Is Scots Gaelic a language in its own right or is it a dialect of Irish
Nick Durie
kenin how kittle thir twa terms can be I wish to ken exacklie whe'er it is
or not a langage till its ain?
I get incredibly annoyed when I hear it said that Scots is a dialect of
Ingliss sae Ah wadna wish tae dialectise oniebodies speech.
PS: I can write proper Scots but have a tendency to write more like the I
speak normally
sr
wrote:
>I have heard it said that Gaelic is a leid and also that it is a dialect.
>kenin how kittle thir twa terms can be I wish to ken exacklie whe'er it is
>or not a langage till its ain?
>
Gaelic originally came from Irish, but is now considered a separate
language. Maybe a little like Dutch and Afrikaans, only farther apart.
I'm not sure if they're mutually intelligible or not, but I don't
think they are, at least in speech.
Blkwatch14
Scottish USED to be "Erse" but I believe this is now defunct, as I have not
seen it used in a long while. I have always seen the two as a part of a whole,
and have not seen them grouped as seperate languages. There is, however, a
somewhat vast amount of difference between the 2 (refering to moden), that can
get very confusing. There are also different dialects of Gaelic, depending on
if you are in this or that county of Ireland, the same being for Scotland (the
Isles as well, seem to have their own dialect). I am still working on this
subject, but this is my understanding as it stands... anyone know anything?
Bri.
Elaine Stutt
> dialect" is a putdown, & an odd one at that, with the idea that an
> arbitrarily chosen dialect of the language is the "real" language, &
> the others "only" dialects. All languages are dialects, all dialects
> are languages. When you get down to it, we all speak individual
> ideolects anyways. Who cares where the line is?
>
> --
> Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin
> abardubh at enteract dot com
> Tá m'aerbhád lán d'eascanna
My linguistics teacher would qualify a lot and mostly agree with you.
As for me, I'm in shock. A long post from Gear*id...maybe it was that
plantary conjunction or that solar storm. What's next ?
Elaine cu...@ncf.ca
Nick Durie
Blkwatch14 <blkwa...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000408000910...@ng-fx1.aol.com...
> Scots is a dialect.
Gin yer gaun tae mak sic kittle threipins man Ah wad like tae see hou ye can
mak thaim akis Eh fynd sic glaikit haivers sair an uggen an Eh trew ye juist
scartit at tae kittle iz!
Gaelic is a language. I believe the Irish is "Gaelige" and
> Scottish USED to be "Erse"
yep Burns used it when he wrote "wad ding a' Lallan tongue or Erse, In Prose
or Rhyme" (Address To The Deil)
but I believe this is now defunct, as I have not
> seen it used in a long while.
Most Scots speakers would use Erisch
I have always seen the two as a part of a whole,
> and have not seen them grouped as seperate languages.
But you must bear in mind that if they do not comply with the statement
"that a language is a series of mutually intelligible dialects" then most
people would not consider them a dialects but languages. Most linguists
tend rather to talk about varieties of language then dialects because, as is
well seen by my personal distaste of any dialectising of Scots, it tends to
offend - it shouldn't but, since most people think of dialects as something
lower than a language, nobody likes to think of as speaking a dialect, or
writing one for that matter - and since many 'languages' are mutually
intelligible to other 'languages,'eg. the aforementioned Dutch and Afrikaans
given the acolade language purely for political reasons. And this strange
effect of politics can be seen in the example of a region in Sweden whose
language was seen to be a dialect of Danish but then when after a change in
politics this same dialect became a dialect of a different language
altogether after the politics changed. Taking this political thing further
the two languages, and no one would argue that they're not, Spanish and
Potuguese didn't differ in their written form until the sixteenth centuary -
incidentally this is two centuries later than Scots has differed from
English.
There is, however, a
> somewhat vast amount of difference between the 2 (refering to moden), that
can
> get very confusing.
Are we talking difference between knaw and know or ken and know
There are also different dialects of Gaelic
Sounds suspiciously like we're talking different language.
, depending on
> if you are in this or that county of Ireland, the same being for Scotland
(the
> Isles as well, seem to have their own dialect). I am still working on this
> subject, but this is my understanding as it stands... anyone know
anything?
>
> Bri.
I know Erisch and Irish differ in their written form and Erse has a strong
literary tradition, a condition which to some linguists qualifies a tongue
to be a language alone. I do personaly believe with what has been told to
me that Gaelic is a language in its own right but I posted my query to read
what real speakers have to say on the matter.
Nick Durie
Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin <Ger@r.d> wrote in message
news:uoftes06nbkkmartt...@4ax.com...
> Blkwatch14 wrote:
>
> >Scots is a dialect. Gaelic is a language.
>
>
> >I believe the Irish is "Gaelige"
>
> just called Irish.
>
> >and
> >Scottish USED to be "Erse"
>
> Germanic one.
>
> >but I believe this is now defunct, as I have not
> >seen it used in a long while.
>
> call Ireland the Free State.
>
> >I have always seen the two as a part of a whole,
> >and have not seen them grouped as seperate languages.
>
>
> >There is, however, a
> >somewhat vast amount of difference between the 2 (refering to moden),
>
>
> >that can
> >get very confusing. There are also different dialects of Gaelic,
depending on
> >if you are in this or that county of Ireland, the same being for Scotland
(the
> >Isles as well, seem to have their own dialect). I am still working on
this
> >subject, but this is my understanding as it stands... anyone know
anything?
>
> far apart as you can get in English
I hope you were refering to Glaswegian English rather than the patter.
, in all probability, & arguably
> mutually unintelligible.
really would a Jamaican who has no prior exposure to a fluent Glesca Scoats
speiker bi siccar whit wirds sic as fykie; fitterie; gar; scutter; guddle;
malagrugous; sib etc.
Are they separate languages? I don't know,
> to be honest. The same might be said of Scottish & Kerry Irish. Or
> even, perhaps, of Donegal & Kerry Irish. Where do you draw the line?
> IMO, it depends on whether there's a continuum. There isn't one
> between Irish & Scottish, hasn't been for a long time.
This is getting interesting - please elaborate!
The speakers
> are separated, they've developed separately under different
> conditions, the orthography is different (the last being the least
> relevant difference, IMO). There is continuity between the various
> English dialects, & speakers of all English dialects use the same
> orthography, more or less.
I hate to be dreich here but no English speaker would say "Ah s' can dae it
the morn" a Scots speaker would
Part of the decision to decide what's
> language is political, part cultural, part linguistic. FWIW, AFAIK
> Scots is usually classed by linguists as a separate language to
> English, as Irish & Scottish are classified as distinct languages.
> Mostly though, its not worth losing any sleep over. "Its only a
> dialect" is a putdown, & an odd one at that, with the idea that an
> arbitrarily chosen dialect of the language is the "real" language, &
> the others "only" dialects. All languages are dialects, all dialects
> are languages.
An interesting point after all who's to say whether "Ah'm gowin tit shop" is
any lower than "I'm going to the shop." In many respects especially with
English English it tends to be a class issue.
sr
>But you must bear in mind that if they do not comply with the statement
>"that a language is a series of mutually intelligible dialects" then most
>people would not consider them a dialects but languages. Most linguists
>tend rather to talk about varieties of language then dialects because, as is
>well seen by my personal distaste of any dialectising of Scots, it tends to
>offend - it shouldn't but, since most people think of dialects as something
>lower than a language, nobody likes to think of as speaking a dialect, or
>writing one for that matter - and since many 'languages' are mutually
>intelligible to other 'languages,'eg. the aforementioned Dutch and Afrikaans
>given the acolade language purely for political reasons. And this strange
>effect of politics can be seen in the example of a region in Sweden whose
>language was seen to be a dialect of Danish but then when after a change in
>politics this same dialect became a dialect of a different language
>altogether after the politics changed. Taking this political thing further
>the two languages, and no one would argue that they're not, Spanish and
>Potuguese didn't differ in their written form until the sixteenth centuary -
>incidentally this is two centuries later than Scots has differed from
>English.
>
>
>literary tradition, a condition which to some linguists qualifies a tongue
>to be a language alone. I do personaly believe with what has been told to
>me that Gaelic is a language in its own right but I posted my query to read
>what real speakers have to say on the matter.
>
Probably one of the best examples of this political division is that
of Serbian and Croatian. Actually, it's probably more religious than
political reasons, I suppose. Essentially the same language, and by
many considered one language (eg. Serbo-Croatian), however most
linguists consider them two languages.
Afrikaans, however, has been a separate language since the 1700's, and
although similar to Dutch, is still quite different grammatically,
etc. It's very simplified, and probably isn't too far from the "Scots
language".
As you can see, (and I don't mean to offend in the least), I don't
accept Scots as a language. It's just that when it comes down to it,
Scots is just too much like English when compared to dialects of other
languages, even if it is sometimes difficult to understand. Chinese,
for example, has, and forgive the exaggeration, billions of mutually
unintelligible "dialects", but they are still considered dialects.
(Mutually unintelligible in speech, anyway). Why are they considered
dialects? Not sure. As was noted, the line is extremely fuzzy and open
to interpretation... As a North American, sometimes it's very
difficult for me to understand British or Scottish or Irish accents,
but does that mean they should be languages? I've never been to
London, but the legend over here is that every street has its own
dialect... That's what makes languages so interesting.
Alan Smaill
> Blkwatch14 wrote:
>
> >Scots is a dialect. Gaelic is a language.
>
> & vice versa, with a simple tweaking of definitions.
>
> >I believe the Irish is "Gaelige"
>
> True. Or even 'Gaelic', & sometimes Gaidhlig. Mostly though, its
> just called Irish.
>
> >and
> >Scottish USED to be "Erse"
>
> True, if by Scottish you mean the Celtic language, as opposed to the
> Germanic one.
Irish used to be "Erse", by this account.
> >but I believe this is now defunct, as I have not
> >seen it used in a long while.
>
> Still used occasionally, but then again, there are people who still
> call Ireland the Free State.
>
> >I have always seen the two as a part of a whole,
> >and have not seen them grouped as seperate languages.
>
> Scots/English, or Scottish/Irish?
>
> >There is, however, a
> >somewhat vast amount of difference between the 2 (refering to moden),
>
> Which two? :)
>
> >that can
> >get very confusing. There are also different dialects of Gaelic, depending on
> >if you are in this or that county of Ireland, the same being for Scotland (the
> >Isles as well, seem to have their own dialect). I am still working on this
> >subject, but this is my understanding as it stands... anyone know anything?
>
> English is a language. Two dialects like Glaswegian & Jamaican are as
> far apart as you can get in English, in all probability, & arguably
> mutually unintelligible. Are they separate languages? I don't know,
> to be honest. The same might be said of Scottish & Kerry Irish.
What is Scottish Irish?
You overstep the mark here ....
> Or
> even, perhaps, of Donegal & Kerry Irish. Where do you draw the line?
> IMO, it depends on whether there's a continuum. There isn't one
> between Irish & Scottish, hasn't been for a long time.
Debatable.
> The speakers
> are separated, they've developed separately under different
> conditions, the orthography is different (the last being the least
> relevant difference, IMO). There is continuity between the various
> English dialects, & speakers of all English dialects use the same
> orthography, more or less.
Where might there be boundaries?
As you say, the orthography is not the issue.
My feeling is that between RP and the NE Scotland doric
is a bigger distance than between any Gaelic dialects.
Of course, this is a different claim from yours, but
still relevant.
How far is it from Donegal to Islay?
Is there still some Gaelic in Rathlin?
> Part of the decision to decide what's
> language is political, part cultural, part linguistic. FWIW, AFAIK
> Scots is usually classed by linguists as a separate language to
> English, as Irish & Scottish are classified as distinct languages.
"Scottish" is not the normal terminology for the local Celtic
language hereabouts.
> Mostly though, its not worth losing any sleep over. "Its only a
> dialect" is a putdown, & an odd one at that, with the idea that an
> arbitrarily chosen dialect of the language is the "real" language, &
> the others "only" dialects. All languages are dialects, all dialects
> are languages. When you get down to it, we all speak individual
> ideolects anyways. Who cares where the line is?
Agreed.
> --
> Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin
> abardubh at enteract dot com
> Tá m'aerbhád lán d'eascanna
--
Alan Smaill email: A.Sm...@ed.ac.uk
Division of Informatics tel: 44-131-650-2710
Edinburgh University
Alan Smaill
> In short, the dialects from East Ulster & Rathlin, which bridged the
> gaps between West Ulster(Donegal) & Scotland, no longer exist. Even
> if they did, the languages have been developing separately since at
> least 1600. Scots & English, OTOH, have been growing closer together
> over the same time period. Before 1600 the Gaelics were diverging,
> but at least they was a common literature to act as a unifying force.
What was the pre-1600 Gaelic literature?
I understand a common linguistic heritage, but that's
not the same.
> English speakers would, however, understand it
what's "it" here?
> in all probability, and
> in writing both speakers would use the same standard grammar &
> spelling.
Well, certainly not before 1600; The Scottish and English grammar and
spelling were clearly different (James VI's book on the difference
between Scottish and English poetry is an example of the recognition
of the difference).
> & as I say, arguably, English speakers would say the above.
> You'd just reclassify them as Scots speakers. There is no single
> "English", not even the strangled cat accent the Queen uses. Every
> speaker, be they Cockney, Georgie, Teuchter, or Kerryman, is an
> English speaker. There's a family of dialects, nested & overlapping..
Um, yes, just like families of Gaelic languages, no ?
Nick Durie
Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin <Ger@r.d> wrote in message
> Nick Durie wrote:
> [..]
> >> English is a language. Two dialects like Glaswegian & Jamaican are as
> >
> >I hope you were refering to Glaswegian English rather than the patter.
>
>
> [..]
> >>Are they separate languages? I don't know,
> >> even, perhaps, of Donegal & Kerry Irish. Where do you draw the line?
> >> IMO, it depends on whether there's a continuum. There isn't one
> >> between Irish & Scottish, hasn't been for a long time.
> >
>
> gaps between West Ulster(Donegal) & Scotland, no longer exist. Even
> if they did, the languages have been developing separately since at
> least 1600. Scots & English, OTOH, have been growing closer together
> over the same time period.
No they were moving apart until the Bible thing followed by the big sell
(Unionist, such as they are, call this the act of Union). I would call
growing closer destruction but, there ye go.
Before 1600 the Gaelics were diverging,
> but at least they was a common literature to act as a unifying force.
>
> As to Kerry & Donegal differences, I'm from Donegal, & there are days
> when I have trouble understanding Kerrymen in any language.
There arn't all drunk when you speak to them are they?
> [..]
> >There is continuity between the various
> >> English dialects, & speakers of all English dialects use the same
> >> orthography, more or less.
> >
> >I hate to be dreich here but no English speaker would say "Ah s' can dae
it
> >the morn" a Scots speaker would
Look! Dutch looks very like English as well but does that make it a
dialect!!!
the grammer in the above sentence is totally different in English "I shall
be able to do it tommorow"
>
> English speakers would, however, understand it in all probability,
Yes but I can understand a lot of written French because of the similarity
with English but does that mean I speak it - NO!
and
> in writing both speakers would use the same standard grammar &
> spelling. & as I say, arguably, English speakers would say the above.
> You'd just reclassify them as Scots speakers. There is no single
> "English", not even the strangled cat accent the Queen uses.
Praise be unto the lord your not a Royalist Queen loving veggie!
Every
> speaker, be they Cockney, Georgie, Teuchter, or Kerryman, is an
> English speaker. There's a family of dialects, nested & overlapping..
A philosophical perspective I think, I know a man who simply doesn't care
and believes we should all speak exactly the same language - mahsel Ah trew
at sic a threipins uggen eneuch tae gar a bodie seick!
By the way, liguistically, the border between Scotland and England is
regarded as perhaps the strongest 'dialect' border in Europe. A northern
Englander might well say stane and hame and makkit and wis instead of were
but he would likely only use these Anglian expresstions rarely and he would
use mainly English grammer whereas a Scots speaker - these people do exist,
I have spoken with them - would use mostly Scots grammer which is quite
different.
Nick Durie
sr <bhi...@myhome.com> wrote in message
news:eNHvOK9=z=5bT4fEAr0...@4ax.com...
I didn't know that and was under the impresion that they were practically
the same therefore I retract the statements I made about it
> etc. It's very simplified, and probably isn't too far from the "Scots
> language".
>
> As you can see, (and I don't mean to offend in the least), I don't
> accept Scots as a language.
Can you speak it? I do not mean to be rude but I have argued with people in
past (usually offline if that's significant) who haven't the foggiest of how
to express themselves in Scots yet they are willing to argue about it simply
because Scotland is a 'region' anyway and how could it have it's own two
languages?
It's just that when it comes down to it,
> Scots is just too much like English when compared to dialects
I don't mean to hijack the debate here because this is supposed to be about
Gaelic but if you're going to say that at least provide some evidence.
of other
> languages, even if it is sometimes difficult to understand. Chinese,
> for example, has, and forgive the exaggeration, billions of mutually
> unintelligible "dialects", but they are still considered dialects.
(Mutually unintelligible in speech, anyway).
Doesn't mean they are besides the whole of China has one writing system
which was wrought upon them by the Great Emperor in order to solidify his
conquest and that was over two thousand years ago.
Why are they considered
> dialects? Not sure.
Politics
As was noted, the line is extremely fuzzy and open
> to interpretation... As a North American, sometimes it's very
> difficult for me to understand British or Scottish or Irish accents,
let us clear up the terms here: accents are just the way folk sound,
dialects are where you have different words, grammer etc but when it is
still close enough to be mutually intelligible and languages are where it is
too far from the other manner of speak to be easily understandable but they
can still be close eg Portuguese and Spanish or Occitan and Catalan.
> but does that mean they should be languages? I've never been to
> London, but the legend over here is that every street has its own
> dialect...
I should be careful here if I were you because I do not know of anything
other than Cockney rhyming slang which has different words or terms or
grammer
>That's what makes languages so interesting.
Agreed.
sr
>> As you can see, (and I don't mean to offend in the least), I don't
>> accept Scots as a language.
>
>Can you speak it? I do not mean to be rude but I have argued with people in
>past (usually offline if that's significant) who haven't the foggiest of how
>to express themselves in Scots yet they are willing to argue about it simply
>because Scotland is a 'region' anyway and how could it have it's own two
>languages?
>
No, I can't speak Scots, but I can't speak British English, either.
But I still don't think that I speak a different language than that of
the UK.
>It's just that when it comes down to it,
>> Scots is just too much like English when compared to dialects
>
>I don't mean to hijack the debate here because this is supposed to be about
>Gaelic but if you're going to say that at least provide some evidence.
Hey, don't worry about going off topic. I've been looking everywhere
for a linguistic debate. These things tend to go off in tangents. I'm
just glad there's people out there to discuss things like this with.
Anyway, I've known people who have gone to Jamaica, for example, and
said that many times they had difficulty understanding the language
there. I've even heard the same of Canadians going to Newfoundland,
and finding out, in some areas, that they can't understand the people.
There's no doubt that for these people, these Jamaican and
Newfoundland versions of English wouldn't be any easier to understand
than Scots. This is of course not only because of pronounciation, but
because of exclusive words which have entered the language via the
culture of the people that live there. So why would Scots be
considered a language while these aren't?
> of other
>> languages, even if it is sometimes difficult to understand. Chinese,
>> for example, has, and forgive the exaggeration, billions of mutually
>> unintelligible "dialects", but they are still considered dialects.
>(Mutually unintelligible in speech, anyway).
>
>Doesn't mean they are besides the whole of China has one writing system
>which was wrought upon them by the Great Emperor in order to solidify his
>conquest and that was over two thousand years ago.
>
> Why are they considered
>> dialects? Not sure.
>
>Politics
>
>As was noted, the line is extremely fuzzy and open
>> to interpretation... As a North American, sometimes it's very
>> difficult for me to understand British or Scottish or Irish accents,
>
>let us clear up the terms here: accents are just the way folk sound,
>dialects are where you have different words, grammer etc but when it is
>still close enough to be mutually intelligible and languages are where it is
>too far from the other manner of speak to be easily understandable but they
>can still be close eg Portuguese and Spanish or Occitan and Catalan.
>
I'm not sure I agree. Czech and Slovak, for example, are, apparently,
completely mutually intelligible, but would never be considered
dialects of one another. Also, I think accent is a huge part of what
defines a dialect. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of
the English language a dialect is: "A regional variety of a language
distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary". And the
Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "A dialect may be distinguished from
other dialects of the same language by features of any part of the
linguistic structure--the phonology, morphology, or syntax. In the
sound system of American English, for example, certain dialects
distinguish the vowel in "caught" from that in "cot," while others do
not, and in some dialects "greasy" is pronounced with an s sound and
in others with a z sound."
It's obvious, because of all the controversy, that Scots lies near the
language-dialect border, wherever that may be. Some think it's a
language, some don't. I need more convincing before I do.
Languages, by the way, are, in my opinion, dialects of themselves. Eg)
There's American English, Canadian English, Irish English, Scottish
English, New Zealand English, etc... Where's English? There's no one
language of which all these are dialects. (Sorry, I'm not sure what
this has to do with anything, I got started on it and it kind of
fizzled off somewhere)
>> but does that mean they should be languages? I've never been to
>> London, but the legend over here is that every street has its own
>> dialect...
>
>I should be careful here if I were you because I do not know of anything
>other than Cockney rhyming slang which has different words or terms or
>grammer
Like I say, I consider accent a major part of dialect.
>>That's what makes languages so interesting.
For me, the most interesting of which, is the one that you first
wanted to know about, Gaelic. It is such an amazing language! Just
more of my ramblings...
>Agreed
Stephen Copinger
Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin wrote in message ...
<snipping all the serious stuff>
>Does it matter, if they're not talking to each other? AFAIK RnG isn't
>available in Scotland, any more than BBC Alba has a high listenership
>in Ireland.
>
But doesn't TnaG still show "Machair", among other Scots Gaelic programmes?
Beannachd leibh
Stephen
Stephen Copinger
sr wrote in message ...
<snip>
>There's no doubt that for these people, these Jamaican and
>Newfoundland versions of English wouldn't be any easier to understand
>than Scots. This is of course not only because of pronounciation, but
>because of exclusive words which have entered the language via the
>culture of the people that live there. So why would Scots be
>considered a language while these aren't?
Because the Scots language existed in the C14th in parallel to the English
language?
From Chambers Concise Scots Dictionary
"Continuous written records of Early Scots begin in 1376 with John Barbour's
great poem _Brus_ ...
Gradually an ever wider range of prose and verse genres was written in
Scots, so that, by the second half of the fifteenth century Older Scots
became the principal literary and record language of the Scottish nation,
having successfully competed in this function with Latin. Hence in the later
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were two national languages in use
in Britian, metropolitan Tudor English in the kingdom of England, and
metropolitan Older Scots in the kingdom of Scotland. Though these were
politically or socially separate languages, linguistically they were
distinct but quite closely related dialects, much as is the case with the
Scandinavian languages today."
Scots and English originated in the same roots, developed separately with
the different influences on each, then latterly English tended to supplant
Scots in Scotland with people drifting from Scots to a Scots-English creole
and then to a Scots flavoured English as in the modern Scottish Standard
English.
Beannachd leibh
Stephen
Nick Durie
> Newfoundland versions of English wouldn't be any easier to understand
> than Scots. This is of course not only because of pronounciation, but
> because of exclusive words which have entered the language via the
> culture of the people that live there. So why would Scots be
> considered a language while these aren't?
Because the SNDA has a list 65,000 words long of words which are different
in range of use, pronounciation and spelling etc. - I would like to see any
English dialect match that!
Aye "distinct" but na ower chyngit fae the ither leid whilk it's sib tae tae
nae bi unnerstoud bi thaim tha trews it's a byleid! Ah daena ken aither
Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae Ingliss wird fir
scunner, ugg, scomfiss, smore, scrieve, scart, schlorich, an a muckle whein
ithers whilk Ah cannae bi erst pi'en doun.
Scots has an extra consonant for one thing and I believe many of these
Eastren (Scots) European counties have there own unique literary traditions
and there own letters or sounds (just like Scots).
And the
> Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "A dialect may be distinguished from
> other dialects of the same language by features of any part of the
> linguistic structure--the phonology, morphology, or syntax. In the
> sound system of American English, for example, certain dialects
> distinguish the vowel in "caught" from that in "cot," while others do
> not, and in some dialects "greasy" is pronounced with an s sound and
> in others with a z sound."
Look let me get this through. Scots has it's own words for instance here
are all the synonyms for small: wee; scoutie; tottie; sma; bit - this one
can only be used as a reductive idiom. " the bit breid"
Virtually every second word in English has a uniquely Scots equivalent
whether that be a cognate form or an unrelated word.
Words generally have their roots in both languages eg. feart(Scots) -
afeard(English, archaic)
afore(Scots) - afore(English, archaic)
sinder(Scots) - sunder(English, archaic)
atween(Scots - atween(English, archaic)
>
> It's obvious, because of all the controversy, that Scots lies near the
> language-dialect border, wherever that may be. Some think it's a
> language, some don't. I need more convincing before I do.
Get yersel a copie o CSD afore ye mak oniemair jalousins - see SNDA wabsteid
>
> Languages, by the way, are, in my opinion, dialects of themselves. Eg)
> There's American English, Canadian English, Irish English, Scottish
> English, New Zealand English, etc... Where's English? There's no one
> language of which all these are dialects. (Sorry, I'm not sure what
> this has to do with anything, I got started on it and it kind of
> fizzled off somewhere)
Scots his monie a byleid o its ain!
>
> >> but does that mean they should be languages? I've never been to
> >> London, but the legend over here is that every street has its own
> >> dialect...
> >
> >I should be careful here if I were you because I do not know of anything
> >other than Cockney rhyming slang which has different words or terms or
> >grammer
>
> Like I say, I consider accent a major part of dialect.
accent is juist a wey o seyin diphthongs it's nae the same's hivin unlike
wirds an aa tha gremmer gear!
>
>
> >>That's what makes languages so interesting.
>
> For me, the most interesting of which, is the one that you first
> wanted to know about, Gaelic. It is such an amazing language! Just
> more of my ramblings...
Hou daes a bodie speik the Gaelic screivins kis thar unca orrae till iz?
Divna gie iz onie phoneticks akis Ah cannae reid thaim.
>
> >Agreed
>
>
sr
I'd also like to straighten something out. If someone living in a
different part of the country than I am uses the exact same words,
same grammar, constructions, etc.. but pronounces those words
differently (in other words, we have different accents), they are
dialects. Dialect doesn't just include differences in words and
grammar. Just to clarify...
Alan Smaill
Nick Durie
Stephen Copinger <S-Cop...@zetnet.co.bounce.uk> wrote in message
news:38f13a99$0$5...@news.zetnet.co.uk...
>
> sr wrote in message ...
> <snip>
> >Newfoundland versions of English wouldn't be any easier to understand
> >than Scots. This is of course not only because of pronounciation, but
> >because of exclusive words which have entered the language via the
> >culture of the people that live there. So why would Scots be
> >considered a language while these aren't?
>
>
> language?
> From Chambers Concise Scots Dictionary
That's just the publisher the work was done by the SNDA
> "Continuous written records of Early Scots begin in 1376 with John
Barbour's
> great poem _Brus_ ...
> Gradually an ever wider range of prose and verse genres was written in
> Scots, so that, by the second half of the fifteenth century Older Scots
> became the principal literary and record language of the Scottish nation,
> having successfully competed in this function with Latin. Hence in the
later
> fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were two national languages in use
> in Britian, metropolitan Tudor English in the kingdom of England, and
> metropolitan Older Scots in the kingdom of Scotland. Though these were
> politically or socially separate languages, linguistically they were
> distinct but quite closely related dialects, much as is the case with the
> Scandinavian languages today."
>
>
> Scots and English originated in the same roots, developed separately with
> the different influences on each, then latterly English tended to supplant
> Scots in Scotland with people drifting from Scots to a Scots-English
creole
> and then to a Scots flavoured English as in the modern Scottish Standard
> English.
Yes and these days it tends to be American English supplanting British
English as few young people can even manage to speak Scottish Standard
English in my area - even very common terms such as dreich and brah/braw
seem to confuse them, it is testament to the effect television can have on a
people as before its invention everyone here could understand full
Scots(with the possible exception of Gaelic regions).
>
> Beannachd leibh
> Stephen
>
>
Nick Durie
>
> I'd also like to straighten something out. If someone living in a
> different part of the country than I am uses the exact same words,
> same grammar, constructions, etc.. but pronounces those words
> differently (in other words, we have different accents), they are
> dialects. Dialect doesn't just include differences in words and
> grammar. Just to clarify...
I know a Ukranian Russian speaker who speaks English perfectly but sounds
different from me - does this mean he speaks a Ukranian dialect of English,
I shouldn't think so.
Stephen Copinger
Nick Durie wrote in message <38f38...@news2.cluster1.telinco.net>...
<snip>
>> From Chambers Concise Scots Dictionary
>
>That's just the publisher the work was done by the SNDA
>
<snip>
>> Scots and English originated in the same roots, developed separately with
>> the different influences on each, then latterly English tended to
supplant
>> Scots in Scotland with people drifting from Scots to a Scots-English
creole
>> and then to a Scots flavoured English as in the modern Scottish Standard
>> English.
>
>Yes and these days it tends to be American English supplanting British
>English as few young people can even manage to speak Scottish Standard
>English in my area - even very common terms such as dreich and brah/braw
>seem to confuse them, it is testament to the effect television can have on
a
>people as before its invention everyone here could understand full
>Scots(with the possible exception of Gaelic regions).
>
AIUI there is also a study going on about the effects of "Sarf English"
accents on Scottish children whose sole influence is via broadcasting. The
initial results are apparently that specific sounds are being adopted by the
children into their ordinary local accent while not affecting their
vocabulary. Anyone who has more complete details on this, it would be
appreciated.
Beannachd leibh
Stephen
Stephen Copinger
Nick Durie wrote in message <38f27...@news2.cluster1.telinco.net>...
<snip>
>Aye "distinct" but na ower chyngit fae the ither leid whilk it's sib tae
tae
>nae bi unnerstoud bi thaim tha trews it's a byleid! Ah daena ken aither
>Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae Ingliss wird fir
>scunner, ugg, scomfiss, smore, scrieve, scart, schlorich, an a muckle whein
>ithers whilk Ah cannae bi erst pi'en doun.
>
<snip>
>> For me, the most interesting of which, is the one that you first
>> wanted to know about, Gaelic. It is such an amazing language! Just
>> more of my ramblings...
>
>Hou daes a bodie speik the Gaelic screivins kis thar unca orrae till iz?
>Divna gie iz onie phoneticks akis Ah cannae reid thaim.
Like what in particular? It's easy enough, you take the syllables not
individual letters.
Beannachd leibh
Stephen
Aidan J Meehan
Nick Durie <Nick_...@bun.com> wrote in message
news:38f27...@news2.cluster1.telinco.net...
>
> sr <bhi...@myhome.com> wrote in message
> news:u+rwOFj8QsAXwQ...@4ax.com...
> > >>
> > >> As you can see, (and I don't mean to offend in the least), I don't
> > >> accept Scots as a language.
The poster is quite correct not to accept Scots as a language. It is not a
language, in the linguistic sense.
> > >
> > >Can you speak it? I do not mean to be rude but I have argued with
people
> in
> > >past (usually offline if that's significant) who haven't the foggiest
of
> how
> > >to express themselves in Scots yet they are willing to argue about it
> simply
> > >because Scotland is a 'region' anyway and how could it have it's own
two
> > >languages?
> > >
The fact that you can speak it, Nick, does not classify it as a language in
its own right, apart from English. It is not necessary to speak it to know
that it is a variant of English, comparable to any other regional dialect.
It is a unique dialect, distinctive, and has a rich heritage behind it. But
it is English.
> >
> > No, I can't speak Scots, but I can't speak British English, either.
> > But I still don't think that I speak a different language than that of
> > the UK.
> >
> > >It's just that when it comes down to it,
> > >> Scots is just too much like English when compared to dialects
> > >
> > >I don't mean to hijack the debate here because this is supposed to be
> about
> > >Gaelic but if you're going to say that at least provide some evidence.
> >
> > Hey, don't worry about going off topic. I've been looking everywhere
> > for a linguistic debate. These things tend to go off in tangents. I'm
> > just glad there's people out there to discuss things like this with.
Nick, you are missing the point here. Gaelic is a different language, it has
evolved from the Celtic family of languages. Scots is rooted in English,
it's a dialect, not a language.
> > Anyway, I've known people who have gone to Jamaica, for example, and
> > said that many times they had difficulty understanding the language
> > there. I've even heard the same of Canadians going to Newfoundland,
> > and finding out, in some areas, that they can't understand the people.
> > There's no doubt that for these people, these Jamaican and
> > Newfoundland versions of English wouldn't be any easier to understand
> > than Scots. This is of course not only because of pronounciation, but
> > because of exclusive words which have entered the language via the
> > culture of the people that live there. So why would Scots be
> > considered a language while these aren't?
You are making good points, Scots is comparable to other dialects of
English, in that, if you didn't understand the linguistics involved, you
might think they were different languages. But this is not true.
>
> Because the SNDA has a list 65,000 words long of words which are different
> in range of use, pronounciation and spelling etc. - I would like to see
any
> English dialect match that!
Canada has it's own dictionary of Canadian English, for instance, that I am
sure has as many words in it that are not found in the Oxford dictionary, UK
edition. That doesn't make Canadian English a different language.
>
> >
> > > of other
> > >> languages, even if it is sometimes difficult to understand. Chinese,
> > >> for example, has, and forgive the exaggeration, billions of mutually
> > >> unintelligible "dialects", but they are still considered dialects.
> > >(Mutually unintelligible in speech, anyway).
