Fed up explainin.

Subject: Fed up explainin.
From: little john cameron
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:12 AM

The time has come tae gie up explainin whether Scots is a language or no.There is enough information oan here aboot it fae me an' ithers tae fill a book,no tae mention the stuff oan the net.Fae noo oan ah'll jist refer oney enquiries tae the previous threeds.Ah'll jist keep typin awa in mah ain style,regardless o views tae the contrary.
Ah admit that it is a wattered doon version,bit as ah explained afore,the real thing wid puggle ye aw thegither.
Hae a listen tae Willie Drennan oan the Ulster Scots threed.Ah can make oot aboot 6 or 7 words in that.
Ah'm aw for diversity in aw things.It wid be a borin world if we aw spoke the same.
Oneyway,Onward through the Fog. ljc

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:17 AM

LJC, I enjoy readin' your posts. Whether Ulster Scots, Scots or any other is a language or a dialect is fodder for a good debate. But it has nothing to do with the legitamacy of your posts. I enjoy the hell out of them, my friend. Don't stop.

Mick

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: MMario
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:22 AM

ljc - I also enjoy your posts; both for content AND delivery! Keep typing!

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:28 AM

Ditto here, Little John. Dinna fasch yoursel'!!

A

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Jerry Dingleman: The Boy Wonder(inactve)
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:31 AM

Little John Cameron,

When I was last in Halifax, I was at a friend's house and heard an LP of yours called "Sit Down, Mr. Music Man." A few traditional songs and others by Tom Paxton, Richard Farina and Gordon Lightfoot sung in plain English. Not at all like the way you write.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: MMario
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:35 AM

why would he sing songs by Tom Paxton or Gordon Lightfoot in Lalland's Scots?

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Micca
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:36 AM

Yeah, way to Go LJ!!.. your posts have a unique flavour, like I was hearing you speak, and on this I agree with my distinguished colleagues above, Mr Lane and Signor MMario. After a while on here many Catters styles colour their posts, and when you speak to/meet them face to face that style shines through in their manner of speech, sometimes the accent may differ but only to enrich and colour the communication, but it eases and enhances the feeling that you are meeting old friends for the first time. I, for one, would say..Keep on Posting in your own unique style and to hell with the critics.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Mooh
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:43 AM

ljc,

I never knew either of my grandfathers, but one of them would have spoken much as you write. Thanks for giving me a piece of it, and please don't stop.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Jerry Dingleman: The Boy Wonder(inactve)
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:47 AM

MMario,

My point was that I was surprised, after reading LJC's Mudcat postings in dialect, to see that his repertoire, to the extent that the LP I heard was representative, was in plain English.

BTW, I have heard Tom Paxton songs sung in translations to languages other than English. Not Lalland's Scots, so far, but in Hebrew and in French.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: little john cameron
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:59 AM

Jeez guys,haud oan,ah no gaun awa.Ah jist meant ah wis fed up explainin aboot Scots language.Ah'm oan some ither boards and ane o' mah ain bit the mudcat is aye tops.
Jerry,so it wis you that bocht it,ah aye wondered wha it wis.Aye a can sing withoot an accent bit talkin is a different maitter.Ah hae ither anes whit are in Scots.
Mick,whit's this aboot a photie o me an' Fielding that he says he gied ye tae send me?Ah think that is when we were pretendin tae be Irish.Amazin whit ye'll dae for a dollar.Must hae been awricht as we played there for six weeks.
Oneyway guys,thanks for the encouragement.Mah wee hert is fu"
ljc

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:05 AM

Yeah, I got it John. I am about to scan it and send it back to Rick. Then we are shipping it off to Jed Marum to see if he can clean it up a bit and send it off to you. Guess I better get busy, eh?

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:17 AM

ljc, what the others said, esp. Micca and Mooh. You know how much I love to read/hear your words. The critics can go soak their backsides in a bucket of warm molasses while having a cow lick them bald on top.

kat'leen

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: little john cameron
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:21 AM

Aye Kat,ye were aye mah number ane fan.Noo that's enough o' the admiation society guys,back tae business.ljc

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:21 AM

Just received this from another Mudcatter by email. This seems a good spot to share a bit o'fun:

Sean Connery had fallen on hard times. All work had dried up and he just sat at home twindling his thumbs. Ring!! Ring!! The phone. Sean answers. It's his agent. Sean's excited.

Agent: "Sean, I've got a job for you. Starts tomorrow, but you've got to get there early, for 10ish. Sean (frowning): "Tennish? But I haven't even got a racket"

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:32 AM

Gie me that auld wey o speikin.
Gie me that auld wey o speikin.
Gie me that auld wey o speikin.
It's guid eneugh fir me.

An doon wi apostophes!

That isn't my native speech, though, and I'd better give up writing it before I start making embarrassing mistakes. But I love reading it.

I don't blame you for getting tired of explaining it. I think giving a link to a good web site that explains Scots is a fine idea. Maybe you could even program one of your function keys to insert the link automatically.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:48 AM

A language is a dialect with an army. I don't know who said it, and it's not all the way true, but it's true enough often enough.

One thing to remember is that if we all wrote the way we speak, and did it phonetically, we'd quickly realise we weren't speaking the same language at all.

It can work the other way too. Dutch and English look totally different, but fisherman from East Anglia and Holland are said to have little difficulty in underestanding each other. (Well no more difficulty than fishermen from other parts of England would have in understanding the East Anglians.)

