Folklore: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:32 AM

in 2005 the Europain government made it an offical minorty langage

so from 2005 it's a minorty Langauge.

Tom,

are the above italicised terms examples of the Scots lingo?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 02:22 PM

It has to be a language - A Dielect is one of the things on Dr Who that wants to exterminate everyone isn't it?

:D (tG)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 02:11 PM

Don't get us Canuckistanians started on "Francophone officials" !!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 12:50 PM

Taking this discussion westward across the Atlantic:

Some years ago, some friends here in Indianapolis, Phil and Jean ("JEEN", not "Zhan") Smith had occasion to move to Quebec for work reasons.

When the family produced a girls baby, they named it for the mother, Jean.

"No," they were told by the Francophone officials, "you can't name a girl 'Jean'. That's a man's name. It must be 'Jeanne', or choose some other name."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: KateG
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 12:02 PM

Thirty-odd (very odd) years ago when I was at University, my Old Norse professor introduced us to the dialect maps of the Germanic languages on the European continent produced by the Brothers Grimm (of fairy tale fame). What was fascinating was the way different aspects of the language changed at different places. So the border between one pronunciation of a particular vowel, consonant or word and another pronuciation of the same vowel, consonant or wrd did not always correlate with the borders between another pronunciation or word choice shift. So while politicians and educators and other folks with various ethnic or nationalist agendas could try to define the "correct" version of their language, the situtation on the ground was much more fluid. And especially in those days (19th century), when transportation was much more limited. You really got the feeling that if you moved from one place to another slowly enough, spending a few weeks or months at each closely placed stop, you could travel all over Europe -- or at least the Germanic portions thereof -- without conciously learning a new language. And the same principal could have applied within the Romance regions or the Slavic regions as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 10:17 AM

While various definitions of "dialect" exist, they're all subjective to some degree. There's no litmus test and no comprehensive, entirely objective answer to the question of what's a dialect and what's a language.

The most rigid definition insists that while "dialects" are more or less mutually intelligible (and "languages" are not), "real" dialects exhibit differing details of syntax (grammar rules), as well as of pronunciation and vocabulary.

The traditional syntax of Scots is essentially identical to that of standard English, though there are some very minor differences that most people don't even notice. So its "precise" overall status (assuming there can be one) is moot.

In practical terms, the distinction between "language" and "dialect" is of more political than scientific interest.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:30 AM

we in Scotland have British and Scots Law

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:28 AM

I can't remember when exactly, but as I said I read it in the Daily record

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 09:27 AM

it was afew yaers ago and was pritnted in the Daily Record

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:32 AM

Was not the problem the fact that they weren't using the parents' name, Boyle. They were obliged to register the daughter with their own surname: a piece of bureaucracy you may disagree with, but nothing to do with Gaelic. The father could have changed their own name to NicBhaoille or whatever he liked, and then called his daughter likewise. With the first names, there was no problem. You can use any language you like, or make names up from scratch.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,Scabby Douglas
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 07:05 AM

Apologies to Tom, incidentally.

I think the breathtakingly dumb thing about the original stushie (great Scots word, that) is that Aoife is by no means an unusual given name, and it seems like it was the rendering of Boyle as NicBhaoille that they were objecting to.

I suspect that some jobsworth objected to the fact that they wanted to give the daughter a different family name, and then attempted to justify it with the "must be English" argument. Which neatly misses the fact that "Boyle" is a surname of Irish origin.

Breathtaking in its stupidity and arrogance.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,Scabby Douglas
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 06:56 AM

OK - I was wrong.

Although in the end the nitwit forces of Anglo/Scotophone bureaucracy were embarrassed into a climbdown.


http://www.ogmios.org/214.htm

Scottish 'monolingual mindset' exposed in Gaelic name case
From Eurolang, the news agency for lesser-used languages
3 Jun 2003
The General Register Office for Scotland has been forced into a humiliating climbdown after a couple from Skye won their fight to have their baby daughter's name registered in Gaelic. The Boyle family of Erusbaig, near the Kyle of Lochalsh had been told that Gaelic was classed as a foreign language and their child, Aoife NicBhaoille, would have to have her name changed to English before it could be accepted. Aoife's father, Austin Boyle, had said that he was prepared to risk prosecution and would refuse to name his daughter if he could not use the Gaelic form of Boyle, NicBhaoille.

and also here:
http://www.whfp.com/1623/editor.html

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,Scabby Douglas
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 06:49 AM

Aye, I'm in Scotland too, Tom. Can you cite when this happened? Sounds like a load of old nonsense to me. (No offense intended)

Given that Gaelic names (and names of Gaelic derivation) are routinely used all over Scotland, I find it unlikely that what you assert actually happened.