> > >
> > >Doesn't mean they are besides the whole of China has one writing system
> > >which was wrought upon them by the Great Emperor in order to solidify
his
> > >conquest and that was over two thousand years ago.
Linguistics is a branch of study which is concerned with defining such
terms. Dialects are not languages in themselves. Scots is as much a dialect
of English as Cockney.
> > >
> > > Why are they considered
> > >> dialects? Not sure.
> > >
> > >Politics
Not at all. They are considered dialects because they are dialects.
> > >
> > >As was noted, the line is extremely fuzzy and open
> > >> to interpretation... As a North American, sometimes it's very
> > >> difficult for me to understand British or Scottish or Irish accents,
> > >
> > >let us clear up the terms here: accents are just the way folk sound,
> > >dialects are where you have different words, grammer etc but when it is
> > >still close enough to be mutually intelligible and languages are where
it
> is
> > >too far from the other manner of speak to be easily understandable but
> they
> > >can still be close eg Portuguese and Spanish or Occitan and Catalan.
> > >
> >
Scots is recognisable as a variant of English, the grammar and the structure
is the same, as well as most of the words. Once you recognise the
vocabulary, you can substitute Scots words for the English counterpart, and
that is essentially what makes it a dialect. The other consideration is
idiom, that is local turns of phrase, which may not be recognisable in any
other locality.
> > I'm not sure I agree. Czech and Slovak, for example, are, apparently,
> > completely mutually intelligible, but would never be considered
> > dialects of one another.
But English and Scots are actually mutually intelligible, as Scots is
considered generally to be a dialect of English.
>Also, I think accent is a huge part of what
> > defines a dialect. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of
> > the English language a dialect is: "A regional variety of a language
> > distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary".
Accent is not technically a definitive part of a dialect. A Scot speaking
conventional English in a Scottish accent is not speaking in the dialect,
but is speaking English with a regional accent. If an Irish person replies,
both speaking normally, there will be two different accents, but they are
neither one speaking a dialect. If the Scot then falls into Scots dialect,
and the Irish puts on the brogue, both might well be mutually
unintelligible, and a Londoner might understand neither.
>
> Aye "distinct" but na ower chyngit fae the ither leid whilk it's sib tae
tae
> nae bi unnerstoud bi thaim tha trews it's a byleid! Ah daena ken aither
> Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae Ingliss wird fir
> scunner, ugg, scomfiss, smore, scrieve, scart, schlorich, an a muckle
whein
> ithers whilk Ah cannae bi erst pi'en doun.
This is very obscure, and there are a number of words that I do not
recognise, but I can follow the gist of it, as an English speaker.
Compare the lines:
"Ah daena ken aither Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae
Ingliss wird fir scunner "
"I don't know either Czech or Slovak but what I do know is there's no
English word for *scunner*, "
This is clearly a form of English language.
>
> Scots has an extra consonant for one thing and I believe many of these
> Eastren (Scots) European counties have there own unique literary
traditions
> and there own letters or sounds (just like Scots).
This is simply a matter of standard and non-standard spelling. Whether
Eastern or Eastren, it is the same language.
>
> And the
> > Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "A dialect may be distinguished from
> > other dialects of the same language by features of any part of the
> > linguistic structure--the phonology, morphology, or syntax. In the
> > sound system of American English, for example, certain dialects
> > distinguish the vowel in "caught" from that in "cot," while others do
> > not, and in some dialects "greasy" is pronounced with an s sound and
> > in others with a z sound."
>
> Look let me get this through. Scots has it's own words for instance here
> are all the synonyms for small: wee; scoutie; tottie; sma; bit - this one
> can only be used as a reductive idiom. " the bit breid"
This is an example of local vocabulary. Ulster has a lot of peculiar words,
as well, some of them Scots, some from the Irish, others from archaic
English words that have disappeared from common usage elsewhere, including
Scotland. That's what makes the dialect distinctive, as a dialect.
>
> Virtually every second word in English has a uniquely Scots equivalent
> whether that be a cognate form or an unrelated word.
>
> Words generally have their roots in both languages eg. feart(Scots) -
> afeard(English, archaic)
>
> afore(Scots) - afore(English, archaic)
>
> sinder(Scots) - sunder(English, archaic)
>
> atween(Scots - atween(English, archaic)
These are variations of the same words, spelt differently. The Scots
spelling is vernacular, the English has been standardised by wider usage.
>
> >
> > It's obvious, because of all the controversy, that Scots lies near the
> > language-dialect border, wherever that may be. Some think it's a
> > language, some don't. I need more convincing before I do.
>
> Get yersel a copie o CSD afore ye mak oniemair jalousins - see SNDA
wabsteid
That's a thick brogue you have there, Nick, but it's still English.
"Get yourself a copy of CSD before you make anymore "jalousins" - see SNDA
"wabsteid" is, by and large intelligible English. You have proved the point,
Scots is a dialect of English, not a different language. Put this into
Gaelic, and you have a differnt language, whit different grammar, and
diferent word order. Gaelic is as differnt from English as, say, Greek.
>
> >
> > Languages, by the way, are, in my opinion, dialects of themselves. Eg)
> > There's American English, Canadian English, Irish English, Scottish
> > English, New Zealand English, etc... Where's English? There's no one
> > language of which all these are dialects. (Sorry, I'm not sure what
> > this has to do with anything, I got started on it and it kind of
> > fizzled off somewhere)
>
> Scots his monie a byleid o its ain!
There is standard English, and there are dialects. All the above are more or
less Standard English, one language.
> >
> > >> but does that mean they should be languages? I've never been to
> > >> London, but the legend over here is that every street has its own
> > >> dialect...
> > >
> > >I should be careful here if I were you because I do not know of
anything
> > >other than Cockney rhyming slang which has different words or terms or
> > >grammer
> >
> > Like I say, I consider accent a major part of dialect.
>
> accent is juist a wey o seyin diphthongs it's nae the same's hivin unlike
> wirds an aa tha gremmer gear!
" accent is just a way of saying dipthongs it's not the same as having
unlike words and all that grammar gear."
Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing here,
because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying, it
can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and not a
foreign language. If Scots were a different language, as you keep
suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above. Again,
you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
English reader. However, if you spoke that sentance, you could probably
pronouce it in such a way that I would not be able to make it out at all,
although a fellow Scot, familiar with your accent, and your dialect, might
understand readily.
>
> >
> >
> > >>That's what makes languages so interesting.
> >
> > For me, the most interesting of which, is the one that you first
> > wanted to know about, Gaelic. It is such an amazing language! Just
> > more of my ramblings...
>
> Hou daes a bodie speik the Gaelic screivins kis thar unca orrae till iz?
> Divna gie iz onie phoneticks akis Ah cannae reid thaim.
"How does a body speak the Gaelic ....(lost me there)?
Do not give us any phonetics as I cannot read them."
Okay, you are making it harder by introducing an obscure idiom.
But the point is, this is not Scots Gaelic, it is Scots English.
As to the subject of the thread, the relation between Gaelic and modern
Irish is that they are both dialects, much as English and Scots might be
traced back to Old English, itself unintelligible to both modern English and
Scots speakers, AFAIK.
Aidan
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
[deletions]
>But English and Scots are actually mutually intelligible, as Scots is
>considered generally to be a dialect of English.
>
I have excerpted this small portion and another of your response to Mr Durie,
although you make other points some of which I can agree with and others I
cannot.
But this particular ones seems to call for some definition of who it is that
"generally" considers Scots a dialect of English.
Looking up the language family tree for the Germanic family in the Ethnologue,
I find this branch:
"Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea (6)
"English (3)
"ANGLOROMANI [RME] (United Kingdom)
"ENGLISH [ENG] (United Kingdom)
"SCOTS [SCO] (United Kingdom)
"Frisian (3)
"FRISIAN, EASTERN [FRS] (Germany)
"FRISIAN, NORTHERN [FRR] (Germany)
"FRISIAN, WESTERN [FRI] (Netherlands)"
Which is to say that English and Scots, along with Angloromani (a language the
grammar of which is basically English with heavy Romani lexical borrowing and
with many dialects) are three separate subbranches of one part of the Germanic
family.
My point here is that the linguistic experts who are responsible for this
resource consider Scots and English to be separate languages.
>Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing here,
>because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
>understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying, it
>can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and not a
>foreign language. If Scots were a different language, as you keep
>suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above. Again,
>you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
>English reader. However, if you spoke that sentance, you could probably
>pronouce it in such a way that I would not be able to make it out at all,
>although a fellow Scot, familiar with your accent, and your dialect, might
>understand readily.
>
[deletions]
This is another idea, which you approach in various ways throughout your post,
that I want to react to, viz., mutual intelligibility as a litmus test for
language status.
If you look into it, you'll find frequent cases of a language with mutually
unintelligible dialects.
Likewise, some separate but related languages are mutually intelligible to one
degree or another.
For example, if the speaker is patient, I as a Russian speaker can usually make
out the sense of Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Polish, even in some cases other
Slavic languages; the written versions are even a little easier to understand.
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
http://members.aol.com/frajm/
"All over the room throats were being strained and minds broadened."
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Piccadilly Jim
Nick Durie
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20000413150850...@ng-fa1.aol.com...
> >considered generally to be a dialect of English.
> >
I haven't heard of that one, Angloromani, is that what is spoken by the
Romany in Britain today?
>
> My point here is that the linguistic experts who are responsible for this
> resource consider Scots and English to be separate languages.
>
Yes but why do they do that? I agree with them but as I'm not a linguist my
arguments do have anything technical in them.
> >Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing here,
> >because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
> >understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying,
it
> >can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and
not a
> >foreign language. If Scots were a different language, as you keep
> >suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above. Again,
> >you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
> >English reader. However, if you spoke that sentance, you could probably
> >pronouce it in such a way that I would not be able to make it out at all,
> >although a fellow Scot, familiar with your accent, and your dialect,
might
> >understand readily.
> >
> [deletions]
>
> This is another idea, which you approach in various ways throughout your
post,
> that I want to react to, viz., mutual intelligibility as a litmus test for
> language status.
Strangely enough Mr. Meehan didn't understand parts of it.
>
> If you look into it, you'll find frequent cases of a language with
mutually
> unintelligible dialects.
>
> Likewise, some separate but related languages are mutually intelligible to
one
> degree or another.
>
> For example, if the speaker is patient, I as a Russian speaker can usually
make
> out the sense of Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Polish, even in some cases
other
> Slavic languages; the written versions are even a little easier to
understand.
>
Just as even most Anglophones can make out some written French.
sr
Maloney) wrote:
>
>Looking up the language family tree for the Germanic family in the Ethnologue,
>I find this branch:
>
>"Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea (6)
>
>"English (3)
>
>"ANGLOROMANI [RME] (United Kingdom)
>"ENGLISH [ENG] (United Kingdom)
>"SCOTS [SCO] (United Kingdom)
>
>"Frisian (3)
>
>"FRISIAN, EASTERN [FRS] (Germany)
>"FRISIAN, NORTHERN [FRR] (Germany)
>"FRISIAN, WESTERN [FRI] (Netherlands)"
>
>Which is to say that English and Scots, along with Angloromani (a language the
>grammar of which is basically English with heavy Romani lexical borrowing and
>with many dialects) are three separate subbranches of one part of the Germanic
>family.
>
The languages here are English and Frisian... The others are branches
of those languages. Eg) Eastern, Northern, and Western Frisian are all
branches of the Frisian language, the language that I usually hear as
being the closest to English (with Dutch being the closest major
language, because Frisian is definitely not a major language.)
Nick Durie
Aidan J Meehan <ame...@direct.ca> wrote in message
news:SwiJ4.8738$H7.7...@brie.direct.ca...
>
> Nick Durie <Nick_...@bun.com> wrote in message
> news:38f27...@news2.cluster1.telinco.net...
> >
> > sr <bhi...@myhome.com> wrote in message
> > news:u+rwOFj8QsAXwQ...@4ax.com...
> > > >>
> > > >> As you can see, (and I don't mean to offend in the least), I don't
> > > >> accept Scots as a language.
>
> The poster is quite correct not to accept Scots as a language. It is not a
> language, in the linguistic sense.
>
Och aye sae ye ken aw about Scots div you. Eh wad wager a bodle ye divna!
> > > >
> > > >Can you speak it? I do not mean to be rude but I have argued with
> people
> > in
> > > >past (usually offline if that's significant) who haven't the foggiest
> of
> > how
> > > >to express themselves in Scots yet they are willing to argue about it
> > simply
> > > >because Scotland is a 'region' anyway and how could it have it's own
> two
> > > >languages?
> > > >
>
> The fact that you can speak it, Nick, does not classify it as a language
in
> its own right, apart from English.
Oh come on when did I argue that!
It is not necessary to speak it to know
> that it is a variant of English, comparable to any other regional dialect.
> It is a unique dialect, distinctive, and has a rich heritage behind it.
But
> it is English.
You say that I do not where is the evidence for your statement
>
> > >
> > > No, I can't speak Scots, but I can't speak British English, either.
> > > But I still don't think that I speak a different language than that of
> > > the UK.
> > >
> > > >It's just that when it comes down to it,
> > > >> Scots is just too much like English when compared to dialects
> > > >
> > > >I don't mean to hijack the debate here because this is supposed to be
> > about
> > > >Gaelic but if you're going to say that at least provide some
evidence.
> > >
> > > Hey, don't worry about going off topic. I've been looking everywhere
> > > for a linguistic debate. These things tend to go off in tangents. I'm
> > > just glad there's people out there to discuss things like this with.
>
> Nick, you are missing the point here. Gaelic is a different language, it
has
> evolved from the Celtic family of languages. Scots is rooted in English,
> it's a dialect, not a language.
The original post was concerned about whether Scots Gaelic had diverged
sufficiently from Irish Gaelic to be called a language, so perhaps I'm
"missing the point" but I would say that Scots isn't rooted in English if
Gaelic isn't rooted in Irish.
>
> > > Anyway, I've known people who have gone to Jamaica, for example, and
> > > said that many times they had difficulty understanding the language
> > > there. I've even heard the same of Canadians going to Newfoundland,
> > > and finding out, in some areas, that they can't understand the people.
> > > There's no doubt that for these people, these Jamaican and
> > > Newfoundland versions of English wouldn't be any easier to understand
> > > than Scots. This is of course not only because of pronounciation, but
> > > because of exclusive words which have entered the language via the
> > > culture of the people that live there. So why would Scots be
> > > considered a language while these aren't?
>
> You are making good points, Scots is comparable to other dialects of
> English, in that, if you didn't understand the linguistics involved, you
> might think they were different languages. But this is not true.
Look stop all your highfaluting nonsense about linguistics - you can't speak
Scots you don't even know some of the commonest words (scunner) so I would
argue that YOU don't "understand the linguistics involved."
>
> >
> > Because the SNDA has a list 65,000 words long of words which are
different
> > in range of use, pronounciation and spelling etc. - I would like to see
> any
> > English dialect match that!
>
> Canada has it's own dictionary of Canadian English, for instance, that I
am
> sure has as many words in it that are not found in the Oxford dictionary,
UK
> edition. That doesn't make Canadian English a different language.
>
This is fact! If you took all the English dialects in the whole of England
and added up all the unique words; cognate forms etc you wouldn't even
scratch the surface of the number of words in Scots.
> >
> > >
> > > > of other
> > > >> languages, even if it is sometimes difficult to understand.
Chinese,
> > > >> for example, has, and forgive the exaggeration, billions of
mutually
> > > >> unintelligible "dialects", but they are still considered dialects.
> > > >(Mutually unintelligible in speech, anyway).
> > > >
> > > >Doesn't mean they are besides the whole of China has one writing
system
> > > >which was wrought upon them by the Great Emperor in order to solidify
> his
> > > >conquest and that was over two thousand years ago.
>
> Linguistics is a branch of study which is concerned with defining such
> terms. Dialects are not languages in themselves. Scots is as much a
dialect
> of English as Cockney.
>
repeat after me Cockney is a dialect Scots has not decided what it is!
> > > >
> > > > Why are they considered
> > > >> dialects? Not sure.
> > > >
> > > >Politics
>
> Not at all. They are considered dialects because they are dialects.
Oh really know a lot about Chinese 'dialects' do you!
>
> > > >
> > > >As was noted, the line is extremely fuzzy and open
> > > >> to interpretation... As a North American, sometimes it's very
> > > >> difficult for me to understand British or Scottish or Irish
accents,
>
> > > >
> > > >let us clear up the terms here: accents are just the way folk sound,
> > > >dialects are where you have different words, grammer etc but when it
is
> > > >still close enough to be mutually intelligible and languages are
where
> it
> > is
> > > >too far from the other manner of speak to be easily understandable
but
> > they
> > > >can still be close eg Portuguese and Spanish or Occitan and Catalan.
> > > >
> > >
>
> Scots is recognisable as a variant of English, the grammar and the
structure
> is the same, as well as most of the words.
Ye hivnae bin reidin the posts - the gremmer isnae the same ava. Tak tent o
thon
The man who bought the house
The chiel THAT boucht the houss
or aiblins
can ye big a bieldin sic as thon
Aye Ah MICHT CUID.
