Talk:Scots language/Archive 9

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Regulation?

The Ulster-Scots Agency promotes the language it does not regulate it, as these examples on their website show: [1] [2] [3] [4]. If that's regulating the language they are either very anarchically minded or failing miserably. Apart from that, their mission statement is to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots people. Nowhere does the word regulate occur. 84.135.224.114 23:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

So the question boils down to what a language regulator is. If a language regulator is an official body charged with language planning, then, like the Académie française, the Ulster-Scots Agency would seem to fit the definition. Compare the functions of the Académie: The Académie is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power. Sometimes, even governmental authorities disregard the Académie's rulings.

Logically, if we classify Foras na Gaeilge as a language regulator, then its sister body is also a language regulator. If not, then surely neither are. Man vyi 05:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I take it you are interpreting to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster Scots as a living language to mean language planning. The only thing in that mission statement that comes anywhere near to that is development, but that could mean any number of things. The agency cannot in any way be compared to the Académie française. Have they been charged with publishing an official dictionary of the language? If their decisions are not legally binding, and since all and sundry are free to write and use the language as they please, it is a bit silly to talk of the agency being a language regulator. The role of Foras na Gaeilge is irrelevant here. Its a separate and largely autonomous agency within The North/South Language Body. Its remit may well be different from that of the Ulster Scots Agency. You might as well start claiming that Scots is regulated by the Scots Language Resource Centre or any one else indulging in activities perceived to involve promoting the study, conservation, development and use of Scots. 84.135.215.39 08:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

But the recommendations of the Académie française are not legally binding, either. Nor those of the Welsh Language Board. Are these therefore not language regulators? It's difficult to reconcile what you are apparently proposing as a strict definition of language regulator with the acceptance of, for example, Kesva an Taves Kernewek as such a body. I'm also confused by your apparent contention (as per your edits to the article) that the Board does not undertake language planning but "invents usage" - is that not per se language planning? Man vyi 09:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"Inventing usage" and other such activities undertaken by the Boord are generally met with derision and not taken seriously by anyone except those indulging in them. I am sure that the likes of the Académie française, Foras na Gaeilge and the Welsh Language Board command more respect in their their respective language communities. The efforts of the Agency are either riduculed, ignored or both. Where no one is willing to be regulated there can be no regulator.

At the SLRC you will find the following:

• The Scots Language Resource Centre was founded in 1991 to do everything possible to promote the Scots language.
• ...held conferences and meetings; helped a great variety of people to find out more about Scots, and established contacts between activists, academics and other with the intention of encouraging discussion about Scots and the development of plans for its future.

Note: "development of plans" also language planners and regulators?

These folk develop dictionaries and to promote the languages of Scotland Is their develop and promote also language planning and regulation?

They are all promoters not regulators. Now stop being silly.

84.135.215.39 11:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The linguistic relationship between Scots and English

Note that the following is a response to discussions from early last year. To understand the context, you will need to read the archives.

thI think the point 82.41.4.66 is trying to make is in the article: Before the Treaty of Union 1707, when Scotland and England joined to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be an independent language as part of a pluricentric diasystem. See NOSTRA VULGARI LINGUA: SCOTS AS A EUROPEAN LANGUAGE 1500 - 1700 available at [5].

82.41.4.66 should note that abusing copywrite and pasting the article here won't make it likelier that anyone will actually read it. Linking to it will suffice. This should also be down below somewhere. 84.135.247.24 11:04, 29 January 2007

