Re: USAGE: Scots

 --- On Sun 07/14, Thomas Leigh < thomas@MERMAID-PRODUCTIONS.COM >
wrote:From: Thomas Leigh [mailto: thomas@MERMAID-PRODUCTIONS.COM]To:
CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDUDate: Sun 07/14Subject: Re: USAGE: Scots# Ted
Saratoga screivit:>> John, Is there any website on the form of Scots used
in the recentlytranslated Bible.??>>I have never seen one. It's not
particularly different from any othervariety of Scots, as far as I can tell,
though the vocabulary is wonderfullyrich and "braid", as they say.>>And
it's just the New Testament, by the way, not the whole Bible. It waspublished
in 1985, though the author had completed the translation back inthe
sixties.> Does it have a name.??>>It's just Scots. The only dialect I
can think of that sometimes goes by adifferent name is northeast Scots, which
is often called "Doric" by itsspeakers.But that is not the form most widely
used, as I recall. That is
"West Central" or some such.
> Has this helped to standardize the current language? Such things often do.#
No. An artificial (in the sense of being a intentionally constructed mixtureof
elements of various dialects) literary variety of Scots called "Lallans"had
already come into use (though it is not universally favored, by anymeans; a
number of writers and Scots language activists have a strongpreference for
their own regional dialect) before the NT was published, andthat IMO has had
much more of a standardizing effect.
Are there Lallans dictionaries?> Most of us are familiar with some phonetic and
vocabulary differences, butwhat> grammatical features has Scots that diffier
from the English?? When is theword> order different??# Word order isn't very
different. Being sister languages, Scots and Englishare very much alike, in
fact, though some Scots language activists do allthey can to force their Scots
to be as different from English as possible,just for political reasons.
# One major grammatical difference is that pluralnouns take singular verb forms,
for example where English says "the childrenare", Scots says "the bairns is".
Do all verbs do this?? Don't the Scandinavian languages simplify
it in the other direction??
# A nice, accessible, basic overview ofScots grammar and usage is the book "A
Scots Grammar" by David Purves,published in 1997 by The Saltire Society, ISBN
0854110682.
Not on line, I presume??---# John Cowan screivit again:> > John, Is there
any website on the form of Scots used in the recentlytranslated
Bible.??>> IIRC, there are twelve different varieties of Scots in use for
various> different people.#Really?! I don't remember that! I shall have to
look at it again, moreclosely.> > Most of us are familiar with some
phonetic and vocabularydifferences,but what> > grammatical features has
Scots that diffier from the English??>> Well, one I remember is the use
of "what" as a relative particle, which is> ungrammatical in Standard
English though common enough in the dialects.> "Scots wha hae" should really
be "Scots ut hae" (i.e. "Scots what have");# It's usually spelled "at" these
days, though pronounced like "ut", i.e. witha schwa.
Sounds like cryptic English infuence.
#You do sometimes see it written in full as "what". I've never seenthe spelling
"ut", though. And it should be "Scots at haes", according to mynative-speaking
informants (plural nouns take singular verb agreement).> Burns was
correcting his Scots to make it more English here.Most of Burns' Scots is very
anglicised. I assume to make it more palatableand/or comprehensible to an
educated, English-speaking audience?# For what it's worth, I went to university
in Scotland and I have somefriends there who are both native, fluent Scots
speakers and ardent Scotsactivists. If anyone on the list has any specific
questions about Scots(grammar, usage, current status, etc.) I could pass them
on.Thomas
Thanx,        TED
~~ Anything below this line is NOT from me ===> Ted Saratoga ~~

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