Once you recognise the
> vocabulary, you can substitute Scots words for the English counterpart,
and
> that is essentially what makes it a dialect. The other consideration is
> idiom, that is local turns of phrase, which may not be recognisable in any
> other locality.
>
>
> > > I'm not sure I agree. Czech and Slovak, for example, are, apparently,
> > > completely mutually intelligible, but would never be considered
> > > dialects of one another.
>
> But English and Scots are actually mutually intelligible, as Scots is
> considered generally to be a dialect of English.
ye cuidna owerset mah Scots sae hou can ye mak at argiement athout leein.
>
>
> >Also, I think accent is a huge part of what
> > > defines a dialect. According to The American Heritage Dictionary of
> > > the English language a dialect is: "A regional variety of a language
> > > distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary".
>
> Accent is not technically a definitive part of a dialect. A Scot speaking
> conventional English in a Scottish accent is not speaking in the dialect,
> but is speaking English with a regional accent. If an Irish person
replies,
> both speaking normally, there will be two different accents, but they are
> neither one speaking a dialect. If the Scot then falls into Scots dialect,
> and the Irish puts on the brogue, both might well be mutually
> unintelligible, and a Londoner might understand neither.
Exackly whit Ah argied!
>
> >
> > Aye "distinct" but na ower chyngit fae the ither leid whilk it's sib tae
> tae
> > nae bi unnerstoud bi thaim tha trews it's a byleid! Ah daena ken aither
> > Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae Ingliss wird fir
> > scunner, ugg, scomfiss, smore, scrieve, scart, schlorich, an a muckle
> whein
> > ithers whilk Ah cannae bi erst pi'en doun.
>
> This is very obscure, and there are a number of words that I do not
> recognise, but I can follow the gist of it, as an English speaker.
Obscure tae you but na till a Scoats speiker!
>
> Compare the lines:
> "Ah daena ken aither Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae
> Ingliss wird fir scunner "
>
> "I don't know either Czech or Slovak but what I do know is there's no
> English word for *scunner*, "
>
> This is clearly a form of English language.
hou can ye sey scunner's an Ingliss wird ye cuid aiblins ettle tae furthset
it.
Brogue in Scots means trick
>
> "Get yourself a copy of CSD before you make anymore "jalousins" - see SNDA
> "wabsteid" is, by and large intelligible English.
Sae whit?
You have proved the point,
> Scots is a dialect of English, not a different language. Put this into
> Gaelic, and you have a differnt language, whit different grammar, and
> diferent word order. Gaelic is as differnt from English as, say, Greek.
>
Whit a fusionless threapin. Baith Gaelic an Greek cam fae unlike curns o
leids
>
> >
> > >
> > > Languages, by the way, are, in my opinion, dialects of themselves. Eg)
> > > There's American English, Canadian English, Irish English, Scottish
> > > English, New Zealand English, etc... Where's English? There's no one
> > > language of which all these are dialects. (Sorry, I'm not sure what
> > > this has to do with anything, I got started on it and it kind of
> > > fizzled off somewhere)
> >
> > Scots his monie a byleid o its ain!
>
> There is standard English, and there are dialects. All the above are more
or
> less Standard English, one language.
'ats juist glaikit haivers.
>
> > >
> > > >> but does that mean they should be languages? I've never been to
> > > >> London, but the legend over here is that every street has its own
> > > >> dialect...
> > > >
> > > >I should be careful here if I were you because I do not know of
> anything
> > > >other than Cockney rhyming slang which has different words or terms
or
> > > >grammer
> > >
> > > Like I say, I consider accent a major part of dialect.
> >
>
>
> > accent is juist a wey o seyin diphthongs it's nae the same's hivin
unlike
> > wirds an aa tha gremmer gear!
>
> " accent is just a way of saying dipthongs it's not the same as having
> unlike words and all that grammar gear."
That's just because Scots and English have a lot of cognate forms.
>
> Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing here,
> because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
> understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying, it
> can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and not
a
> foreign language.
Okay if wrote in French here and you were not a French speaker but you
understood it because it was close to English - does that mean it was
written in English, I don't think so!
for instance the Dutch for welcome - I believe - is welkom but what does
that prove, nothing!
some words are exactly the same in German as they are in Scots, they're not
even cognate forms!
If Scots were a different language, as you keep
> suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above. Again,
> you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
> English reader. However, if you spoke that sentance, you could probably
> pronouce it in such a way that I would not be able to make it out at all,
> although a fellow Scot, familiar with your accent, and your dialect, might
> understand readily.
right read this:
Sp1: Yons an affy orra hing 'sno Bob.
Sp2: Aye it's sair an uggen tae see aa 'at fremmit keich camin intill wir
Kintra.
Sp1: Thi'r a richt reek camin fae it.
Sp2: Aye it's gey an malagrugous.
Sp1: Whit's 'at ye wis seyin Ah cannae hear ye ower the at laddie gollachin.
Sp2: Eh seys it wis scunnersome.
Sp1: Aye Ah'v ta'en a scomfish till 'at kinna hing mahsell syne mah dug wis
fellt bi tha MOD billie.
Sp2: Sneck up thars a chiel tha's heart wiz.
Sp1: binna feart Bob lyke as na he's juist some teuchter that thay'v broucht
in wi thaim.
Sp2: Shut yer geggie ye gyte he's tellt ane o thae sodgers about wiz.
Sp1: Ah keich!
Sp2: Are you glaikit lad get yer heid doun the callant's vizzyin his sho'er!
At wis juist mah scartin a bit storie but gin yer fir reidin furder tak tent
o thon:
Innin tae the first prent o Cairn
Professor Paul Dukes
As the pace o fit is aye cried progress hurtles forrit an the warlt
appears tae shrink, muckle o its varietie is in declyne, as are a raik o its
craturs. In Europe alane threatened tungs tak in Corsican, Gallician,
Occitan, Ladino an Sard. For aw at fowk hae ettled efter savin them, little
hope is held oot bi a pucklie experts for upper Sorb, Alsatian, Frisian,
Breton an wir ain Scotch Gaelic. As far as academic activitie is concerned,
gin text in microbiologie are nae langer furthset in Europe's second maist
muckle leid, German, can onie subjeck survive fur lang in fit fowk micht
cry the "lower rankers"?
Fither sclimmerin up a steip dubbie brae or no, the essays at come
efter maun richtlie deserve a warm welcome. They are the first scholarlie
endeavours on historie tae be furthset in Scots an maun be saluted as sic.
Forby, the eloquence o the owthers gien fresh lyfe tae their subjecks
fairlie
suggests this volume will no be the last.
Appropriately eneuch, the wark gets yokkit at hame wi an
unraivellin o the tangled cobbie o Scots culture, followed efter bi a
description o Jamie the Saxt haudin on tae his leid an learnin fan he teen
the Inglish croun. The 'hame' section lowses wi an explanation o South
Uist's variation o the pypin theme. The scene then gings tae Sweiden,
Dainmairk an Roushia, forby the new warlt far we're mindit that nae leid
nor historie is an island tae itsel. Indeed tae haud on tae onie leid fowk
maun chauve tae unnerstaun the historie o the communities as spak it an
maun forby tak tint o their counterparts baith near an far.
Monie congratulations, then, tae abidy concerned wi the biggin o
this jurnal, baith owthers and bysetters, for it is baith enjoyable an
informative. But lest they grow ower big fur their lernit waldie beets, they
maun myne that the goal they strive efter is awe furthered ower the years
bi sic owthers as Jessi Kesson an David Toulmin, tae myne juist a puckle
fae the Noreast - an bi millions o ithers gauin about their daily business
the
length o Scotlan bi spikin their leid.
The Wha's Wha o Contributors
Davie Horsburgh is a postgraduate student in the Depairtment o Celtic in
the
Univairsitie o Aiberdeen. In 1996 he wis taen on as a consultant fur the
Scots leid tae
the General Register Office (Scotlan). In 1994 he pit oot his first wark
Gaelic and
Scots in Grampian (Aiberdeen,1994) and haes seiveral ither linguistic warks
in prent or
in progress.
Dr. Grant Simpson, honorarie reader in Scottish historie in the
Univairsitie o
Aiberdeen, haes pitten oot an byset a raik o buiks an airticles on topics
gauin fae Scots
paleographie, Scottish Handwriting 1150-1650 (Embro, 1973) tae the Scots
militarie
diaspora, The Scottish Soldier Abroad 1247-1967 (Embro, 1992). Ithers tak
in; An
Historical Survey of the Scottish History Society (Embro, 1967), Edward I
and the
Throne of Scotland (Oxford, 1978), Old Aberdeen in the early 17th century
(Aiberdeen, 1980) an Scotland and the Low Countries 1124-1994 (East Lothian,
1996). These are but a wee snippit o a leit that space hinners wiz fae
printin.
Joshua Dickson is a graduate o the Depairtment o Celtic at the Univairsitie
o
Aiberdeen, an nou bydein at hame in his native Alaska. He is a gran pyper,
an fan he
bade in Scotlan, tak up baith Scots an Scots Gaelic tae fluencie. This is
his first Scots
airticle.
Alexia Grosjean is a postgraduate student in the Depairtment o Historie, in
the
Univairsitie o Aiberdeen. She haes furthset airticles on aspecks o
Scandinavian an
Scots historie. She is accomplished in a raik o leids gauin fae her native
Sweidish,
Frainch an Inglish, tae Gaelic, Flemish an (gey roostie she says) Hungarian.
She haes
bade in Aiberdeenshire for the last echt year, far she learnt Scots.
Steve Murdoch fae Aiberdeenshire is a postgraduate student in the
Depairtment
o Historie, in the Univairsitie o Aiberdeen. In 1996 he wes taen on as a
consultant fur
the Scots leid tae the General Register Office (Scotlan). He haes ower a
dizzen
historical an linguistic airticles oot includin the influential monograph
Language
Politics in Scotland (Aberdeen, 1995).
Dr. Marjory Harper is lecturer in historie in the Univairsitie o Aiberdeen.
She
haes screivit extensivelie in the field o Scots flittin owerseas,
contributin tae various
jurnals an buiks includin The Immigrant Experience (Guelph, 1992) an The
Texas State
Capitol (Austin,1995) amang ithers. She haes forby thon pitten oot a twa
volume
monograph, Emigration from North-East Scotland (Aiberdeen, 1988), an bydes
ae nou
in her faimilie's native Aiberdeenshire.
Dr. Dimitry Fedosov warks at the Moscow Academie o Science. He haes lang
screivit on the sibness atween Scotlan an Roushia, an haes juist pitten oot
twa
monographs; The Caledonian Connection (Aiberdeen, 1996), a leit o the Scots
in
Roushia afore the 1917 revolution, an Born Fechtin (Moscow,1996), a historie
o
medieval Scotlan tae the hinneren o the fourteent centurie. Forby thon he
haes owerset
an byset a wark o Robert Burns intae Roushian an is ettlin efter daein the
same for
John Barbour's The Brus.
Iain Hamilton fae Innerness, is a postgraduate in the Depairtment o Inglish
in
the Univairsitie o Aiberdeen. Tae pey his wey in his studies he his scrievit
monie
magazine an newspaper airticles, forby bein a professional musician. He
hauds a keen
interest in aw aspecks o Scots literature an historie.
Inhaudins
Pairt Ane: Scots at Hame
Davie Horsburgh MA 'The haill kintra is gat begunkit':
The thrawn historie o Scotlan's cultures
Dr Grant G Simpson King Jamie the Saxt; his leid, his leir an
his screives
Joshua Dickson MA 'Heidrum hodrum expoundit': A historie
o Sooth Uist's Ceol Mor tradition
Pairt Twa: Faurflittin Scots
Alexia Grosjean MA The 'Alternative Band': Scotlan's ties wi
Sweiden, 1550-1599
Steve Murdoch MA Robert Anstruther: A Stuart diplomat in
Norlan Europe, 1603-1625
Dr Marjory Harper Flittin owerseas fae the Noreast airt:
Inlets efter Union ?
Dr Dmitry Fedosov Scotsmen an the Roushian navie
Scance o Buiks
Iain Hamilton MacInnes, Clanship, Commerce and the
House of Stuart, 1603-1788
cairn &c carne &c 16- ; kairn &c la16-e18 [kern; NE forby kjarn]: n 1
A lanmairk, a mairker at the heid o a brae, a gadderie o stanes or
ither weichtie objecks. 2 On its ain, or thegither wi ithers, a wey o
guidin fowk in rouch or difficult terrain.
>
>
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > >>That's what makes languages so interesting.
> > >
> > > For me, the most interesting of which, is the one that you first
> > > wanted to know about, Gaelic. It is such an amazing language! Just
> > > more of my ramblings...
> >
>
> > Hou daes a bodie speik the Gaelic screivins kis thar unca orrae till iz?
> > Divna gie iz onie phoneticks akis Ah cannae reid thaim.
>
> "How does a body speak the Gaelic ....(lost me there)?
> Do not give us any phonetics as I cannot read them."
>
> Okay, you are making it harder by introducing an obscure idiom.
> But the point is, this is not Scots Gaelic, it is Scots English.
>
Get your facts straight that's not an idiom and it's certainly not obscure!
You only think it is because you are an Anglophone!
In Scots - just like English - there are several words for to write.
Scrieve means write easily.
unca/unco means, in this sense, unusually although there are a half dozen
other uses for it. Orrae/Orra means weird although again there are
different uses for it. In Scots (unlike English) there are emphatic forms
of verbs div is the emphatic form of dae.
> As to the subject of the thread, the relation between Gaelic and modern
> Irish is that they are both dialects, much as English and Scots might be
> traced back to Old English, itself unintelligible to both modern English
and
> Scots speakers, AFAIK.
Which is why I don't like the term Old English and prefer Anglian or SAxon
or Anglo-Saxon
>
> Aidan
Thank you for trying to argue your case - many would say Scots is a dialect
just coz!
sr
>> Scots is recognisable as a variant of English, the grammar and the
>structure
>> is the same, as well as most of the words.
>
>Ye hivnae bin reidin the posts - the gremmer isnae the same ava. Tak tent o
>thon
>
>The man who bought the house
>The chiel THAT boucht the houss
>
I'm sure there are some differences in grammar, so there must be a
better example than this. Most English speakers I know say "The man
that bought the house."
Also, take the above example "gremmer". This is obviously the Scots
version of "grammar". But you would say it's uniquely Scots because
it's spelled differently. However, it's spelled differently because
it's pronounced differently. If some English dialect had 65000 words
that were pronounced differently (than, say, "Standard" English,
whatever that may be), but they were spelled the same, why would it
not be considered a language? Go to any English-speaking region, and
there will be many words that are exclusive to that region. Even
though Scots supposedly has 65000 "different" words (of which I'm sure
many aren't even known to most Scots speakers), that is still an
extremely small amount when you consider the total vocabulary of
English. Whether Scots is a dialect of English or not, both have an
extremely large vocabulary. But I don't think that if Scots has a very
small percentage of words that are different than English, it should
be considered a separate language.
Stephen Copinger
Aidan J Meehan wrote in message ...
<snip>
>Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing here,
>because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
>understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying, it
>can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and not
a
>foreign language.
Ist klar Deutsch ist Englisch auch! Das ist verstandlich ergo...
>If Scots were a different language, as you keep
>suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above. Again,
>you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
>English reader.
What it actually shows that if Scots and English are separate languages they
are closely related ones, and it is generally agreed that they separated
about 1100, interacted with each other until about 1700 then started to
converge. By your test Scots Gaelic (Gaidhlig) and Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge)
are dialects, likewise Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. In each case it is
possible to deduce a reasonable understanding of most of what is said in one
from knowing another.
Really what is at question is the definition of a dialect, and that is only
argued because the word has connotations of the form of language being
"inferior" to some other form. There is of course the definition that "A
language is a dialect with an army". Unless of course they are the Dialects
from Dr Who :-)
Beannachd leibh
Stephen
Alan Smaill
> Whether Scots is a dialect of English or not, both have an
> small percentage of words that are different than English, it should
> be considered a separate language.
we kent ye'd hunkle doun, eftir aa --
weel spak "sr" !!
(whitna nem is yon ???)
sr
wrote:
>sr <bhi...@myhome.com> writes:
>
>> Whether Scots is a dialect of English or not, both have an
>> small percentage of words that are different than English, it should
>> be considered a separate language.
>
>we kent ye'd hunkle doun, eftir aa --
>weel spak "sr" !!
>(whitna nem is yon ???)
Nice try, read again :-)
SR
Aidan J Meehan
This makes sense to me. I don't see how Angloromani can be a separate
language if it is basically English grammar, with heavy Romani lexical
borrowings. And I can't see how a sentance in plain English, transcribed
phonetically to reflect the pronunciation of English words spoken in a
regional accent, is other than plain English, although the words might be
spelt differently from the norm.
