Re: NATLANG: Scary Document

Joe scripsit:

> This is an official Scots translation of a Scottish Parliament report:
>
> http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/official_report/cttee/educ-03/edr03-02-vol
> 01-scots.pdf
>
> It looks like some kind of Bastard child of English and Scots, replacing
> words that aren't in Scots with completely unaltered english.
That *is* what modern standard Scots looks like.  For it to contain no
English words whatever, it would pretty much have to date back to before
the Union of the Crowns, and even then mim-moued Southron was a considerable
source of loanwords.  In order to express the concerns of 21st-century
speakers, a massive influx of English loanwords (where else would they
come from?) is not only necessary but benign.

There is no saying, in general, whether a given word is English or Scots,
though there are many particular identifiable cases.  In most cases, however,
it is straightforward to tell if a *sentence* is English or Scots.  Thus,
"Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled" is not Scots, but English heavily influenced
by English:  grammatical Scots would require "Scots ut hae".

> I have to say though, Scots is an interesting language.  More Germanic than
> English.
Indeed.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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