Boothman and others wouldnt read it. Cultural attacks need answering but the attackers would ignore a link I fear. Lies, ignorance and slight of hand/word play are at work here to treat English as some unique final language of mankind, from which (unlike any case in history) no other language can develop in separation. This is no less biased politically or culturally than the belief that Scottish Gaelic has never been a non-Irish language, or that black people could only ever speak "patois" rather than languages. Language is a term handed out by the state as a reward, and "dialect" as a punishment. How can the self-describingly ignorant be allowed to continue to repeat their "belief" (more like slur for personal entertainment id suggest) that Scots is a dialect (that would in fact be dialectS!) when dialects make up languages in the first place. This page will be read by those with an interest (despite the massive state propoganda and cultural annihalation through various educational reforms since the act of union and the physical punishment of children until the message was drilled in that Scottish speech was slang, despite its history!) and why should the "original research" of the likes of Boothman, and the clear Gaelic bias of Calgacus (who insists on what he would by his own logic have to define as the spuruious modern construct of "Middle English" rather than Ynglis , yet does the opposite with Gaelic and Middle Irish, seeing Middle Irish as less useful for his manipulation of history, and rarely mentioning the pre Irish linguistic origines of Scotland (unless he thinks that Scotland has no history prior to the Irish Scotii tribes in the dark ages:}) be here without a balance for the casual reader who genuinely wants to find out the facts, and might take at face value his/her attacks and not investigate the hypocrisy or double standards in his treatment of different languages.!?:}82.41.4.66 12:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The difference is of course that the terms Irish, Middle Irish etc are all exonyms found within a language foreign to the language/s they designate while Ynglis is simply an older form of the word English just as Goidelc, for example, is an older form of the modern words Gaeilge or Gàidhlig. The comparison of the situation of Scots as an English language - which it undoubtedly is, having evolved from ancestral form of English which was referred to as English by its speakers who historically referred to themselves as English in an ethnic sense - with that of Scottish Gaelic as an "Irish" language is simply not valid. Scottish Gaelic is "Irish" in much the same way that French or Romanian is "Italian" - both of these languages after all are descended form Latin which originates in Italy and the modern form of Latin in Italy is known as Italian (this being just about the same type of train of thought which leads to Gaelic and the early Scots being classed as Irish). The difference being of course that nobody would be silly enough to so innacurately class all the modern Romance languages as subsets of a single branch not least because (in addition to basic common sense and a desire for fairly accurate use of nomenclature) each language has a fairly powerful nation/group of speakers behind it.

Càite an robh thu aig aon uair deug a-raoir? Cá háit a raibh tú ar a haon déag a chlog aréir?

Bha mi aig dannsa Bhí mé ag damhsa

The Scots "wis" is to English "was" as the Gaelic "bha" is to the Irish "bhi" it seems:}82.41.4.66 02:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The language of the Royal Court of Scotland even in the 11th century was already different from the Ynglis of the English Court for two reasons. the one in Scotland was the Northern Anglian dialect (which had been different from the Southern Saxon one from the beginning, akin to the case with Franconian and Saxon German), and also the Court language of England at this time was in fact French due to the Normans having arrived.