Interesting that Angloromani is a cant, a cryptic language designed as a
kind of code. How can this be a language in its own right, if it is based on
the grammar of English. It seems to me analogous with Irish Ogham, or
Swedish Runes, which are not alphabets in their own right, but are ciphers,
substituting conventionalised symbols for the pre-existant letters of the
Latin alphabet. Greek, on the other hand, is a different script, a true
alphabet descended from a separate lineage, not a cipher for the Roman
alphabet. Perhaps I am expressing this clumsily, but I am trying to draw the
same analogy between a cant, or a dialect in which local vocabulary may be
substituted for standard vocabulary, and as a result the greater part of the
sentance will become clear, given a glossary of the dialect terms.
Aidan
Aidan J Meehan
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20000413150850...@ng-fa1.aol.com...
> [deletions]
> >But English and Scots are actually mutually intelligible, as Scots is
> >considered generally to be a dialect of English.
> [deletions]
> But this particular ones seems to call for some definition of who it is
that
> "generally" considers Scots a dialect of English.
>
> Looking up the language family tree for the Germanic family in the
Ethnologue,
> I find this branch:
>
> "Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea (6)
>
> "English (3)
>
> "ANGLOROMANI [RME] (United Kingdom)
> "ENGLISH [ENG] (United Kingdom)
> "SCOTS [SCO] (United Kingdom)
>
> "Frisian (3)
>
> "FRISIAN, EASTERN [FRS] (Germany)
> "FRISIAN, NORTHERN [FRR] (Germany)
> "FRISIAN, WESTERN [FRI] (Netherlands)"
>
> Which is to say that English and Scots, along with Angloromani (a language
the
> grammar of which is basically English with heavy Romani lexical borrowing
and
> with many dialects) are three separate subbranches of one part of the
Germanic
> family.
> My point here is that the linguistic experts who are responsible for this
> resource consider Scots and English to be separate languages.
Glad you jumped on my qualification, that Scots is "generally" held to be a
dialect, not a separate language. Of course, what is generally held to be
may not necessarily be true. And it might be that the Ethnologue dictionary
has a special terminology, apart from definition of language, "in general".
In any case, your citation of this particular resource, by itself, does not
entirely convince me yet of the error of my ways.
I can see Scots as a possible "sub-branch" of English, which might, given
time and isolation from the rest of the English-speaking world, develop into
a separate language. But I don't agree that Scots is a major language, in
its own right.
Of course, Scots is different from a cant, such as Cockney rhyming slang. It
was not originally designed as a secret language, simply has developed along
its own history. But changing the spelling does not count as lexical
borrowing. This rules out a word like "dinnae" for "do not", because the
first is obviously the same as the second, only written as spoken with a
regional accent: "ah dinnae ken" and " I dunno" as equivalent.
Lexical borrowing would be words that are from another language than
English. And the dialect may include a great number of archaisms, nomatter
how they are spelt, that reflect the history of the various regions in
relation to each other. Add to that heavy lexical borrowing from other
languages, such as Flemish, and, presumeably, Gaelic, but the dialect does
not thereby cease to be English, just because it has a peculiar vocabulary,
reflecting the history of the region. That is how English came to have so
many French words, for instance. How many Ulsterisms retain Elizabethan
words.
Apart from borrowed words, and archaisms, how is Scots other than
intelligible English? Only in the ocasional turn of phrase, for instance,
that is not common. But are these not all simply idioms, syntax borrowed
from other languages, for instance. Think of the Irish-English, "good on
you", which is a translation into English of a Gaelic phrase. Spell it "guid
on ye", and it remains English. Surely the same process is seen all over the
Scots dialect. Only there we would expect to see borrowings from Flemish as
well as Gaelic. There are many turns of phrase, which is what I meant before
by "idioms", in the regional dialects of Ireland that do not conform to the
grammar of English, because they are phrases coined by people for whom Irish
was their first language, and they thought in Irish sentance structure, and
simply translated it into English.
"Go rabh maith agat", is the Donegal Irish for "thankyou". It literally
translates as "that good might be at you", which is hardly regular English
grammar. But it is very close to the idiom, "good on you", which reflect the
Irish language structure, I think.
>
> >Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing here,
> >because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
> >understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying,
it
> >can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and
not a
> >foreign language. If Scots were a different language, as you keep
> >suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above. Again,
> >you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
> >English reader. However, if you spoke that sentance, you could probably
> >pronouce it in such a way that I would not be able to make it out at all,
> >although a fellow Scot, familiar with your accent, and your dialect,
might
> >understand readily.
> >
> [deletions]
>
> This is another idea, which you approach in various ways throughout your
post,
> that I want to react to, viz., mutual intelligibility as a litmus test for
> language status.
>
> If you look into it, you'll find frequent cases of a language with
mutually
> unintelligible dialects.
Scots is a good example. It is more or less intelligible, but not impossible
for an English speaker with a glossary of
Scots vernacular and vocabulary to make out. Robbie Burns presumeably wrote
Scots, which most non-Scots speakers can recognise as English, with a kilt.
It is no more difficult for an Anglophone like me to fathom than, say,
Chaucer's "whann that Aprille with hir shoures sote", which also sounds like
Scots, to my ear. But I have never heard anyone propose that Chaucer spoke
anything other than English. Maybe a specific type of English, from a
technical, linguistic point of view, a separate, sub-type of English,
perhaps, but not, generally speaking, a separate language in its own right.
>
> Likewise, some separate but related languages are mutually intelligible to
one
> degree or another.
>
> For example, if the speaker is patient, I as a Russian speaker can usually
make
> out the sense of Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Polish, even in some cases
other
> Slavic languages; the written versions are even a little easier to
understand.
I know what you mean. I have read glosses of Saxon - ancestral to English,
but more like Dutch - in old books, along with a latin text with which I am
familiar, such as the standard opening of a gospel in the Book of
Lindisfarne. It is almost intelligible, in a funny way. And after that, I
found that reading Dutch, the words had a vague familiarity to them, almost
sufficiently intriguing to make me wish I had studied linguistics.
But although I am ignorant of the distinctions used by the authors of the
Ethnologue that you quote, I still don't see that Scots is a separate
language. Do you?
Aidan
Aidan J Meehan
[snip]
> > It is a unique dialect, distinctive, and has a rich heritage behind it.
> > But it is English.
>
> You say that I do not where is the evidence for your statement
Let's see. Since I do not speak Scots, if I can translate several Scots
phrases into English with accuracy, would this demonstrate that Scots is a
dialect of English, not a different language?
If I cannot translate several Scots phrases in sucession, that does not
prove it is a different language, only that there are many phrases of Scots
that I do not understand.
If Scots is a separate language than English, I would not expect to find
more than an occasional correspondence in vocabulary, grammar, and turn of
phrase.
But if I can recognise a fair sample of several regular Scots phrases (not
chosen for their exceptional distinctiveness) I think it is reasonable to
think that Scots phrases, at least are examples of the English language
written in Scottish dialect. The closer the correspondence verbatim, the
more likely it is a dialect, not a language.
Below, the Scots is taken from your previous post.
(1)
"Och aye sae ye ken aw about Scots div you. Eh wad wager a bodle ye divna!"
"Oh yes so you know all about Scots do you? I would bet a bodle you don't!"
(A bottle? I can accept that wager, and raise you a bottle)
(2)
"Ye hivnae bin reidin the posts - the gremmer isnae the same ava."
"You havn't been reading the posts - the grammar isn't the same at all."
(3)
"ye cuidna owerset mah Scots sae hou can ye mak at argiement athout leein."
"you could not understand my Scots so how can you argue without lying?"
(4)
"Exackly whit Ah argied!"
"Exactly what I argued!"
(5)
"Obscure tae you but na till a Scoats speiker!"
"Obscure to you, but not to a Scots speaker!"
(6)
"Ah daena ken aither Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae
Ingliss wird fir scunner"
"I don't know either Czech or Slovak but what I do know is there's no
English word for *scunner*"
(BTW, I'm scunnered that you presumed this word was unknown to me.
"scunnered" means,"astounded" where I come from)
(7)
"Sae whit?"
"So what?"
(8)
"Scots his monie a byleid o its ain!"
"Scots has many a dialect of its own!"
(9)
"accent is juist a wey o seyin diphthongs
it's nae the same's hivin
unlike wirds an aa tha gremmer gear!"
"accent is just a way of saying dipthongs.
It's not the same as having
unlike words and all that grammar gear."
Aidan
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
[deletions]
>I haven't heard of that one, Angloromani, is that what is spoken by the
>Romany in Britain today?
>
[deletions]
Angloromani is one of three Gypsy languages that are commonly spoken in the
U.K. and all three are represented by a variety of dialects. The other two are
based on another, non-Germanic branch of Indo-European, viz., Indo-Aryan
Central Zone. They are not mutually intelligible with Angloromani.
Neither is Angloromani mutually intelligible with Gypsy languages used in
Scandinavia which are based on Danish (Danish Traveller), Swedish (Swedish
Traveller), or Norwegian (Norwegian Traveller). The Ethnologue describes the
first of these as "an independent language based on Danish with heavy lexical
borrowing from Northern Romani." These three may be mutually intelligible to
each other, btw.
Please note the analogy with Angloromani in terms of its status as an
independent language based on English with heavy Romani borrowings.
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
>of those languages. Eg) Eastern, Northern, and Western Frisian are all
>branches of the Frisian language, the language that I usually hear as
>being the closest to English (with Dutch being the closest major
>language, because Frisian is definitely not a major language.)
>
I'm sorry but you are misinterpreting the outline.
The Ethnologue is showing that there are three separate and co-equal languages
in the Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea *group* English: English,
Scots, and Angloromani.
Likewise, there are three languages in the Indo-European, Germanic, West, North
Sea *group* Frisian: Eastern Frisian, Northern Frisian, and Western Frisian.
The three Frisian languages are, btw, described as not being mutually
intelligible.
As to status as a major language, that is irrelevant and strictly a value
judgment. I once had as a houseguest a young Dutchman, Mauritz (sp?), who
scorned a friend of mine, a language enthusiast, for saying he'd like to learn
Dutch. Mauritz said, "Why do you want to learn Dutch? Nobody speaks Dutch?"
sr
Maloney) wrote:
>>The languages here are English and Frisian... The others are branches
>>of those languages. Eg) Eastern, Northern, and Western Frisian are all
>>branches of the Frisian language, the language that I usually hear as
>>being the closest to English (with Dutch being the closest major
>>language, because Frisian is definitely not a major language.)
>>
>
>I'm sorry but you are misinterpreting the outline.
>
>The Ethnologue is showing that there are three separate and co-equal languages
>in the Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea *group* English: English,
>Scots, and Angloromani.
>
>Likewise, there are three languages in the Indo-European, Germanic, West, North
>Sea *group* Frisian: Eastern Frisian, Northern Frisian, and Western Frisian.
>The three Frisian languages are, btw, described as not being mutually
>intelligible.
>
The Ethnologue does a terrible job at classifying languages...
Northern, Western, and Eastern Frisian should not be classified as
separate languages... Why aren't all the mutually unintelligible
dialects of English there as well, then? Frisian is Frisian, albeit
with different variants, just like any language. They should have
"Frisian" as a language and then describe the variants below... It
doesn't make sense to me and it's not consistent.
>As to status as a major language, that is irrelevant and strictly a value
>judgment. I once had as a houseguest a young Dutchman, Mauritz (sp?), who
>scorned a friend of mine, a language enthusiast, for saying he'd like to learn
>Dutch. Mauritz said, "Why do you want to learn Dutch? Nobody speaks Dutch?"
>
Because Dutch has millions upon millions of speakers, and is a
national language, it is usually considered a major language, and
rightfully so...
sr
Another example at the top of that same page in the Ethnologue...
Would you interpret Gheg and Tosk as two languages? I have never heard
of them as being separate language, just dialects of the language
Albanian. The way I see it, the whole Ethnologue is open for
interpretation.
Rich
>
> Also, take the above example "gremmer". This is obviously the Scots
> version of "grammar". But you would say it's uniquely Scots because
> it's spelled differently. However, it's spelled differently because
> it's pronounced differently. If some English dialect had 65000 words
> that were pronounced differently (than, say, "Standard" English,
> whatever that may be), but they were spelled the same, why would it
> not be considered a language? Go to any English-speaking region, and
> there will be many words that are exclusive to that region. Even
> though Scots supposedly has 65000 "different" words (of which I'm sure
> many aren't even known to most Scots speakers), that is still an
> extremely small amount when you consider the total vocabulary of
> English. Whether Scots is a dialect of English or not, both have an
> small percentage of words that are different than English, it should
> be considered a separate language.
Many words in Portuguese are identical or almost so, to the comparable word
in Spanish.
Do we now need to argue that one of these is not a language but merely a
variant of the other?
And which takes precedent?
Tempests in teapots, indeed!
Rich
Aidan J Meehan
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20000413150850...@ng-fa1.aol.com...
> "Aidan J Meehan" ame...@direct.ca wrote inter alios:
> [deletions]
> >considered generally to be a dialect of English.
> >
>
> I have excerpted this small portion and another of your response to Mr
Durie,
> although you make other points some of which I can agree with and others I
> cannot.
>
that
> "generally" considers Scots a dialect of English.
>
> Looking up the language family tree for the Germanic family in the
Ethnologue,
> I find this branch:
>
> "Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea (6)
>
> "English (3)
>
> "ANGLOROMANI [RME] (United Kingdom)
> "ENGLISH [ENG] (United Kingdom)
> "SCOTS [SCO] (United Kingdom)
>
> "Frisian (3)
>
> "FRISIAN, EASTERN [FRS] (Germany)
> "FRISIAN, NORTHERN [FRR] (Germany)
> "FRISIAN, WESTERN [FRI] (Netherlands)"
>
> Which is to say that English and Scots, along with Angloromani (a language
the
> grammar of which is basically English with heavy Romani lexical borrowing
and
> with many dialects) are three separate subbranches of one part of the
Germanic
> family.
>
> My point here is that the linguistic experts who are responsible for this
> resource consider Scots and English to be separate languages.
This is very surprising. I can't understand why a regional dialect might be
classed as a language. Perhaps the context of this book is such that
otherwise-considered dialects are classed as separate languages, that
otherwise might not.
Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language, rather
than Celtic.
[snip]
> This is another idea, which you approach in various ways throughout your
post,
> that I want to react to, viz., mutual intelligibility as a litmus test for
> language status.
>
> If you look into it, you'll find frequent cases of a language with
mutually
> unintelligible dialects.
I can see this with regard to Scots, which frequently is unintelligible to
people from other regions in Scotland. Even ones which historically have
been exposed to Scots speakers, as in Northern Ireland, and, I expect,
Geordie.
>
> Likewise, some separate but related languages are mutually intelligible to
one
> degree or another.
>
> For example, if the speaker is patient, I as a Russian speaker can usually
make
> out the sense of Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Polish, even in some cases
other
> Slavic languages; the written versions are even a little easier to
understand.
I consider this to be a case of partial intelligibility, such as the
occasional shared word. Many phrases of Scots may be paralleled
word-for-word in English. A Scots speaker can choose to speak in such a way
that another English speaker could understand every word, surely.
sr
>
>Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language, rather
>than Celtic.
>
Remember that Scots and English are extremely close, and come from the
same place, which is of Germanic origin. In fact, Scots is most likely
more Romance than Celtic...
Nick Durie
From: Aidan J Meehan <ame...@direct.ca>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 1:21 PM
Subject: Re: Is Scots Gaelic a language in its own right or is it a dialect
of Irish
> Nick Durie <Nick_...@bun.com> wrote in message
> news:38f65...@news2.cluster1.telinco.net...
>
> [snip]
> > > It is a unique dialect, distinctive, and has a rich heritage behind
it.
> > > But it is English.
> >
> > You say that I do not where is the evidence for your statement
>
> Let's see. Since I do not speak Scots, if I can translate several Scots
> phrases into English with accuracy, would this demonstrate that Scots is a
> dialect of English, not a different language?
>
> If I cannot translate several Scots phrases in sucession, that does not
> prove it is a different language, only that there are many phrases of
Scots
> that I do not understand.
>
> If Scots is a separate language than English, I would not expect to find
> more than an occasional correspondence in vocabulary, grammar, and turn of
> phrase.
>
> But if I can recognise a fair sample of several regular Scots phrases (not
> chosen for their exceptional distinctiveness) I think it is reasonable to
> think that Scots phrases, at least are examples of the English language
> written in Scottish dialect. The closer the correspondence verbatim, the
> more likely it is a dialect, not a language.
>
> Below, the Scots is taken from your previous post.
>
>
> (1)
> "Och aye sae ye ken aw about Scots div you. Eh wad wager a bodle ye
divna!"
> "Oh yes so you know all about Scots do you? I would bet a bodle you
don't!"
> (A bottle? I can accept that wager, and raise you a bottle)
>
>
Again English doesn't capture the nuances of the sentence
a bodle was old Scots currency a think about the same as a quarter penny it
still survives in sayings and whatnot
> (2)
> "Ye hivnae bin reidin the posts - the gremmer isnae the same ava."