Of course I could be wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 05:39 AM

There is no legal limitation on naming of children in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 05:18 AM

the same with Gaelic however it's against the law to name your children with Gaelic names in Scotland because a man from Scotland wanted to give his children Gaelic names, but was told by the authorties that he couldn't and had to give his children non- Gaelic nmaes.

Oh by the way I live in Scotland

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,marks
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 07:28 PM

Wolfgang
Thank you for those interesting comments. I often used to marvel how, when in Zurich for instance, there would be no problem reading a newspaper and a great problem talking to somebody on the street!
For some years I worked for a company located in Aachen. My co-workers, after learning of my Swiss background, often would comment that SwissGerman is not a language. No, it is a disease of the throat!
Seriously, in order to reproduce the sounds the human mouth has to make in order to speak SwissGerman, I really believe you need to learn this as your motherlanguage as a child. Otherwise you never get it right. My father (SwissGerman motherlanguage even though he was born in America) would speak to my grandparents perfectly. When I would join the talking, everybody would have a kind laugh and joke at the "Fremdschweitzer" in the family!
Thank you for helping me recall some nice memories.
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 05:20 PM

Aw, Mick, yer a Big man after all ... I assumed that there had been a bit of "misreading"; no harm done.

Most of my father's people were Gaelic-speaking Presbyterians in Cape Breton; some of the distant relatives are still alive and still speaking "the language of the Garden". So I felt I had to give them their due.

Cheers,

thurg

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Big Mick
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 02:01 PM

Thurg, please accept my apologies. It appears that I misread the intent of the post, and I was factually wrong.

Thanks Snuff. I would have thought the Presbyterian ministry learned Irish for purposes of proselytizing.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:24 PM

And plenty more on irish-speaking dissenters here Presbyterian Emigrations from Ulster to South Carolina; the Cahans Exodus from Ballybay to Abbeville in 1764.

Religious affiliation did not inevitably follow linguistic boundaries, and vice versa; the situation appears to have been far more fragmented than is commonly realised. Like Catholics, albeit to a lesser extent, dissenters suffered the displeasure of English law, and offered resistance.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:12 PM

in 2005 the Europain government made it an offical minorty langage

so from 2005 it's a minorty Langauge.

Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 12:07 PM

Not as uncommon as you might think, Mick. This site says:

Gaelic is nothing new to Irish Presbyterians who trace their roots in Ireland back to 1642 when the Scottish Regiments stationed at Carrickfergus brought their Presbyterianism to these shores. They spoke both Gaelic and Lowland Scots which later became Ulster Scots. Until the early 19th century there would have been Presbyterian communities who spoke and worshipped in Gaelic in places including Bushmills, the Glens of Antrim, Ballybay and Dundalk. Until around 1850 it was a condition that students for the Presbyterian ministry undertook classes in Irish.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Big Mick
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 10:14 AM

thurg, I am sure you could find some Scots Prebyterian Gaels somewhere, but I find your comment disengenuous.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 09:49 AM

Mark,

I've lived some hundred yards from Switzerland for about 15 years (with better access to Swiss TV, so I know what you mean. The speakers of that Alemanic dialect prefer to call Swiss-German a language and to use the word 'dialect(s)' for Berner Deutsch, Glarner Deutsch, Zurich Deutsch etc.

But that does not mean much, for those Germans who speak the Alemanic dialect (in the very South West of Germany) and those French who also speak the Alemanic dialect (Alsatians) also would name their dialect a language (sprooch).

Less seriously, as long as the Swiss German speakers themselves name the language Schwyzerdütsch it still is a dialect of German. And it can never become an own language for purely geographical reasons: "A language is a dialect with a navy".

Paul,
no, I don't think she would have been glad with that

Swiss German is actually at the brink to a new language for several reasons in my layperson eyes.
It not only has many completely different words (East-German and West-German also had about 500 different words after a separate history of only 40 odd years).
It has a completely different grammar and the stresses are often completely different.