French began to diverge from latin as a written language with the Oath of Strasbourg in the 9th century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaths_of_Strasbourg. I doubt that divergence between Scottish gaelic and Irish gailic can be traced back that far (particularly seeing as they shared a written orthography despite vernacular variation paralell to Scots and English which had one, up until the 18th century according to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Irish .:}82.41.4.66 03:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The language of the Royal Court of Scotland even in the 11th century was already different from the Ynglis of the English Court for two reasons ... yeah, the language of the 11th century court in England was French, and in Scotland Gaelic. So, lol, it was different ... but English had nothing to do with it I'm afraid. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 18:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(just put that in there to get a response:} If Ynglis wasnt the royal language of the Scottish Court, ironically this still would have had an impact on divergence (IE the influence of French could not have been as drastic in the Scottish Anglic dialect as in the language of the population influenced in vocabulary by a Franco-Norman Court:} I take it you dont deny the Anglian/West Saxon separation between speakers in Scotland and around London and Westminster at the time:}?82.41.4.66 23:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The situation with the Gaelic languages is different and has come about as a result of differences in historical fortune with regard to each one in its own nation - Scottish Gaelic has had to face anti-Gaelic bigotry and anti-Gaelic pseudo historical propaganda by the English speakers of Scotland for centuries which Irish has not. Irish chauvinism also contributes to the promotion of Hiberno-centric terms such as "Middle Irish" when "Middle Gaelic" would be far far more accurate a term to describe the Gaelic language of that time. Rather than possessing a Gaelic bias and employing a double standard in his treatment of languages, as the anon user above claims, Calgacus employs exactly the same standard with regard to the English language/s in Scotland and Scottish Gaelic and it is the anon user and all those who similarly try desperately to divorce Scots from English entirely while denigrating Scottish Gaelic as merely a subset of Irish who are guilty of blatant double standards and subjective reasoning. siarach 09:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_Irish_language  :}82.41.4.66 05:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Also in reply to some claims made by User:82.41.4.66 above in related discussions, Gaelic and Gaelic (as you so wittily refer to the Irish and Scottish languages) are not dialects of each other for the following reason : They are mutually unintelligable - the most basic definition of two seperate languages. In comparison Scots and English English are mutually intelligable and thus the debate over the status of Scots as languge/dialect goes on. I agree that if the likes of the Scandinavian languages, for example, are to be classed as distinct rather than dialects of one language then Scots should be regarded as a seperate language to English English but making demonstrably ridiculous statements/attacks on other languages in an attempt to bolster your arguments simply undermines your credibility. siarach 09:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the case within Irish Gaelic itself (between for instance the Munster and Ulster dialects, which demonstrate the same variance. My point is not to attack Gaelic, merely to point out how POV is involved in generally accepted definitions on what is and isnt to be considered as a language. It is not ridiculous (nor an attack, merely an alternative definition in response to some to point out the inconsistency of referring to one modern term "Middle English" as less spurious than another "Middle Irish", as another contributer here insists on doing) Either Modern terminology is to be used, or the words of the period in question, IE Ynglis was the word used and not Middle English (a Modern English phrase:}} whereas the opposite seems to be the case with "Middle Irish and Gaelic. The idea that "Ynglis" necessarily has always had the simplistic ethnic unity we assume may be a modern rereading (Take a look at the Dutch National Anthem and its use of the term "Duits" which in Modern Dutch means "German", but may have meant something more like "Germanic" at the time of its writing.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_national_anthem#Lyrics ). "Ynglis" arrived in Scotland prior to printing and the influence of the Southern "dialect" (or related-mutually unintelligable language).

siarach is quite right in stating that Anglic speakers referred to their language as English: Old English Ænglisc, later, variously, Englisch, Engliss, Englisse and Inglis in the north of England and Scotland, all meaning English! It's only since the late 15th century that English speakers in Scotland started to refer to their variety as Scots. Linguistically it is perfectly valid to consider Scots to be part of English - if one takes English to mean all varieties descended from Old English. Scots simply being the name for the varieties, or descendants of varieties, spoken in Scotland.

Irish is certainly an exonym from the viewpoint of a Gael, but from an English language perspective, Irish is a perfectly legitimate English word for things Gaelic or Goidelic. It is now of course no longer politically correct to refer to Gaels in Scotland as Irish. Otherwise you'll get your erse kicked.

If Irish and Scottish Gaelic are mutually unintelligable how come, according to the Scottish Gaelic article, the BBC operates a Gaelic language radio station Radio nan Gàidheal which regularly transmits joint broadcasts with its Republic of Ireland counterpart Raidió na Gaeltachta. Why transmit unintelligible content?

The Goidelic languages have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland. A form of Middle Irish, known as Classical Gaelic, was used as a literary language in Ireland until the 17th century and in Scotland until the 18th century. Later orthographic divergence is the result of more recent orthographic reforms resulting in standardised pluricentric diasystems.

The situation vis-à-vis English and Scots was similar in the Middle Scots period where pluricentric diasystems also existed. Is this still the case in the modern period?

84.135.197.245 11:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

RE: The joint Irish-Scottish radio broadcast (a single short program once a week which i dont believe exists anymore) the reasoning for the program could have been many things - curiosity value, to promote interest in the related languages, Gaelic unity along the lines of what goes on at the Columban Initiative etc. Regardless the languages are not mutually intelligable although not so distant that a bilingual broadcast of this kind is rendered daft. Ive listened to it before and its interesting to hear Irish Gaelic which sounds very familiar but is, frustratingly so given its familiarity, not understandable to speakers of Scottish Gaelic. siarach 11:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly the English Linguist John C. Wells (1982) writes about Buchan Doric: "it featured in my own life story as the first dialect of English I encountered which proved utterly opaque to my attempts to understand it without first learning it."

It would seem not only varieties of Goidelic can be mutually unintelligible but also varieties of English.

