Re: Branch of English or a Separate Language?

From: allan connochie (allan_at_EASYNET.CO.UK)
Date: 09/27/04 

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:22:35 +0100

"Love a Sheep" <sheepshaggerx@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:264c4ea4.0409271343.7c257f28@posting.google.com...
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com> wrote in message
news:<k6v281hx.fsf@hpl.hp.com>...
> > >
> > That's the longest modern text I've ever seen in Scots, and it was
> > surprisingly readable to this English speaker. Are there any native
> > speakers here who can say whether it's the normal way they'd say it or
> > whether it was an especially "English-friendly" wording?
> >
> >
> In Scotland there are (like *ngland) so many different accents. In
> sheep country (Aberdeen) where myself and country loon are best
> buddies you hear a dialect known as Doric spoken which is nuffink like
> what you see on that web page on the Scots parliament. I don't know
> anybody in central Scotland that speaks like that either. Maybe in
> Burns time they spoke like that in Ayreshire. Trouble is they have
> stereotyped Scots into a 'language'. Well it may be a language (I am
> no linguist) but if it is then it is several and not just one.
> In Glasgow you would never hear anybody speaking like that though the
> odd word here and there may well be used for effect. For instance we
> use the word 'Glekit' to describe a vacant look - 'That loon is awfy
> glekit lookin' - that boy is awful vacant looking. Glekit would be
> used all oevr Scotland but not so with many other words eg Brander in
> Aberdeen = Stank in Glasgow (a grating over the road which is a
> drain).

Of course the vasrious dialects differ just as dialects differ all over the
world. What they share far outweighs what seperates them though. All
dialects have their own peculiar words but most of the wordstock is of
course shared. Shetlandic does stand out on a limb though. Folk often think
certain words are peculiar to their own locality because they only hear
those words within their own locality. Dialects of Scots, and in particular
the more conservative rural dialects, are simply hardly ever heard in the
media, even within Scotland. You are absolutely correct in that no-one
actually speaks the modern literary Scots.

cheers

Allan

>
>
> Baaaa

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