More reasons for it being a language already:
(1) A Swiss German speaker is unable to speak more or less of his dialect. There is no real continuum between a broad dialect and Hochdeutsch. She either speaks Hochdeutsch (with a dialect sound which most Germans wrongly consider to be Swiss German already) or she speaks real Swiss German (that by foreign speakers of German often is not even recognised to be a variant of German).

A teacher would use Hochdeutsch in her lessons and might switch completely to Schwyzerdütsch for a personal remark (Pirmin, could you pay a bit more of attention, for instance.

When I watched skiing in Swiss TV, the speakers always would use Hochdeutsch until the moment they did an interview with a Swiss skier. So without any warning he would start the next sentence for instance like this (I transcribe it how it sounds to me):
Und nu hämmer bi üs d'Marie-Thräs Nadig. Marie-Thräs, wie isch's hüetige Ranne g'si.

(2) There is a third hilarious variant of Swiss High German which also demonstrates that the dialect might soon be a language. In private TV and radio in Switzerland the language used is often Swiss German throughout. And then comes the moment when the speaker reads a news item. The news item has been written in Hochdeutsch and he reads it in Swiss German. That sounds awfully wrong like a nonexisting dialect, for the grammar and the order of words are completely Hochdeutsch and the words and the pronounciation are Swiss German.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 09:38 AM

Thurg

In fairness, taken in context, I think Big Mick's comments were valid.

Regards
p.s. My instinct suggests that Presbyterian Gaels belonged to some of the "free" sects, probably later than we're talking about? I dunno.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 09:31 AM

Point of clarification. Big Mick said awhile ago: "these were Scots Presbyterians and not Gaels". The two groups are not mutually exclusive. They may not get much press, but there are "Scots Presbyterians" who are Gaels.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 03:49 AM

Ian Paisley went to both the British and European parliments to get funding to develop what he called the "Ulster Scots Language" and he got it. Yet he was allowed to stand up publicly and ridicule the Irish Language. He refers to it as a leprechaun language.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 03:35 AM

Would "a Germanic dialect" (which it clearly is) have appeased her? It looks a little like the German bits of Yiddish to me, and no one has ever tried to claim that wasn't German in origin.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,marks
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 09:35 PM

Wolfgang
The idea that Swiss German is a dialect of German rather than a language all its own would have my grandparents (born in Basel Stadt)
spinning in their graves!
Be glad my grandmother did not learn of you referring to Schweitzerdeutsch as a "dialect". You would quickly learn
"Du sonst shon un uhr vin an esel!"
MFG
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Urbane_Guerrilla
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:34 PM

"The appropriate equipment" being any television younger than about fifteen years old. Subtitles and SAP (Second Audio Program -- dubbing into another language) are a very regular feature at least of cable TV in the U.S. I'm way out of touch with whatever those twentieth-century slowpokes, the large TV networks, are currently doing, as I've lived ten years in an area that gets very poor VHF and UHF reception -- the antennas are all over in L.A., and there aren't hardly any repeaters to get the signals over the intervening mountains. Even medium-wave AM radio is weak and noisy.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Tootler
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 07:51 PM

I loved the "wee dafties". How did they get away with such a non-PC expression? I can guess, but tell me anyway ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: cobra
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 03:45 PM

"Stormont" and "brains" in thesame sentence is a difficult concept to work with. They all spoke in tongues, their own tongues. Incomprehensible to anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 11:09 AM

When Stormont was up and running did the elected brains use this dialect?.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: cobra
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 10:12 AM

Getting a grant from the EU for preservation/ promulgation of your language or dialect of choice is a good way to ensure its preservation. Provided the money can be spent in the ale hoose gannin' o'er the mair dreek aspects o' the language.

I am reminded of a do which was held in Belfast City Hall a while back. It was in support of Disabled Children, the Lord Mayor's chosen charity at the time. Politically, all official communications in Norn Iron are now required to be issued in three (3) versions viz. English, Gaeilge and Ulster-Scots. The English version extended a welcome to prospective attendees and hoped they would be able to join the Mayor for afternoon tea at the City Hall in support of Children With Mental Disability. The Gaelic version was a fair interpration of the same.

The Ulster-Scots exhortation was as follows (approx.): "The heid yin wud like for ye to cam fir tae and buns in the Big Hoose in aid of the wee dafties".

Language or dialect, you decide.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 09:01 AM

McGrth of Harlow inquired:

So don't they provide subtitles as a matter of course to help people who don't hear too well?

Yes, many stations have, included in their signal, the information for real-time subtitles, for many of the programs. Of course you have to have the appropriate home equipment to make those running "translations" show up on the screen.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 12:04 AM

During the reign of Mary , Queen of Scots, the people of the South west of Scotland used Gaelic. A brief glance at the old "toon" [farm steading] names is revealing. "Craigdarroch", "Auchengee" Farden Reoch" "Creoch" "Brockloch" "Polquhirter" "Polquwhaup" are all cases which lie within five miles of my birthplace. Most of those names stem from old Gaelic. The Scots toungue has something in common with most "languages". It derives from the influences which came into the lives of the people over the centuries. Many words now accepted as "Scots" are the result of old Anglo saxon influence. Some words, like "tassie" [cup], crauvat" [scarf, or tie], are from contact with the French. "Kirk" , "bairn", etc., are Scandinavian. It's some time since I looked with any concentration at a dictionary, but I can clearly remember the italics following most words--"from the French'---"from the German"----"from Latin"--etc.. All language groups have evolved similarly due to changing circumstance. It is plain in fact that at the present day new words and expressions are popping up continuously due to the global phenomenon of modern communications and
interest in entertainment and constant virtual contact with other language groups.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 04:24 PM

In the U.S. they sometimes subtitle English if it has a heavy regional accent.

So don't they provide subtitles as a matter of course to help people who don't hear too well? (Which is what the subtitles I referred to are there for primarily) I'm surprised at that - I'd have thought that if anything the States would be ahead of us there.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 04:12 PM

I will answer this question,it is simply a noise

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 03:02 PM

Ha! In the U.S. they sometimes subtitle English if it has a heavy regional accent. Cajuns in particular seem to be the victims of this, although I've also seen it done to various Europeans with accented English, even if they're Irish or English or from somewhere else that generally speaks English. Think Boomhauer on "King of the Hill".

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 02:54 PM

Thanks, McGrath, for the information.

We would not subtitle in the respective dialect (which I think is a very good idea) but in high German.

In the case of Swiss German, dialect subtitles could be difficult for 90% of the Germans.

Dialect subtitle:       War gohd Gompfi poschde?
High German subtitle:    Wer geht Marmelade einkaufen?
English:                Who's going to buy jam?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 01:32 PM

Perhaps if you read the discussion thus far, you would notice that someone has already given that quote and discussed it, ABCD. I believe it was the third post.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 01:30 PM

Minus "m"

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 01:29 PM

"A Lanmguage is just a Dialect with an Army and Navy"

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:32 PM

more here:

http://lyberty.com/encyc/articles/dalriada.html

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: GUEST,Sandy (lost cookie)
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:24 PM

As ard mhacha says this return migration to Ireland was not of Gaelic people. There was however continuing trade and migration back and forth.
The kingdom of Dalriada included both areas.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:23 PM

cross post, ard. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:22 PM

I wouldn't think so, sIx, as these were Scots Presbyterians and not Gaels. They were a part of the Plantation system, and actually sought to displace Gaelic culture. That is greatly simplified generalization, but they surely didn't bring the language of the Gaels. They would have been English speakers brought to displace the native Irish. The migration that Sandy refers to took place much earlier. Certain Gaels, fled to what later became Scotland, settling in the highlands. They had a great deal to do with the creation of the clan structure, brought there language and customs, and (I am told) bagpipes and whiskey. Over the centuries these transplants, influenced by these and other cultures, became what we now know as the Scot.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:20 PM

Thanks for the clarification mhacha.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 12:15 PM

A mixture of lowland Scots mostly from the border regions and as many again of English land grabbers, there would have been no Gaelic speakers.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: number 6
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 11:58 AM

"Ulster Irish and Scots Gaelic"

Is this not a result of Ulster being populated by the Scots? ... the colonization which took place in the northern Irish province of Ulster during the early 17th century in the reign of James I of England.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Is Scots a Language or a Dialect?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 11:36 AM

Yeh Mick! The Gaels (Scots) who came from Ireland were a branch of the Dalriada and they were Gaelic speaking. They mixed with the Picts in Scotland who were another group of Celts. With the Highland clearances many thousands of these people came to Cape Breton in the early 1800's. My parents still spoke "the Gaelic". I understand a bit but am not fluent. I have heard it said that Gaelic in the North of Ireland was close to what is spoken in the Hebrides but that the southern Irish has less in common.
                Slainte,
                   Sandy