> "You havn't been reading the posts - the grammar isn't the same at all."
Again English cannot capture the emphatic forms
both hiv and bin are emphatic
>
> (3)
> "ye cuidna owerset mah Scots sae hou can ye mak at argiement athout
leein."
> "you could not understand my Scots so how can you argue without lying?"
Your translation is erroneus; it should read
You couldn't translate, from a foreign language - two words for translate- ,
so how can you make that argument without lying
>
>
> (4)
> "Exackly whit Ah argied!"
> "Exactly what I argued!"
>
>
> (5)
> "Obscure tae you but na till a Scoats speiker!"
> "Obscure to you, but not to a Scots speaker!"
>
Note the difference in the (to)
the other too in English goes like this
the tyre was too large to go inside the chest
the tyre wis ower muckle tae gae inby the kiste
(note same as German this often makes me wonder at NA words like keister
which are often attributed to German when they could just as easily have
come from Scots).
>
> (6)
> "Ah daena ken aither Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae
> Ingliss wird fir scunner"
>
> "I don't know either Czech or Slovak but what I do know is there's no
> English word for *scunner*"
>
> (BTW, I'm scunnered that you presumed this word was unknown to me.
> "scunnered" means,"astounded" where I come from)
Awricht Ah hiv tae apologeiss fir thon but tak tent scunnert means
disgusted na astounded, by the by are you a North American akis monie a
Scots wird an a tait o the gremmer haes bein
>
>
> (7)
> "Sae whit?"
> "So what?"
>
>
> (8)
> "Scots his monie a byleid o its ain!"
> "Scots has many a dialect of its own!"
>
two words in Scots for language one is leid the other is langage
naturally byleid is a synonym for dialeck
>
> (9)
> "accent is juist a wey o seyin diphthongs
> it's nae the same's hivin
> unlike wirds an aa tha gremmer gear!"
>
> "accent is just a way of saying dipthongs.
> It's not the same as having
> unlike words and all that grammar gear."
Gear is only Scots and northern English, I believe, if I was translating it
I would say stuff
>
>
> Aidan
>
>
>
>
>
Again thank you for taking the time to respond
try this one
Ah hae ta'en a scomfish till aa thay collegianers akis thay'r aye sneckin
aff the lichts tae hae a tait hochmagandie
the smorin reek o the ingle wis scomfishin the puir quine akis thar wisnae a
windae i the hale biggin
The callant vizzied his racket at the glaikit houlet but afore he cuid shot
the wappen a muckle maisterfou chiel cloutit him ower the heid wi a
forehaimmer.
Ye auld sneck-drawn skellum, hou daed ye na tak the televeision an aa?
Aidan J Meehan
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
> sr bhi...@myhome.com wrote, quoting someone else:
> >>
> >>Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language,
rather
> >>than Celtic.
> >>
SR was quoting Aidan Meehan, without attribution, or header.
> >
> >Remember that Scots and English are extremely close, and come from the
> >same place, which is of Germanic origin. In fact, Scots is most likely
> >more Romance than Celtic...
> >
>
> The poster whom you quote was very likely confusing Scots and Scots
Gaelic.
> Scots Gaelic is, of course, a language is a Goidelic Celtic language like
Irish
> and Manx.
Ahem. I was quoting you, Mr Maloney, you quoted the Ethnologue, which
defined Scots as a Germanic language.
I accept that it is Germanic, because it is a sub-set of English, itself a
Germanic language. Incidentally, I inderstand perfectly well the difference
between Scots and Gaelic.
>
> However, introducing the Romance languages in this context is opening up a
> whole other can of worms, sometimes leading to people trying to claim that
> English (and by extension Scots) is a Romance language because of the
numerous
> loan words from French and Latin. Scots is a Germanic language because of,
> inter alios, its basic vocabulary is Germanic.
>
SR introduced the notion that Scots might be more of a Romance language
than English. I don't know why he suggests this. I believe there are a lot
of Flemish words in Scots, because at one time there was a large influx of
Flemish weavers into Scotland. I wonder just how significant the Flemish
contribution is to the vocabulary of the Scottish English.
> One of the truly fascinating things for me about Scotland is its
linguistic
> diversity and complexity. I don't think it would be entirely exaggerating
to
> say that modern Scotland is a tri-lingual nation with most of its people
> speaking Scottish English, Scots, and/or Scots Gaelic.
Only if you consider Scots to be a language independent from Standard
English.
The term "Scottish English" appears to me to be synonymous with "Scots".
How do you define the distinction, in your own usage of these terms?
>
> This condition of diversity is the historical norm, btw. In the 5th
century
> A.D., as Nora Chadwick points out, there were "four peoples and four
languages
> in Scotland: Pictish, the oldest, in the north; British [the predecessor
of
> Welsh, Cornish, and Breton] south of the Antonine Wall; Irish in Argyll;
and
> Anglian, the newest, just encroaching on the British as Irish was on the
> Pictish."
>
> Where I disagree with Chadwick, for what *that's* worth, is that she
> oversimplflies when she speaks of "the growth of Irish and Anglian
influences
> till they occupy the whole field, and give us the northern kingdom of
Scotland
> with its two languages, the Highland Celtic and the Lowland English."
I take it you do not think Chadwick oversimplifies when she speaks of "the
growth of Irish and Anglian influences till they occupy the whole field..."
. Are you saying here that you consider the Highland Gaelic / Lowland
English division to be an over simplification? I think it is arbitrary.
English is spoken universally throughout the Highlands, surely. And Gaelic
speaking is not confined to the Highlands, nor, I suspect, comnpletely
absent from the lowlands. I would be interested to learn more about this.
Aidan
Aidan J Meehan
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
> "Aidan J Meehan" ame...@direct.ca wrote:
[snip to fit screen]
> Chadwick was writing about the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries
A.D. I
> apologize for failing to make that clear.
Ah, my fault, reading comprehension skills clearly disintegrating. You
clearly stated "in the 5th century A.D", I somehow jumped from there to
modern-day Scotland, sorry for the "senior moment" there.
Perhaps Chadwick's reference to "Lowland English" caused my time warp. Was
there such a thing as "Lowland English" back then? I don't know that the
Anglian influence extended across Scotland to any significant extent as
early as the 8th century. There was a presence around Northumberland about
then, but was the rest of it not Hibernia Major and Pictland?
Aidan
Aidan J Meehan
[snip]
>
> No, I said it may be more Romance than Celtic, not English. This is
> because there is probably a lot more words of Latin and French origin
> than there are from Gaelic. But Scots is definitely Germanic...
>
Does not compute. English has many Latin and French origin loan words, but
is not considered a Romance language.
Anybody have stats on Scots words, what percent Flemish, what percent
Gaelic, what percent French, what percent archaic English, etc?
Aidan
Aidan J Meehan
> On Fri, 14 Apr 2000 20:40:27 -0700, "Aidan J Meehan"
> <ame...@direct.ca> wrote:
[snip]
> >Does not compute. English has many Latin and French origin loan words,
but
> >is not considered a Romance language.
> >
>
> I realize that. I have never said English was a Romance language.
I never said you did.
>You
> said you find it interesting that Scots isn't considered a Celtic
> language. I said, no, it's not the least bit Celtic, and has much more
> Romance words than Celtic words... Therefore, more Romance than
> Celtic...
You did not actually say that Scots "has much more Romance words than
Celtic words..."
Here is what you said.
"Remember that Scots and English are extremely close, and come from the
same place, which is of Germanic origin. In fact, Scots is most likely
more Romance than Celtic..."
I interpret this to mean Scots is most likely more Romance *language* than
Celtic language.
Anyway, I can understand what you meant, now that you have clarified the
point.
Have you any information on my other question, as to percentage of loan
words in Scots?
Stephen Copinger
Aidan J Meehan wrote in message ...
<snip>
divna!"
>(A bottle? I can accept that wager, and raise you a bottle)
A bodle is tuppence, or similar.
>(BTW, I'm scunnered that you presumed this word was unknown to me.
>"scunnered" means,"astounded" where I come from)
>
In Scots "scunner" means a dislike or disgust, if you are scunnered by his
presumption that would mean you are so taken aback that you want nothing
more to do with the conversation.
Beware faux amis.
Beannachd leibh
Stephen
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
>
>>
>>Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language, rather
>>than Celtic.
>>
>
>same place, which is of Germanic origin. In fact, Scots is most likely
>more Romance than Celtic...
>
The poster whom you quote was very likely confusing Scots and Scots Gaelic.
Scots Gaelic is, of course, a language is a Goidelic Celtic language like Irish
and Manx.
However, introducing the Romance languages in this context is opening up a
whole other can of worms, sometimes leading to people trying to claim that
English (and by extension Scots) is a Romance language because of the numerous
loan words from French and Latin. Scots is a Germanic language because of,
inter alios, its basic vocabulary is Germanic.
One of the truly fascinating things for me about Scotland is its linguistic
diversity and complexity. I don't think it would be entirely exaggerating to
say that modern Scotland is a tri-lingual nation with most of its people
speaking Scottish English, Scots, and/or Scots Gaelic.
This condition of diversity is the historical norm, btw. In the 5th century
A.D., as Nora Chadwick points out, there were "four peoples and four languages
in Scotland: Pictish, the oldest, in the north; British [the predecessor of
Welsh, Cornish, and Breton] south of the Antonine Wall; Irish in Argyll; and
Anglian, the newest, just encroaching on the British as Irish was on the
Pictish."
Where I disagree with Chadwick, for what *that's* worth, is that she
oversimplflies when she speaks of "the growth of Irish and Anglian influences
till they occupy the whole field, and give us the northern kingdom of Scotland
with its two languages, the Highland Celtic and the Lowland English."
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
[deletions]
>The Ethnologue does a terrible job at classifying languages...
>Northern, Western, and Eastern Frisian should not be classified as
>separate languages... Why aren't all the mutually unintelligible
>dialects of English there as well, then? Frisian is Frisian, albeit
>with different variants, just like any language. They should have
>"Frisian" as a language and then describe the variants below... It
>doesn't make sense to me and it's not consistent.
>
Well, it is true that if you don't the information you always have the option
of rejecting the source. Do you have some cultural or political investment in
insisting that there is only one Frisian language?
I explained that in this family tree there is a group of three languages; the
group is called Frisian and the group consists of three languages. If you don't
like that scholarly analysis, there's nothing more to be said about it.
[deletions]
>Because Dutch has millions upon millions of speakers, and is a
>national language, it is usually considered a major language, and
>rightfully so...
>
Don't tell me. Tell Mauritz. I like Dutch and the Dutch, although I wasn't that
fond of Mauritz; I found his manner abrasive (he didn't like popcorn either). I
have had the experience of hearing two people on the street and for a moment
thinking their speaking English when in fact it was Dutch, simple statements to
be sure.
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
No doubt I'm being very undemocratic here, but I have a lot more confidence in
the Ethnologue's data than I do in a casual poster. No reflection on you
personally, but you haven't established your bona fides here as a competent
critic, at least not so far as I know.
I have made a point of establishing my amateur status in this area, a mere
hobbyist, the merest in fact, which is one of the reasons why I prefer to rely
on scholarly resources for my information and my opinions.
sr
>
>Well, it is true that if you don't the information you always have the option
>of rejecting the source. Do you have some cultural or political investment in
>insisting that there is only one Frisian language?
>
Not particularily, but I don't accept 3 Frisian languages just like I
don't accept Scots as a language... (And I realize, of course, that my
opinion will mean nothing to most people). But why are they
considered languages, when countless versions of English around the
world are called dialects?
>I explained that in this family tree there is a group of three languages; the
>group is called Frisian and the group consists of three languages. If you don't
>like that scholarly analysis, there's nothing more to be said about it.
>
>[deletions]
>
>>Because Dutch has millions upon millions of speakers, and is a
>>national language, it is usually considered a major language, and
>>rightfully so...
>>
>
>Don't tell me. Tell Mauritz. I like Dutch and the Dutch, although I wasn't that
>fond of Mauritz; I found his manner abrasive (he didn't like popcorn either). I
>have had the experience of hearing two people on the street and for a moment
>thinking their speaking English when in fact it was Dutch, simple statements to
>be sure.
>
>
sr
<ame...@direct.ca> wrote:
>
>Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
>news:20000414204642...@ng-fo1.aol.com...
>> sr bhi...@myhome.com wrote, quoting someone else:
>> >>
>> >>Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language,
>rather
>> >>than Celtic.
>> >>
>
>SR was quoting Aidan Meehan, without attribution, or header.
>
Sorry about this. Sometimes I get carried away with the delete key...
>> >
>> >Remember that Scots and English are extremely close, and come from the
>> >same place, which is of Germanic origin. In fact, Scots is most likely
>> >more Romance than Celtic...
>> >
>>
>> The poster whom you quote was very likely confusing Scots and Scots
>Gaelic.
>> Scots Gaelic is, of course, a language is a Goidelic Celtic language like
>Irish
>> and Manx.
>
>Ahem. I was quoting you, Mr Maloney, you quoted the Ethnologue, which
>defined Scots as a Germanic language.
>
>I accept that it is Germanic, because it is a sub-set of English, itself a
>Germanic language. Incidentally, I inderstand perfectly well the difference
>between Scots and Gaelic.
>
>>
>> However, introducing the Romance languages in this context is opening up a
>> whole other can of worms, sometimes leading to people trying to claim that
>> English (and by extension Scots) is a Romance language because of the
>numerous
>> loan words from French and Latin. Scots is a Germanic language because of,
>> inter alios, its basic vocabulary is Germanic.
>>
>
>SR introduced the notion that Scots might be more of a Romance language
>than English. I don't know why he suggests this. I believe there are a lot
>of Flemish words in Scots, because at one time there was a large influx of
>Flemish weavers into Scotland. I wonder just how significant the Flemish
>contribution is to the vocabulary of the Scottish English.
>
No, I said it may be more Romance than Celtic, not English. This is
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
[deletions]
>Only if you consider Scots to be a language independent from Standard
>English.
>The term "Scottish English" appears to me to be synonymous with "Scots".
>How do you define the distinction, in your own usage of these terms?
>
English spoken with one of a variety of Scottish accents and using some dialect
words and idioms not usually found in Standard English.
One of the issues for Scots-speakers is that there is no hard and fast boundary
between Scots and Scottish English. My impression is that Scots is losing
ground to Scottish English or Standard English and that the distinction becomes
harder to define over time; perhaps, I am wrong as I am an advocate of
diversity.
>>
>> This condition of diversity is the historical norm, btw. In the 5th
>century
>> A.D., as Nora Chadwick points out, there were "four peoples and four
>languages
>> in Scotland: Pictish, the oldest, in the north; British [the predecessor
>of
>> Welsh, Cornish, and Breton] south of the Antonine Wall; Irish in Argyll;
>and
>> Anglian, the newest, just encroaching on the British as Irish was on the
>> Pictish."
>>
>> Where I disagree with Chadwick, for what *that's* worth, is that she
>> oversimplflies when she speaks of "the growth of Irish and Anglian
>influences
>> till they occupy the whole field, and give us the northern kingdom of
>Scotland
>> with its two languages, the Highland Celtic and the Lowland English."
>
>I take it you do not think Chadwick oversimplifies when she speaks of "the
>growth of Irish and Anglian influences till they occupy the whole field..."
>. Are you saying here that you consider the Highland Gaelic / Lowland
>English division to be an over simplification? I think it is arbitrary.
>English is spoken universally throughout the Highlands, surely. And Gaelic
>speaking is not confined to the Highlands, nor, I suspect, comnpletely
>absent from the lowlands. I would be interested to learn more about this.
>
>
>Aidan
>
Chadwick was writing about the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries A.D. I
apologize for failing to make that clear.
sr
<ame...@direct.ca> wrote:
>
>sr <bhi...@myhome.com> wrote in message
>news:Zsb3OLq+B8SmkH...@4ax.com...
>[snip]
>>
>> No, I said it may be more Romance than Celtic, not English. This is
>> because there is probably a lot more words of Latin and French origin
>> than there are from Gaelic. But Scots is definitely Germanic...
>>
>Does not compute. English has many Latin and French origin loan words, but
>is not considered a Romance language.
>
I realize that. I have never said English was a Romance language. You
said you find it interesting that Scots isn't considered a Celtic
language. I said, no, it's not the least bit Celtic, and has much more
Romance words than Celtic words... Therefore, more Romance than
Celtic...
>Anybody have stats on Scots words, what percent Flemish, what percent
Nick Durie
>
> >
> >Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language,
rather
> >than Celtic.
> >
>
> same place, which is of Germanic origin. In fact, Scots is most likely
> more Romance than Celtic...
This is another point to note as Scots frequently borrowed Latin terms at
different periods or completely independant of English and it also favoured
different forms of the Latin than English and sometimes even different
meanings.
Nick Durie
Aidan J Meehan <ame...@direct.ca> wrote in message
news:YlMJ4.10124$H7.7...@brie.direct.ca...
