Why no lallans?

[figheadair]

Lallans is of course one word for the dictinctive speech of the Scottish Lowlands and is (more or less) the language Burns wrote in. It's not a Gaelic language per se- although distinctive and unique, it's actually a dialect of what has become standard English- but still Lallans is a very important part of Scottish heritage, and I do believe was (and in a way still is) the language of the Scottish majority. So I'm hanging this thread out there- I personally don't have more to contribute at this time but will be looking around for issues....

EDIT: I neglected to state that Lallans has a lot of undoubted borrowings from Gaelic....

At the risk of stirring the hornet's nest, Lallands is not a language but a a written form of the dialect from the Ayrshire/southwest area. It, that dialect, not spoken in my area or Aberdeenshire, Fife etc.

[Lallans]

At the risk of stirring the hornet's nest, Lallands is not a language but a a written form of the dialect from the Ayrshire/southwest area. It, that dialect, not spoken in my area or Aberdeenshire, Fife etc.

Britannica says Lallans is:

"Scots language (in Scots language (language))

"the historic language of the people of Lowland Scotland, and one closely related to English. The word Lallans, which was originated by the Scottish poet Robert Burns, is usually used for a literary variety of the language, especially that used by the writers of the mid-20th-century movement known as the Scottish Renaissance."

But whether or not you call it a language or a dialect or how regional it is and was is immaterial to the point I was trying to make. Am making.

[Old Hippie]

I was never entirely sure how seriously the effort was made, but a good resource for some Scots language is:

Wilson, L. (2002). Luath Scots Language Learner: An Introduction to Contemporary Spoken Scots. Edinburgh: Luath Press Limited.

The author makes the point that while "Scots" is a contested term referring to a spectrum of dialect forms -- and not formally recognized as a unique language -- that he looks forward to a day when incomers to regions of Scotland where Scots was spoken historically would take some effort to speak it properly and use it in their interactions with the locals. Presumably the locals would also use it in this ideal universe.

I recall that people subscribed to Usenet's soc.culture.scottish often posted in some phonetic representation of Scots, as well as the occasional Gaelic.

:ootd: