an argument about the name of the language spoken in the country. The nationalists maintained that the state-language is Montenegran but others said that is rubbish as there is no such a language but it is really a dialect of Serbian. I think the nationalists got their way. |
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| William_Cleland |
Basically agree with you but I don't think the Montenegrins have ratified their constitution yet and by the looks of things they are going to have to compromise on that issue a bit. They are in a tricky situation given that most Orthodox Slavs in Montenegro are actually pro-Serbian and were probably part of the 45% that voted No. The Yes vote wouldn't have happened without the backing of the Muslim minority comprised of Albanians and Bosnian Muslims. The Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian languages are a prime example of what you are talking about, however, given they are all slight variations on what used to be known as Serbo-Croat based on a process of literary standardization around pretty much the same dialect. | ||||||||||||
| agentmancuso |
Neatly summed up. |
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| SLG |
So, as an anti-nationalist, do you refer to the language(s) as Norwanish, or perhpas Danwegian? |
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| agentmancuso |
No. | ||||||||||||
| inga |
Re: Scots language
Technically there's no right or wrong answer, because "dialect" is not concretely defined. BUT, one could appeal to consistency. A DVD box set of Still Game still reads "Language: English", on the spine. Scots is taught to Scottish schoolchildren --- In ENGLISH classes(why not, say, French classes)? It must be merged with English is some real, practical sense. Robert Burns is commonly known as the world's "second-most quoted English-language poet". And so on...It's as if Scots is a language, until the difference really matters to us, whereupon we treat it as a dialect.
Well yes, because, almost by definition, it is the speech of the common man in Scotland.
There is link between language-hood and nationalism. And I can prove it with a thought experiment. I find it hard to believe that if Scots was the language of the ordinary Londoner, that it would be classed as a language at all. Moreover, everybody agrees that it evolved from Old English(a language named after the Angles, not England). If that is the case, consider also that British speech has grown more, not less homogenous over the centuries. If we agree it _was_ English in the past, then it is certainly English now. To me it follows that Scots began as a dialect of Old English, continued as a dialect of Middle English("Inglis"), and was a dialect of Modern English right up until a slightly more self-obsessed era for Scotland, whereupon it became known as a "language". ~Inga |
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| Aventinian |
Re: Scots language
Poppycock. The Scots language was what Burns wrote in, not some corrupted Glaswegian slang. Nobody speaks Scots today, save for the occasional poet. |
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| William_Cleland |
Why do the English have a sole claim to the legacy of the Anglo-Saxons, Inge? Listen to some Dutch or Platt Deutsch and then listen to some English and you will instantly be able to hear the drastic effect that Norman Conquest had. Meanwhile, fisherman from Buchan can chat away with their Frisian counterparts on the radio while out on the North Sea and can still more or less understand each other. For several centuries Anglo-Saxon derived speech actually had a higher status in Scotland than it did in England where Norman French was the language of the elite. | ||||||||||||
| William_Cleland |
Re: Scots language
Maybe nobody in your circle of friends Arventinian. I have relatives who when speaking to close friends and family speak very close to what Burns wrote but we are talking about the generation that are now approaching retirement age. There were still pockets of vigorous Braid Scots usage in rural areas into the 50s and 60s. Then came television.... |
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| agentmancuso |
Re: Scots language
In that language is one of the symbols of identity to which nationalism frequently resorts in its neurotic effort to establish difference, yes.
That's an excellent argument. |
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| agentmancuso |
Re: Scots language
All dialects of English have diminished as a result of television. But then they had all diminished significantly with the arrival of radio, with WW1 conscription, with compulsory education, and with the general drift to urban life in the 19th century. None of these dialects exhibited any features that could plausibly lead to their being defined as a 'language', other than by someone with a vested interest in doing so. (Such as an identity issue...) |
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| William_Cleland |
Scots had (arguably still has) a separate literary tradition with it's own distinctive grammar and orthography (for example i before e except after c doesn't work too well with Scots words like heid, deid etc) although it has never been fully standardised in a universally accepted manner along the lines of the OED etc. Right now you appear to be arguing that it was only ever used as a vernacular, which is surprising as you normally are much better informed than that. | ||||||||||||
| RadgeJougal |
There is no Scots language. There are TWO Scots languages. | ||||||||||||
| RadgeJougal |
Re: !
Scotland was annexed. However, Wales and Ireland were both conquered, and most mainstream historians would agree with that assertion. Both send representatives to the English parliament (not so many any more in the case of Ireland).
Much of Scotland was conquered prior to the Wars of Independence. |
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| RadgeJougal |
Actually most of Scotland appears to have been speaking Q-Celtic at this time, maybe in tandem with P Celtic. The Normans did not just marry, they stole lands from indigenous landowners who did not have written deeds, and they also introduced trial by ordeal. Have a look at what they did to the last of the MacWilliam dynasty in Forfar. Some civilisation... |
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| RadgeJougal |
Yes, by the comedian Max Weinreich. Doesn't apply to American English or Argentine Spanish though does it? |
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| Holebender |
Re: Scots language
It may not be "concretely" defined, but I think almost everyone would understand dialect to mean some sort of derivative language. "B is a dialect of A" would be interpreted as B is a derivative variant of A.
I think that says more about the dominance of English in our culture than it does about the language used in Still Game.
This statement just doesn't make sense if you consider a dialect to be a derivative of a language. I would accept that modern English and modern Scots are both dialects of Old English, but not that modern Scots is a dialect of modern English. As Scots is probably closer to Old English than modern English is, it would actually make more sense to consider English a dialect of Scots, but I doubt you'll find many takers for that idea. Again, it probably says more about the cultural dominance of English than it does about the reality of the situation. |
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| inga |
They don't. That's my point. When you say "Scots[speech] is English", that doesn't mean "Scots is from England". It just means it's part of the widespread language named after the Angles. ~Inga |
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| inga |
Re: Scots language
No, you are mistaken. A dialect is not a derivative of a language. A dialect is a sub-division of a language. A language and a dialect are qualitatively the same. The difference is a question of scale.
No, it betokens neither. The DVD spine example indicates that we don't feel compelled to classify Scots as anything other than English, when it comes to mundane, non-nationalistic matters, such as knowing whether you have a fair chance of understanding a DVD comedy.
This doesn't make sense, nor does the rest. How can modern Scots be a dialect of Old English? Old English doesn't exist! How can a modern language be a dialect of an older language??? ~Inga |
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| Anthropos |
Re: Scots language
No that is not what eveyone would understand it to mean, I think most people would agree that a dialect is a variety of a language, not a derivative. Modern Scotts Lowlanders mostly speak Scottish dialects of English , by which I mean a variety of English (just as New Yorkers, Australians, Indians or Jamaicans do), and Scottish writers - unless they are making a cultural/political point - mostly write in Standard English, as we are mainly all doing on this forum, with a greater or lesser amount of dialect being used for various reasons, such as reported speech or local vocabulary. |
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| inga |
Well yes, but was it different enough, is the question. Bear in mind that English and English spelling varied up and down England also, until about 300 years ago.
No, I don't seem to be, nor am I. ~Inga |
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| William_Cleland |
Languages like Ukrainian and Polish or Spanish and Portuguese are mutually intelligible to a very large extent. In my experience Braid Scots and standard English are not because of the way that the Germanic guttural sounds and vowel system were less affected by the influence of Norman French and also because there is a surprisingly large lexical difference and significant differences in idiom and grammar. It was different enough that it could have been very easily standardized into a different literary standard for use as Scotland's national language if the Union of the Crowns had never happened and Scotland had maintained its independence into the modern era. That process had in fact already started at that point. Agentmancuso would have a stronger angle of attack if he questioned the motives for people wanting to raise it to that level nowadays after at least 5 generations of formal universal education with only standard English. The last phrase you quote wasn't directed at you. | ||||||||||||
| inga |
I agree, but remember that is just two points of comparison. Remember a similar unintelligibility has existed between Standard English and other non-standard Englishes within England. To my ears, the constrast between Scots and Standard English is lessened when I consider how diverse World English, and even British English is, and has been.
I'm not so sure about the literary standard. Look at the writings of Burns. Now look at the writings of William Barnes(Dorset poet). It's not like they have different spelling systems. It's more like they apply the same spelling system to different dialects, like Charles Dickens and Irvin Welsh. The difference in spelling reflects not a difference in literary tradition, but in pronunciation itself. ~Inga |
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| agentmancuso |
In modern times, yes. There was a thriving literary output in Scots in the late middle ages, Dunbar and Henryson being the two most prominent names. But recent attempts are only a semi-phonetic attempt at capturing the present vernacular Scottish dialect of English. That may (or may not) be a worthwhile literary activity, but it has nothing to do with writing 'Scots'. MacDiarmid might have been a genius, or he might have been a headbanger; the jury is still out. In either case his claim to be writing Scots in the same sense as Dunbar was writing Scots is self-evidently fraudulent. As he well knew. Recent stuff, like Anne Donovan for example, is just embarrassing. |
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| agentmancuso |
Really? What are they? |
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| agentmancuso |
Re: !
No it wasn't. It still exists, as a legal territory in its own right. The crown was merged, and the parliament voted itself out of existence. You may or not approve of that, but in no meaningful sense can it be described as annexation.
Ireland still sends a few -about 18?
Conquering implies permanent military conquest, as you correctly say happened to both Ireland and Wales. But Scotland was no more 'conquered' by England than England was by Scotland during the numerous land-grabbing raids of the early middle ages. |
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| agentmancuso |
Re: Scots language
A dialect is not a derivative of a language, but a vernacular and localised variation of a language.
No linguist would though.
No, because it's clearly gibberish. Where is the massive literary tradition in Modern Scots of which English is merely a localised and vernacular version?
The cultural dominance of English largely consists in the fact that we all speak it, despite ludicrous pretense otherwise. |
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| agentmancuso |
My Slavic is limited to pivo, unfortunately. But I spent 6 months studying between Spain and Portugal, so have had a good look at those languages first-hand. An educated Spaniard could certainly make a decent stab at reading Portuguese, and vice versa, but the two languages could not, I'd think, be not mutually intelligible at the spoken level except between some very e |