>
> Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
As I have been trying to explain to you because it is a different language
with thousands of unique idioms and thousands upon thousands of unique words
and different grammatical structure! Read something written in good
non-Anglicised Scots and you will find it bloody difficult.
Och gaun yersel its yonderabouts mah aefauld wee tyke juist hae a scance
ower yon... Och 'at's brah mah wee duggie Ah s' gie ye anaither thraw.
>
> Interesting that Scots is considered a branch of Germanic language, rather
> than Celtic.
Clearly it's decended fae Anglian
>
> [snip]
>
> > This is another idea, which you approach in various ways throughout your
> post,
> > that I want to react to, viz., mutual intelligibility as a litmus test
for
> > language status.
> >
> > If you look into it, you'll find frequent cases of a language with
> mutually
> > unintelligible dialects.
>
> I can see this with regard to Scots, which frequently is unintelligible to
> people from other regions in Scotland.
Oh really I can understand a Glaswegian nae baither!
Even ones which historically have
> been exposed to Scots speakers, as in Northern Ireland, and, I expect,
> Geordie.
>
> >
> > Likewise, some separate but related languages are mutually intelligible
to
> one
> > degree or another.
>
> >
> > For example, if the speaker is patient, I as a Russian speaker can
usually
> make
> > out the sense of Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Polish, even in some cases
> other
> > Slavic languages; the written versions are even a little easier to
> understand.
>
> I consider this to be a case of partial intelligibility, such as the
> occasional shared word. Many phrases of Scots may be paralleled
> word-for-word in English. A Scots speaker can choose to speak in such a
way
> that another English speaker could understand every word, surely.
>
> >
Nick Durie
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
> "Nick Durie" Nick_...@bun.com wrote:
> [deletions]
>
> >I haven't heard of that one, Angloromani, is that what is spoken by the
> >Romany in Britain today?
> >
> [deletions]
>
> Angloromani is one of three Gypsy languages that are commonly spoken in
the
> U.K.
Wow that's a massive amount! How is it such a small population can support
so many languages?
and all three are represented by a variety of dialects. The other two are
> based on another, non-Germanic branch of Indo-European, viz., Indo-Aryan
> Central Zone. They are not mutually intelligible with Angloromani.
>
> Neither is Angloromani mutually intelligible with Gypsy languages used in
> Scandinavia which are based on Danish (Danish Traveller), Swedish (Swedish
> Traveller), or Norwegian (Norwegian Traveller). The Ethnologue describes
the
> first of these as "an independent language based on Danish with heavy
lexical
> borrowing from Northern Romani." These three may be mutually intelligible
to
> each other, btw.
>
> Please note the analogy with Angloromani in terms of its status as an
> independent language based on English with heavy Romani borrowings.
>
presumably here you mean Scots?
Nick Durie
> > On 13 Apr 2000 19:08:50 GMT, fr...@aol.comnojunk (Frank R.A.J.
> > Maloney) wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >Looking up the language family tree for the Germanic family in the
> Ethnologue,
> > >I find this branch:
> > >
> > >"Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea (6)
> > >
> > >"English (3)
> > >
> > >"ANGLOROMANI [RME] (United Kingdom)
> > >"ENGLISH [ENG] (United Kingdom)
> > >"SCOTS [SCO] (United Kingdom)
> > >
> > >"Frisian (3)
> > >
> > >"FRISIAN, EASTERN [FRS] (Germany)
> > >"FRISIAN, NORTHERN [FRR] (Germany)
> > >"FRISIAN, WESTERN [FRI] (Netherlands)"
> > >
> > >Which is to say that English and Scots, along with Angloromani (a
> language the
> > >grammar of which is basically English with heavy Romani lexical
borrowing
> and
> > >with many dialects) are three separate subbranches of one part of the
> Germanic
> > >family.
> > >
> >
> > of those languages. Eg) Eastern, Northern, and Western Frisian are all
> > branches of the Frisian language, the language that I usually hear as
> > being the closest to English (with Dutch being the closest major
> > language, because Frisian is definitely not a major language.)
>
> language if it is basically English grammar, with heavy Romani lexical
> borrowings. And I can't see how a sentance in plain English, transcribed
> phonetically to reflect the pronunciation of English words spoken in a
> regional accent, is other than plain English,
neither can I glad you pointed that out
although the words might be
> spelt differently from the norm.
>
> Interesting that Angloromani is a cant, a cryptic language designed as a
> kind of code. How can this be a language in its own right, if it is based
on
> the grammar of English.
By the same reason that Klingon and Esperanto can be languages - and that
isn't debatable
It seems to me analogous with Irish Ogham, or
> Swedish Runes, which are not alphabets in their own right,
Where does the question of alphabets come into this?
There has been a movement to get Japanese written in the Roman alpabet going
for a long time. It does not matter whether Japanese is written in Roman
script - it will stay Japanese!
Equally this is the case here.
but are ciphers,
> substituting conventionalised symbols for the pre-existant letters of the
> Latin alphabet. Greek, on the other hand, is a different script, a true
> alphabet descended from a separate lineage, not a cipher for the Roman
> alphabet. Perhaps I am expressing this clumsily, but I am trying to draw
the
> same analogy between a cant, or a dialect in which local vocabulary may be
> substituted for standard vocabulary, and as a result the greater part of
the
> sentance will become clear, given a glossary of the dialect terms.
>
> Aidan
>
>
Nick Durie
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
> >The languages here are English and Frisian... The others are branches
> >of those languages. Eg) Eastern, Northern, and Western Frisian are all
> >branches of the Frisian language, the language that I usually hear as
> >being the closest to English (with Dutch being the closest major
> >language, because Frisian is definitely not a major language.)
> >
>
>
> The Ethnologue is showing that there are three separate and co-equal
languages
> in the Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea *group* English: English,
> Scots, and Angloromani.
>
North
> Sea *group* Frisian: Eastern Frisian, Northern Frisian, and Western
Frisian.
> The three Frisian languages are, btw, described as not being mutually
> intelligible.
>
> judgment. I once had as a houseguest a young Dutchman, Mauritz (sp?), who
> scorned a friend of mine, a language enthusiast, for saying he'd like to
learn
> Dutch. Mauritz said, "Why do you want to learn Dutch? Nobody speaks
Dutch?"
>
Perhaps you'll be able to tell me Mr. Maloney
I read somewhere that there were mutually unintelligible 'dialects' of
German.
Is this correct - or are we dealing with the same aforementioned political
prejudices?
Nick Durie
>
> >
> >Well, it is true that if you don't the information you always have the
option
> >of rejecting the source. Do you have some cultural or political
investment in
> >insisting that there is only one Frisian language?
> >
>
> Not particularily, but I don't accept 3 Frisian languages just like I
> don't accept Scots as a language... (And I realize, of course, that my
> opinion will mean nothing to most people). But why are they
> considered languages, when countless versions of English around the
> world are called dialects?
>
translate my Scots but because he was unaware of the nuances of the language
he misinterpreted it slightly and as soon as I brought out common words
which were from a different source than their English counterparts he
couldn't translate them. The same examples of faux amis could like be found
in the three different Frisian languages.
Nick Durie
>
> Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
> > "Aidan J Meehan" ame...@direct.ca wrote inter alios:
> > [deletions]
> > >But English and Scots are actually mutually intelligible, as Scots is
> > >considered generally to be a dialect of English.
>
> > [deletions]
>
> that
> > "generally" considers Scots a dialect of English.
> >
> Ethnologue,
> > I find this branch:
> >
> > "Indo-European, Germanic, West, North Sea (6)
> >
> > "English (3)
> >
> > "ANGLOROMANI [RME] (United Kingdom)
> > "ENGLISH [ENG] (United Kingdom)
> > "SCOTS [SCO] (United Kingdom)
> >
> > "Frisian (3)
> >
> > "FRISIAN, EASTERN [FRS] (Germany)
> > "FRISIAN, NORTHERN [FRR] (Germany)
> > "FRISIAN, WESTERN [FRI] (Netherlands)"
> >
> > Which is to say that English and Scots, along with Angloromani (a
language
> the
> > grammar of which is basically English with heavy Romani lexical
borrowing
> and
> > with many dialects) are three separate subbranches of one part of the
> Germanic
> > family.
>
>
>
>
this
> > resource consider Scots and English to be separate languages.
>
a
> dialect, not a separate language. Of course, what is generally held to be
> may not necessarily be true. And it might be that the Ethnologue
dictionary
> has a special terminology, apart from definition of language, "in
general".
> In any case, your citation of this particular resource, by itself, does
not
> entirely convince me yet of the error of my ways.
>
> I can see Scots as a possible "sub-branch" of English, which might, given
> time and isolation from the rest of the English-speaking world, develop
into
> a separate language. But I don't agree that Scots is a major language, in
> its own right.
one and a half million speakers by the GRO(Scot.) in 1996.
> Of course, Scots is different from a cant, such as Cockney rhyming slang.
It
> was not originally designed as a secret language, simply has developed
along
> its own history. But changing the spelling does not count as lexical
> borrowing. This rules out a word like "dinnae" for "do not",
dinnae, dinna and daena are not the same thing there are rules behind them.
because the
> first is obviously the same as the second, only written as spoken with a
> regional accent: "ah dinnae ken" and " I dunno" as equivalent.
>
Should be Ah or A - I always merits a capital in English.
> Lexical borrowing would be words that are from another language than
> English. And the dialect may include a great number of archaisms, nomatter
> how they are spelt, that reflect the history of the various regions in
> relation to each other. Add to that heavy lexical borrowing from other
> languages, such as Flemish, and, presumeably, Gaelic, but the dialect does
> not thereby cease to be English, just because it has a peculiar
vocabulary,
> reflecting the history of the region. That is how English came to have so
> many French words, for instance. How many Ulsterisms retain Elizabethan
> words.
>
> Apart from borrowed words, and archaisms, how is Scots other than
> intelligible English? Only in the ocasional turn of phrase, for instance,
> that is not common.
Bollocks! try this word: syne
or this word: hech
or this: pech
or this: wite
or: tint
or: gralloch
or this: goller
or this: bield
or: bittock; pairt; kimmer; cleek; jaggie; thortor
could you tell me the difference between: thon and yon; 'at and at; ye and
you; fremmit and orrae; Sassenach and Ingliss; course and groff; kythe and
shaw
or how about the meaning this: Thay are aa gluttons that little guid gits.
But are these not all simply idioms, syntax borrowed
> from other languages, for instance. Think of the Irish-English, "good on
> you", which is a translation into English of a Gaelic phrase. Spell it
"guid
> on ye", and it remains English. Surely the same process is seen all over
the
> Scots dialect. Only there we would expect to see borrowings from Flemish
as
> well as Gaelic. There are many turns of phrase, which is what I meant
before
> by "idioms", in the regional dialects of Ireland that do not conform to
the
> grammar of English, because they are phrases coined by people for whom
Irish
> was their first language, and they thought in Irish sentance structure,
and
> simply translated it into English.
> "Go rabh maith agat", is the Donegal Irish for "thankyou". It literally
> translates as "that good might be at you", which is hardly regular English
> grammar. But it is very close to the idiom, "good on you", which reflect
the
> Irish language structure, I think.
>
>
> >
> > >Although I do not speak Scots, I can make out what you are writing
here,
> > >because you are actually expressing yourself in English. Because I only
> > >understand English, therefore, if I can understand what you are saying,
> it
> > >can only mean that you are speaking a dialect of my native tongue, and
> not a
> > >foreign language. If Scots were a different language, as you keep
> > >suggesting, I could not understand a word of what you wrote above.
Again,
> > >you illustrate that Scots is s dialect, comprehensible only to another
> > >English reader. However, if you spoke that sentance, you could probably
> > >pronouce it in such a way that I would not be able to make it out at
all,
> > >although a fellow Scot, familiar with your accent, and your dialect,
> might
> > >understand readily.
> > >
> > [deletions]
> >
> > This is another idea, which you approach in various ways throughout your
> post,
> > that I want to react to, viz., mutual intelligibility as a litmus test
for
> > language status.
> >
> > If you look into it, you'll find frequent cases of a language with
> mutually
> > unintelligible dialects.
>
> Scots is a good example. It is more or less intelligible, but not
impossible
> for an English speaker with a glossary of
> Scots vernacular and vocabulary to make out. Robbie Burns presumeably
wrote
> Scots,
no he fucking well didn't! I haven't read a single poem by burns that was
written entirely in Scots. He made frequent use of Anglicisms such as "O
thou, wha in the heavens does dwell"
which most non-Scots speakers can recognise as English, with a kilt.
> It is no more difficult for an Anglophone like me to fathom than, say,
> Chaucer's "whann that Aprille with hir shoures sote", which also sounds
like
> Scots, to my ear.
that is because your ears are untrained. You cannot speak Scots, you don't
know the vocabulary, you are unaware of the complexities of the grammar, you
assume things look like Scots event though they clearly don't and you insist
on denying people their human rights as a speaker of a seperate language.
But I have never heard anyone propose that Chaucer spoke
> anything other than English. Maybe a specific type of English, from a
> technical, linguistic point of view, a separate, sub-type of English,
> perhaps, but not, generally speaking, a separate language in its own
right.
> >
he spoke middle English
> > Likewise, some separate but related languages are mutually intelligible
to
> one
> > degree or another.
> >
> > For example, if the speaker is patient, I as a Russian speaker can
usually
> make
> > out the sense of Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Polish, even in some cases
> other
> > Slavic languages; the written versions are even a little easier to
> understand.
>
> I know what you mean. I have read glosses of Saxon - ancestral to English,
> but more like Dutch - in old books, along with a latin text with which I
am
> familiar, such as the standard opening of a gospel in the Book of
> Lindisfarne. It is almost intelligible, in a funny way. And after that, I
> found that reading Dutch, the words had a vague familiarity to them,
almost
> sufficiently intriguing to make me wish I had studied linguistics.
>
> But although I am ignorant of the distinctions used by the authors of the
> Ethnologue that you quote, I still don't see that Scots is a separate
> language. Do you?
>
> Aidan
Nick Durie
> [snip]
> >
> > No, I said it may be more Romance than Celtic, not English. This is
> > because there is probably a lot more words of Latin and French origin
> > than there are from Gaelic. But Scots is definitely Germanic...
> >
> Does not compute. English has many Latin and French origin loan words, but
> is not considered a Romance language.
>
> Gaelic, what percent French, what percent archaic English, etc?
>
> Aidan
>
No stats but I can tell you there isn't that much Flemish words compared
with say French. Some words come from strange sources such as carfuffle
(this one is now colloquial English but it was once only a Scots word)
Gaelic - Car - Scots - fuffle -.
There's a lot of Gaelic borrowing but not quite as much as there is French
or latin or Dutch. You should mail the SNDA - they will probably be able to
help you there
Nick Durie
>
> >> Scots is recognisable as a variant of English, the grammar and the
> >structure
> >> is the same, as well as most of the words.
> >
> >Ye hivnae bin reidin the posts - the gremmer isnae the same ava. Tak
tent o
> >thon
> >
> >The man who bought the house
> >The chiel THAT boucht the houss
> >
>
> I'm sure there are some differences in grammar, so there must be a
> better example than this. Most English speakers I know say "The man
> that bought the house."
>
Where are they from - Northern English, coming from the same source - has
some Scots features. Also a lot of Scotticisms have been taken into the
fold. Eg. flunkie - this was originally only a Scots word.
> Also, take the above example "gremmer". This is obviously the Scots
> version of "grammar". But you would say it's uniquely Scots because
> it's spelled differently.
No I wouldn't - it's merely a cognate form. I would only call it unique if
I could find a usage of it which has been stretched
However, it's spelled differently because
> it's pronounced differently. If some English dialect had 65000 words
> that were pronounced differently (than, say, "Standard" English,
> whatever that may be), but they were spelled the same, why would it
> not be considered a language? Go to any English-speaking region, and
> there will be many words that are exclusive to that region. Even
> though Scots supposedly has 65000 "different" words (of which I'm sure
> many aren't even known to most Scots speakers),
Clavers!
Nick Durie
Rich <rmccar...@home.com> wrote in message
news:1dLJ4.69044$AN.9...@news1.rdc1.on.wave.home.com...
> > version of "grammar". But you would say it's uniquely Scots because
> > it's pronounced differently. If some English dialect had 65000 words
> > that were pronounced differently (than, say, "Standard" English,
> > whatever that may be), but they were spelled the same, why would it
> > not be considered a language? Go to any English-speaking region, and
> > there will be many words that are exclusive to that region. Even
> > though Scots supposedly has 65000 "different" words (of which I'm sure
> > extremely small amount when you consider the total vocabulary of
> > English. Whether Scots is a dialect of English or not, both have an
> > extremely large vocabulary. But I don't think that if Scots has a very
> > small percentage of words that are different than English, it should
> > be considered a separate language.
>
word
> in Spanish.
> Do we now need to argue that one of these is not a language but merely a
> variant of the other?
> And which takes precedent?
> Tempests in teapots, indeed!
>
> Rich
>
When a Dutch person tries to learn German they often get confused as to
which grammar is correct to which language, as is the case with Scots and
English. Many 'English' words are exactly the same as their German or Dutch
counterparts!