84.135.197.245 12:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

PS sorry but someone arrived unannounced and ive somehow managed to inadvertantly delete the rest of the page (at least thats what it looks like! Sorry a genuine accident on my part!82.41.4.66 11:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I assume what's below is an attempt to reinstate it. The stuff had been archived you didn't inadvertantly delete the rest of the page. Unless there is any other compelling reason what is here below should be removed.

84.135.197.245 12:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The only difference between the relationship between the precursor of Scandinavian North Germanic languages, IE Norse, and Modern descendants, and the case with Scots and English, is the use of the same name for the modern descendant of one of the two descendants as the precursor. But for this point Portuguese could be argued not to exist as a language either, but to be a dialect group within Galician http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_language. And why does Gael not self identify speakers of a language who describe themselves as such with Ireland, if Ynglis identifies them as referring to themselves as English? That strikes me as rather inconsistent:}82.41.4.66 12:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It is interesting to note that the Danish and Norwegians both refer to the earlier form of their language as Norrønt. One assumes the later names Dansk and Norsk came about by self identification from the names of the territories in which their particular form of Norrønt is spoken. The Danes, Norwegians, Swedes refer their language together, respectively, as nordiske sprog, nordiske språk and nordiska språk which, one can plainly see, just looks like different ways of spelling the same thing.

84.135.197.245 17:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually Boksmal (book language), and Nynorsk (new Norwegian) both to an extent were deliberatly created from the most Norwegianised versions of Danish from the early 19th century onwards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language_struggle . Alll three plus Swedish originate in Norse though :}82.41.4.66 03:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

QUOTEthe clear Gaelic bias of Calgacus (who insists on what he would by his own logic have to define as the spuruious modern construct of "Middle English" rather than Ynglis , yet does the opposite with Gaelic and Middle Irish, seeing Middle Irish as less useful for his manipulation of history, and rarely mentioning the pre Irish linguistic origines of Scotland (unless he thinks that Scotland has no history prior to the Irish Scotii tribes in the dark age

RESPONSEI'm neither particularly pro-Gaelic or anti-Scots, I merely use my historical knowledge to cut down POV-pushing This Calgacus is entirely fictional; a construct, like the medieval Scottish Englishman, the ancient Greek Persian, the Nazi German Jew or even the modern American "terrorist", which functions to increase group solidarity and favor for a particular view. What could that POV be, eh? And yeah, on that point, when have I ever called medieval Gaelic "Goidelach"? That would be the equivalent of calling medieval English "Ynglis". It is merely a fact that no language, Latin or vernacular, distiguishes the English language (lingua anglica, Ynglis, Anglais, etc) of Scotland from the of the rest of the British Isles (it was spoken in Ireland and Wales too remember!), until the end of the middle ages. If I have any bias, it is a natural dislike for pretending that the English language wasn't spoken in Scotland until the 17th or 18th century. It saddens me that feel you have to allege a "Gaelic bias" in me because you see Gaelic and Lowland Scots as opposites, because the Scots-language movement has historically been extremely anti-Gaelic and "Celtophobic", from its routs in 18th century Gothism and Pinkertonism even to the present day. They are not, however, opposites; and I have great respect for the English language of Scotland, both as it is presently, and historically (whether you chose to call it Middle English, Scottish Middle English, Scottish early modern English, Scots, Lallans, Lowland Scots, etc, etc, etc). Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 19:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC

Apologies Calgacus, but was it you; or your similarly named alter ego who (on this same discussion page) said something along the lines of Scots claim to have any historical existence, let alone a central role in Scottish history, is phantasmal? I also seem to recall you and I having a little disagreement on things like the source of the 'CH' in Scots, where you said that it was more likely down to Scots proximity to Gaelic that gave rise to this ... rather than the fact that words like richt, ocht and dochter are all ME/Saxon in origin. May I suggest that you are just as prone to POV as the rest of us? My view is you have a very honourable POV in promoting Gaelic; and in righting a few historical wrongs (e.g. Máel Coluim mac Donnchada)... but on this page, I think it's fair to say that not all of your responses appear quite so balanced. Now ... as for the article. I still have a bee in ma bunnit about inserting a couple of lines on the similarities of some older (but still living) Scots dialects to their Middle English ancestor. This I suppose is also POV; but it is the POV of published academics like Billy Kay. Do you still object to such an insertion? You were strangely quiet on my last couple of postings (now archived). Does anyone else object? Is it just me that sees no little irony in the fact that 'It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht th'nicht' is all Middle English? §Angusmec 23:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