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: little john cameron
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:53 AM

Whit dis that mean" dialect wi an army" ljc

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 06:49 PM

LJC: Well, it's called the King's (or Queen's) English, and the Queen has an army (or did formerly) and that's what makes the Queen's English better than yours and mine. If the King or Queen were just an ordinary citizen like you or me, there'd be no basis for saying his/hers was any better. That's the way I take it, anyway.

The language of the King James Bible (a.k.a. Authorized Version) would be regarded as a dialect -- with its "thou art", "he goeth" etc. -- if it hadn't been enshrined in such a culturally important document, and read aloud to generation upon generation of churchgoers. Instead, it's regarded as merely quaint, or perhaps poetic and exalted.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Snuffy
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 06:54 PM

ljc, " dialect wi an army" -look at former Yugoslavia: they all used to be dialects, but now they're languages, and they've each got an army to make sure you don't forget it.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: little john cameron
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 07:19 PM

Thanks guys.In the words o mah pal Lenny"Fascinating" ljc

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 08:47 PM

Never had any problem reading your posts. No need to explain. Funny, some words seem to define themselves, like puggle in your first post.
I just looked it up in the OED- it's there!

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: little john cameron
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 08:55 PM

Surely ye didnae think ah make them up?lol.ljc

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Desdemona
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 08:58 PM

I love your posts, and generally read them aloud for greater enjoyment; never change (although I doubt you had any intention of doing so)!

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 10:26 PM

Ich kant verstehn a wort u set.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:04 PM

I have a copy of the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, and it has lots of Scots words in it--maybe all of them, for all I know. Evidently the editors considered Scots to be a branch of English, otherwise they wouldn't have included them.

I wonder why someone hasn't written a program, something like Babelfish, that translates English to Scots and vice versa. It seems it would be a lot easier than translating, say, English to French, because (as far as I know) the grammar isn't any different, and the word order doesn't change.

Then anyone could imitate ljc!

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 12:44 AM

Och, this is gonnae be fin! Tak' a look at this site! Aw kinds ay tranlators fur visitin' eh UK!

Here ya go, Jim, check this out: www.whoohoo.co.uk for translation like the above.

I accessed that through this great site: www.skell.org/travels/dial.htm.

And, for all you Geordies, I found this one: www.geordie.org.uk, though I think it may have been posted here, before.

This is truly going to be fun! Look out ljc, you'll have to let us know how well the translation program is doing!*bg*

kat

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: mack/misophist
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 10:30 AM

The linguistics books say that if a listener has to concentrate to understand a speaker, they're listening to a dialect of their own language. Or maybe to some one with no teeth.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 10:34 AM

Here's the original of McGrath's shortened quotation:

Weinreich (1945): A shprakh iz a diyalekt mit an armey un a flot.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: GUEST,Kernow John
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 05:01 PM

I thought An army of dialects was a load o them tin men from Dr. Who?
KJ

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 06:02 PM

Wolfgang - what is that speech or dialect? I can read it alright, but I'm pretty sure its not any form of English, unless it's Hyman Kaplanesque.

Penny

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 06:38 PM

Penny, I think it is Yiddish.

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 07:23 PM

For those interested in reading Scots dialect as in the poetry of Robert Burns such as
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!
Click here And an interesting article on the Scots dialect reflecting opinions as in previous posts Click here And translation of many words
Click here

;>) TTFN

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 07:31 PM

Sorry cocked up last blue clicky
Last blue Clicky for translations? or should it be x-lations?
Click here

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 08:25 AM

Kat is right, the citation was in Yiddish.
Now that citation 'A language is a dialect with an army and a navy' isn't really meant serious. There are many definitions of the difference between dialect and language (for instance, If you can understand the other person it's a dialect if not, a language), the one I prefer is that two dialects use an identical written form whereas two languages don't.

This definition makes for instance Swedish and Norwegian two languages though the speakers can understand each other and Swiss German and German two dialects though the speakers usually cannot understand each other.

Some speakers in the very Northwest of Germany and in the neighbouring parts of the Netherlands speak nearly the same language on a phonetic base and can easily understand each other, but both speak different languages for the transliteration of what they actually speak is fairly different. In this case, neighbours could understand what they speak but perhaps not what they write.

Why should speakers of different dialects use identical written forms at all? Couldn't we get rid of all languages at all and only have more or less differing dialects? Wouldn't life be more easy at school and other places if everyone would transliterate her own language as she pleases?

Not at all I think. Learning other languages would be much more difficult. Search of information would be seriously impaired. Any documents with consequences, legal or otherwise, would be less unambiguous.

It takes some effort to learn an unambiguous transliteration in one's own or other languages but the pay-off is worth the effort. Have you ever tried locating a person in a phone directory when you didn't know how the name was spelt?

I do understand nearly always what ljc writes but I would hate to search for his contributions for the transliterations he uses vary. As for contributions not meant to be worth rereading at a later time but for instant forgetting after the first reading I do not mind at all in which form they are written. For all other contributions I do mind for a lack of effort on spelling interferes with the usefulness of this database.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Fed up explainin.
From: Penny S.
Date: 06 Mar 02 - 02:28 PM

Thanks, I thought it might be - but I've never seen it written. I found Wolfgang's discussion interesting. I've always found ljc fascinating, and had little difficulty reading him. I like to learn alternative vocabulary.

Penny