The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #10484   Message #72881
Posted By: Alex
22-Apr-99 - 11:56 PM
Thread Name: Robert Burns tunes/Scot dialect pronounce
Subject: RE: Robert Burns tunes/Scot dialect pronounce
"Lallans" or lowland Scots is not exactly easily defined. Burns used standard English pronunciation and the Ayrshire Lallans dialect at will where it best suited his intention of the mood of the poem or song. So the sound of a word could be different in two or three places in the same song. You have to look at the intended rhyme to figure out the sounds. The dialect is very onomatopoeic? (where the word sounds like the sound it describes). EG there are two words for a cold draft of air in the house, a "Shooch" is a draft coming in and a "Sooch" is a draft going out. Jean Redpath has been trying to record every song Burns' collected or wrote and has several CDs out. She has even recorded some of the "Merry Muses of Caledonia" songs, which were the bawdy versions of some of the published songs. I'm not crazy about some of the musical arrangements, but her dialect is spot on.