So long as you don't try to make out that Lowland Scots is unique in preserving Middle English elements, that is fine. The myth that Lowland Scots is some unique pure Saxon dialect is one of my bugbears. The myth is partly a result of Scottish Teutonism, partly a result of truth (many Scots dialects are very "archaic"), partly a result of using certain texts which are actually Middle English as representations of Lowland Scots, and partly other things. One need only look to Black Country English to realize that preservation of different Middle English elements is pretty common in many English "dialects".

I remember suggesting that the retention of CH might have something to do with Gaelic influence, and I don't see anything wrong with that. Scots and Gaelic have a lot in common that isn't appreciated as much as it could be by people who don't know both languages (which includes virtually every scots scholar in history)... e.g. placement of articles on time expressions, e.g. "an dràsta", "the noo"; "a-màireach", "the morro", etc; appreciation of Lowland Scots-Gaelic interface has not been helped by the fact that Scots enthusiasts, including many of those who studied the language up until the mid 20th century, were extremely hostile to Gaelic, something that seems to continue to this day (see this talk page).

This phantasmal comment, which I'm sure was phrased differently, was, if you remember, in relation to the myth partly propagated my that "nostra" article, that Scots was the eternal language of the Scottish nation until dark days beset Scotland after the union of the crowns in 1603. In reality, Scots has little over two hundred years of documented use (probably closer to three hundred years of actual use) as a language of the Scottish court (compare with 1000 years + for the Scottish kingdom), and throughout that period was called "English" as well as "Scots". Horsbroch's article, which he's put online for wider use, covers this up by quoting loads of often badly informed foreign sources out of context, sources who happen to use the word "Scots" for Scottish English. Now, Scots was a distinct dialect/language in this period, certainly distinct from Tudor royal English, but that's not the same as it being another totally distinct language. Scots was always regarded as part of the same Anglo-British language continuum. Just read the sources, and pick up on how many call it "English"; perhaps Dr Horsbroch will write another article documenting Scots being called "English" in this period, but I doubt it. Moreover, the dismal fate of Lowland Scots in the modern period is mirrored by other English varieties who've never had a nationalist intelligensia to bemoan their fate. They suffered from the printing press and mass communication as much as from the standardizing Anglo-British state.

Also, I don't "promote Gaelic"; I rarely contribute to any topics which have anything to do with the Gaelic movement. But as a specialist in medieval Scottish history, I get involved in medieval Scottish articles and am in a good position to prevent Scots-pushing by users with that tendency. I also have a thing for favouring native names over crude anglicizations. My enthusiasm for using the name Jogaila is no more a result of "Gaelic-pushing" than my enthusiasm for using Máel Coluim and Donnchad, and comes from a general movement in the scholarly world to use proper native forms for historical figures. I've also been accussed of being a "Lithuanian POV pusher" for similar reasons by Polish users, a "Russian propagandist" by Ukrainian users, and a "Greek nationalist" by a Turkish user. I'm afraid I just get into these things because of my passion for neutrality. I take animosity towards me by POV pushers as a compliment.

BTW, everyone I've ever come across on wiki who throws accussations of sockpuppetry has themselves been a sockpuppet. I'd bet a good deal of money that you are one of these anons who have been posting. I could be wrong, but it'd be a first as far as this sort of thing is concerned. Please deny it if it isn't true. PS, Billy Kay and Dauvit Horsbroch are both active Scots language campaigners ... trying to make them out like impartial academics is disingenuous. Their varying academic credentials make them no less neutral than Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore as political scientist. PPS, you can interpret me not responding to you as an indication of your own superiority if you so wish; but in fact my enthusiasm for these kind of discussions comes and goes, as does my available time, and you're only getting a response now because I'm in a good mood and not particularly busy. Regards, Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 00:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)