As is the case with all the romance languages.
sr
wrote:
>
>Perhaps you'll be able to tell me Mr. Maloney
>
Here's my two cents on this:
>I read somewhere that there were mutually unintelligible 'dialects' of
>German.
There sure are... I did a report on that subject (although in very
little detail) for a German class. They are usually considered
dialects. For example, you usually don't run into someone who says
they speak "Austrian German" or "Canadian German" or whatever
(although you may hear "Swiss German" more often), they are usually
just considered different types of German, even though they can be
quite different and communication can be a big problem. But again,
there's that hazy line, and this could probably start off a whole new
arguement about German dialects, although, like I say, I haven't done
too much work on it, so I don't know a whole lot...
Nick Durie
Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin <Ger@r.d> wrote in message
news:n43ifs80sga4gginf...@4ax.com...
> Nick Durie wrote:
>
> >> Angloromani is one of three Gypsy languages that are commonly spoken in
> >the
> >> U.K.
> >
> >Wow that's a massive amount! How is it such a small population can
support
> >so many languages?
>
> 2000 speakers.
>
I've heard there are some tribal languages that have probably only ever had
about a few hundred at any one time but that's due to isolation - then again
maybe it's the same thing with the Romany, very little contact with anyone
other than the few other bands of travellers they bump into.
> --
> Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin
> abardubh at enteract dot com
> Tá m'aerbhád lán d'eascanna
Nick Durie
Stephen Copinger <S-Cop...@zetnet.co.bounce.uk> wrote in message
news:38fa1290$0$5...@news.zetnet.co.uk...
It is also interesting to note that scunner does not exist in English
English - that fact that Mr. Meehan is a Canadian probably explains why he
knew of a word with the same spelling and a different meaning.
> Beannachd leibh
> Stephen
>
>
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
[deletions]
>Perhaps you'll be able to tell me Mr. Maloney
>
>I read somewhere that there were mutually unintelligible 'dialects' of
>German.
>
>Is this correct - or are we dealing with the same aforementioned political
>prejudices?
>
Someone has posted a response to this, but I'd like to take my own stab at it.
The linguistic picture of Germany is very complex. There is the German that is
taught in schools and used in national publications and broadcasts; this is
Standard German, aka Hochdeutsch or High German. However, Standard German is
one variety of Upper German, the German languages and dialects of the upper
Rhine region. Many varieties of Hochdeutsch are mutually unintelligible.
In addition to the national literary language, there is Low German, aka
Plattdeutsch, the German used in lower Rhine region. There are 20 or 30
mutually unintelligible dialects of Plattdeutsch spoken in Germany alone.
Just to name some of the other German languages used in Germany: Allemannisch
or Schwyzerdütsch with a 40% intelligibility with Standard German; Bavarian;
Frankish; Luxembourgeois, which may be a dialect of Frankish; Mainfränkisch and
Rheinfränkisch, which are mutually intelligible with Frankish; Low Saxon, not
intelligible to Standard German speakers; Swabian, like Bavarian but even more
distinct from Standard German; Yiddish, no longer widely spoken in Germany for
obvious reasons; etc.
Most speakers of these regional varieties are bilingual in Standard German,
btw, particularly in the younger populations.
In addition, there are a number of non-German languages in Germany.
And outside Germany proper, there are varieties such ones associated with
German religious movements like Hutterite, Mennonite, and Amish German. There's
the German spoken in northern Italy, Cimbrian. And so forth.
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
mailto: fr...@aol.com
Nick Durie
Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
> "Nick Durie" Nick_...@bun.com wrote:
>
> [deletions]
>
> >Perhaps you'll be able to tell me Mr. Maloney
> >
> >I read somewhere that there were mutually unintelligible 'dialects' of
> >German.
> >
> >Is this correct - or are we dealing with the same aforementioned
political
> >prejudices?
> >
>
> Someone has posted a response to this, but I'd like to take my own stab at
it.
>
> The linguistic picture of Germany is very complex. There is the German
that is
> taught in schools and used in national publications and broadcasts;
Is that because of social stigma attached to the dialects/languages other
than Standard German?
this is
> Standard German, aka Hochdeutsch or High German. However, Standard German
is
> one variety of Upper German, the German languages and dialects of the
upper
> Rhine region. Many varieties of Hochdeutsch are mutually unintelligible.
>
Encyclopedias and whatnot certainly seem to make it much clearer than from
what I see here.
> In addition to the national literary language, there is Low German, aka
> Plattdeutsch, the German used in lower Rhine region. There are 20 or 30
> mutually unintelligible dialects of Plattdeutsch spoken in Germany alone.
>
unintelligible from each other or from standard German? It's just if they
are all unintelligble from each other then why are they called one language?
> Just to name some of the other German languages used in Germany:
Allemannisch
> or Schwyzerdütsch with a 40% intelligibility with Standard German;
>Bavarian;
They have their own parliament as well don't they? Perhaps they resemeble
Scotland, stateless nation and so forth?
> Frankish;
Frankish? I was under the impresion that the Franks moved into France and
all became Latin speakers which of course then became French. I knew
Charlemaigne had an empire which broke up - is this to do with that?
Luxembourgeois, which may be a dialect of Frankish; Mainfränkisch and
> Rheinfränkisch, which are mutually intelligible with Frankish; Low Saxon,
not
> intelligible to Standard German speakers
Often wondered about this Saxon stuff - does it resemble old English?
; Swabian, like Bavarian but even more
> distinct from Standard German; Yiddish, no longer widely spoken in Germany
for
> obvious reasons; etc.
>
> Most speakers of these regional varieties are bilingual in Standard
German,
> btw, particularly in the younger populations.
>
Presumably because 'dialect' speech is so uncool - or some ither siclik
glaikit glavers!
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
>Frank R.A.J. Maloney <fr...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
>news:20000416155314...@ng-fk1.aol.com...
>> "Nick Durie" Nick_...@bun.com wrote:
>>
>> [deletions]
>>
>> >Perhaps you'll be able to tell me Mr. Maloney
>> >
>> >I read somewhere that there were mutually unintelligible 'dialects' of
>> >German.
>> >
>> >Is this correct - or are we dealing with the same aforementioned
>political
>> >prejudices?
>> >
>>
>> Someone has posted a response to this, but I'd like to take my own stab at
>it.
>>
>> The linguistic picture of Germany is very complex. There is the German
>that is
>> taught in schools and used in national publications and broadcasts;
>
>Is that because of social stigma attached to the dialects/languages other
>than Standard German?
>
The literary language became established as the language of educated Germans by
the prestige and success of the writers who used it. I think it is a huge jump
from that to any imputations of prejudice against the regional languages, which
frequently have their own lively literatures and even official support.
Remember that Germany only became a unified state in January, 1871, when the
king of Prussia was proclaimed emperor of Germany.
Before that, Germany throughout its long history was mostly a geographical
term, it being divided into a astonishing variety of states and statelets. Even
after unification, kings still ruled in places like Bavaria under the kaisers.
In fact, the kaisers were very protective of their title as kings of Prussia;
indeed, after WW I Wilhelm II tried to broker a deal whereby he would abdicate
the emperorship but keep his Prussian kingdom.
Modern Germany is a federal republic made up of 16 Länder
(states)--Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg,
Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen,
Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein,
Thuringen. (Bayern is Bavaria, Sachsen Saxony.) Each state, like an American
state or a Canadian province, elects its own legislature and is autonomous from
the federal government to a varying degree.
BTW, I wouldn't ever tell a Bavarian he or she was in any way inferior to a
Berliner.
> this is
>> Standard German, aka Hochdeutsch or High German. However, Standard German
>is
>> one variety of Upper German, the German languages and dialects of the
>upper
>> Rhine region. Many varieties of Hochdeutsch are mutually unintelligible.
>>
>
>Encyclopedias and whatnot certainly seem to make it much clearer than from
>what I see here.
>
>> In addition to the national literary language, there is Low German, aka
>> Plattdeutsch, the German used in lower Rhine region. There are 20 or 30
>> mutually unintelligible dialects of Plattdeutsch spoken in Germany alone.
>>
>
>unintelligible from each other or from standard German? It's just if they
>are all unintelligble from each other then why are they called one language?
>
Yes and no, depending on the particular examples.
[deletion]
>
>>Bavarian;
>
>They have their own parliament as well don't they? Perhaps they resemeble
>Scotland, stateless nation and so forth?
>
See above.
>> Frankish;
>
>Frankish? I was under the impresion that the Franks moved into France and
>all became Latin speakers which of course then became French. I knew
>Charlemaigne had an empire which broke up - is this to do with that?
>
Some Franks stayed behind, just as some Saxons did. One of the original tribal
areas of post-Charlemagne Germany was called Franconia. Remember Charlemagne's
empire included most of France, Germany, Lombardy, and some of the Slavic
territories in the east.
[deletion]
>
>Often wondered about this Saxon stuff - does it resemble old English?
>
Low Saxon evolved from Old Saxon and so is related to English. Low Saxon is
officially recognized as a regional language in 8 states of Germany and in the
northeastern provinces of the Netherlands.
[deletion]
>> Most speakers of these regional varieties are bilingual in Standard
>German,
>> btw, particularly in the younger populations.
>>
>
>Presumably because 'dialect' speech is so uncool - or some ither siclik
>glaikit glavers!
>
No, once again you are assuming facts not in evidence, as Hamilton Burger used
to tell Perry Mason. I said especially the younger populations because
universal education, which includes instruction in Standard German, is, well,
universal now in Germany. Even the children of the so-called guest workers like
the Turks are getting a German education.
Probably, Mr. Durie, you and I have pushed the patience of the newsgroup to the
limit in getting so far afield. If you have any further questions of me about
OT language questions, write me at fr...@aol.com.
Professional Reader
rights. It's a misconception that Scots is a dialect of English...
B.
xx
Nick Durie
Professional Reader <bet...@professionaltarot.com> wrote in message
news:390600BE...@professionaltarot.com...
VIK
Nick Durie wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Aidan J Meehan <ame...@direct.ca>
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
> Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 1:21 PM
> Subject: Re: Is Scots Gaelic a language in its own right or is it a dialect
> of Irish
>
> > Nick Durie <Nick_...@bun.com> wrote in message
> > news:38f65...@news2.cluster1.telinco.net...
> >
> > [snip]
> > > > It is a unique dialect, distinctive, and has a rich heritage behind
> it.
> > > > But it is English.
> > >
> > > You say that I do not where is the evidence for your statement
> >
> > Let's see. Since I do not speak Scots, if I can translate several Scots
> > phrases into English with accuracy, would this demonstrate that Scots is a
> > dialect of English, not a different language?
> >
> > If I cannot translate several Scots phrases in sucession, that does not
> > prove it is a different language, only that there are many phrases of
> Scots
> > that I do not understand.
> >
> > If Scots is a separate language than English, I would not expect to find
> > more than an occasional correspondence in vocabulary, grammar, and turn of
> > phrase.
> >
> > But if I can recognise a fair sample of several regular Scots phrases (not
> > chosen for their exceptional distinctiveness) I think it is reasonable to
> > think that Scots phrases, at least are examples of the English language
> > written in Scottish dialect. The closer the correspondence verbatim, the
> > more likely it is a dialect, not a language.
> >
> > Below, the Scots is taken from your previous post.
> >
> >
> > (1)
> > "Och aye sae ye ken aw about Scots div you. Eh wad wager a bodle ye
> divna!"
> > "Oh yes so you know all about Scots do you? I would bet a bodle you
> don't!"
> > (A bottle? I can accept that wager, and raise you a bottle)
> >
> >
> Again English doesn't capture the nuances of the sentence
> a bodle was old Scots currency a think about the same as a quarter penny it
> still survives in sayings and whatnot
>
> > (2)
> > "Ye hivnae bin reidin the posts - the gremmer isnae the same ava."
> > "You havn't been reading the posts - the grammar isn't the same at all."
>
> Again English cannot capture the emphatic forms
>
> both hiv and bin are emphatic
> >
> > (3)
> > "ye cuidna owerset mah Scots sae hou can ye mak at argiement athout
> leein."
> > "you could not understand my Scots so how can you argue without lying?"
>
> Your translation is erroneus; it should read
>
> You couldn't translate, from a foreign language - two words for translate- ,
> so how can you make that argument without lying
> >
> >
> > (4)
> > "Exackly whit Ah argied!"
> > "Exactly what I argued!"
> >
> >
> > (5)
> > "Obscure tae you but na till a Scoats speiker!"
> > "Obscure to you, but not to a Scots speaker!"
> >
> Note the difference in the (to)
>
> the other too in English goes like this
>
> the tyre was too large to go inside the chest
> the tyre wis ower muckle tae gae inby the kiste
>
> (note same as German this often makes me wonder at NA words like keister
> which are often attributed to German when they could just as easily have
> come from Scots).
>
> >
> > (6)
> > "Ah daena ken aither Czech or Slovak but whit Ah dae ken is at thar's nae
> > Ingliss wird fir scunner"
> >
> > "I don't know either Czech or Slovak but what I do know is there's no
> > English word for *scunner*"
> >
> > (BTW, I'm scunnered that you presumed this word was unknown to me.
> > "scunnered" means,"astounded" where I come from)
>
> Awricht Ah hiv tae apologeiss fir thon but tak tent scunnert means
> disgusted na astounded, by the by are you a North American akis monie a
> Scots wird an a tait o the gremmer haes bein
> >
> >
> > (7)
> > "Sae whit?"
> > "So what?"
> >
> >
> > (8)
> > "Scots his monie a byleid o its ain!"
> > "Scots has many a dialect of its own!"
> >
>
> two words in Scots for language one is leid the other is langage
> naturally byleid is a synonym for dialeck
> >
> > (9)
> > "accent is juist a wey o seyin diphthongs
> > it's nae the same's hivin
> > unlike wirds an aa tha gremmer gear!"
> >
> > "accent is just a way of saying dipthongs.
> > It's not the same as having
> > unlike words and all that grammar gear."
>
> Gear is only Scots and northern English, I believe, if I was translating it
> I would say stuff
> >
> >
> > Aidan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> Again thank you for taking the time to respond
>
> try this one
>
> Ah hae ta'en a scomfish till aa thay collegianers akis thay'r aye sneckin
> aff the lichts tae hae a tait hochmagandie
>
> the smorin reek o the ingle wis scomfishin the puir quine akis thar wisnae a
> windae i the hale biggin
>
> The callant vizzied his racket at the glaikit houlet but afore he cuid shot
> the wappen a muckle maisterfou chiel cloutit him ower the heid wi a
> forehaimmer.
>
> Ye auld sneck-drawn skellum, hou daed ye na tak the televeision an aa?
The Jig is up .....There is Scots then there is Gaelic I personally believe it
to be an offspring language Of Gaelic and English in the North some Old Norse
thrown in for good measure
here is the link to the Scots haunbuik <a
href=http://www.umist.ac.uk/UMIST_CAL/Scots/haunbuik.htm>haunbuik</a>
and here is a link to a Gaelic site <a
href=http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/ionnsachadh/ECG/>Gaelic</a>
Frank R.A.J. Maloney
[deletions]
>The Jig is up .....There is Scots then there is Gaelic I personally believe
>it
>to be an offspring language Of Gaelic and English in the North some Old
>Norse
>thrown in for good measure
>
>
>
>and here is a link to a Gaelic site Gaelic
>
The Norse language you refer was called "Norrœna" or Norn, which evolved from
Old Norse. It was spoken by the rural population of the Orkneys until it died
out in the 18th century, although the elites began adopting Scots as early as
the 14th century. For information about it, see
http://www.orkneyjar.com/norn.htm .
Nick Durie
Phil Launchbury <phil.launchbury@-remove-windriver.com> wrote in message
news:htsdgsk0pasck230a...@4ax.com...
> "Nick Durie" <Nick_...@bun.com> wrote:
>
> >Aye thon's richt 's nae a byleid ava. As for Scots Gaelic, as a
non-speaker
> >I cannot comment but from the info. that some speakers have given me here
it
> >also seems also to be a language.
> >
>
> .. and one with a certain claim to not be English. Whereas Scots can
either
> be seen as a sister-language to English (in which case so is ever variant
> like Geordie or Janner) or as a dialect.
No it is not an English dialect an gin yer gaun tae argie anent the Scots
leid ye hiv tae hae a siccar kennin o't! Thars mair Dichty watter Ingliss
speikin Scots nor oniethin that trews Scots is a byleid an it's sae thrawn.
Sic thochts are makkit bi the bit govrenment that's aye begeckin fowk intil
trewin 'at thair leids orray or course an Scots's nane o thaim, it's a leid
that's sib till Ingliss but ower chyngit tae bi crehd a byleid, sae divna bi
gien iz onie o yer menseless threapins anent Scots bin ower near Ingliss
akis thae thochts daena mak e'en a tait sense
>
> Phil.
>
> --
> Phil Launchbury
> Unix Sysadmin (phil.launchbury@-unmunge-windriver.com)
> ... and VFR 800 rider ...