Kirk, church, chapel?

[TheOfficialBren]

I have often wondered that, myself.

Correct me if I'm wrong here:
Kirk- the wee church down the road
Church- the religious establishment, the institution as a whole in concept
Chapel- a small, private area designated for intimate religious functions, usually in a castle, home, or other larger complex.

[neloon]

Agree with Bren though, of course, the Church of Scotland as an establishment is also referred to as "the Kirk". In the 1600s, a chapel in a big house might well have been secret with a secret priest so that the owner could have private Catholic or Episcopalian Services.
Alan

[TheOfficialBren]

Thanks, Neloon. It seemed logical.

[jfraser]

Don't know about the wee church down the road. Muckle (large) kirk in Peterhead has a spire of 118 ft.

In our family in Scotland, church was never used in referance to the House of God, it was always kirk. No matter how big or small.

[TheOfficialBren]

Perhaps I should have said:
Kirk- the local place of worship for the general public.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

According to the Concise Scots Dictionary the word kirk was used to refer to a church from the late 14th century on. So you are good for 17th century usage.

I would encourage anyone writing historical fiction set in Scotland who would like to get the Scots terminology correct to obtain a copy of the CSD.

[neloon]

The Scottish National Dictionary is available online.

http://www.scots-online.org/dictionary/

Or you could get in touch with me. My wife is a lexicologist and was/is involved in producing all the Scots dictionaries (and others).
Alan

[TheOfficialBren]

Neloon,
How would one go about learning Scots? I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) that it share similarities with English. Thank you.

[neloon]

Neloon,
How would one go about learning Scots? I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) that it share similarities with English. Thank you.

Bren,
I'm afraid the short answer is you need to grow up in Scotland and even then you need to cope with great regional variation. For example, in the Northeast of Scotland, "boy" is "loon" (thus my nickname) but that is not used elsewhere and would be unintelligible to (most) Glaswegians.
One could say that English is a dialect of Scots. Controversial? Well, when the Angles arrived in Britain, speaking Anglish, they settled in the Southeast of Scotland and Northern England. Over the centuries "English" Anglish spread south and mutated to
become modern English most of the change being complete by the 1500s.
But that change never happened in Scotland. In fact, for many centuries, what we now think of as Scots was called "Inglis" in Scotland. Naturally there is a certain commonality. For example, the Anglish word "toon" meaning a farm or settlement is still used in that sense in Scotland but became "town" in English. But Scots also acquired a lot of vocabulary from French (an "ashet" is a plate), the Low Countries ("dubs" is mud), Gaelic (the Northeast greeting is "Fit like" which comes from the "cia mar" in the Gaelic "How are you?") , Norse etc. So one might say " 'I quinie coodna get ungrotten" = The girl couldn't stop crying, where quine (girl) is the same as the Anglish word that went up in the world to become "queen" and ungrotten would be an obsolete Norse negative past tense of "greet"=cry.
Now, one has to be honest, except in country districts, Scots is very little spoken. Because it is indeed close to English, because after the Union of the Parliaments the way to get on in the world was to shed all Scotticisms (books were written to help Scots to do this) and nowadays, of course, because of the influence of London-based media, most urban Scots just speak English with a Scottish accent but with occasional Scots words thrown in. Shop assistants will frequently greet customers in perfect English but code switch (technical jargon!) towards Scots when they find they are speaking to a fellow Scot!
Unfortunately, Scots does not have the international aspect that Gaelic has (however small) and recent attempts to incorporate Scottish literature into the education system have met with political cries of "nationalistic" so we're stuck with a wee bit of Burns once a year and that's it.
Alan