Kirk, church, chapel?

[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

[neloon]

Bren,
I think I'm going off topic (but still linguistic). I just looked up your profile and noticed that you "dig" kilts. Dig???
The Gaelic for "understand" is "duig" pronounced "tooick" or, on Lewis, "dig". It seems that when Highland immigrants arrived in the US and had to grapple with English, the locals heard them saying to each other "An duig thu?" = Do you understand?, and somehow "I dig this" or "I twig that" passed into US usage.
Just some useless information. It's all Arrowyn's fault!
Alan

[Chas]

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"
Alan

Just to show how these things hang on in the race memory, the old farmers in Norfolk used to use 'quin' to mean a female of any sort.

As in -

"How big's your herd, Bor?"
Blast, Bor, it be 21 - 1 bull and 20 quin!

Regards

Chas

[Chas]

For those who are interested, Wikipedia, is not just written in English.

Here is the Scots Wikipedia -

http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

This, from their front page -

"Wikipædia is a project tae big a free encyclopædia in mony leids.
This Scots edeetion wis shapit on 23rd Juin 2005. We hae 12,957 airticles the nou.
There's 16,417 veesitors/uisers here the nou."

Regards

Chas

[creagdhubh]

For those who are interested, Wikipedia, is not just written in English.

Here is the Scots Wikipedia -

http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

This, from their front page -

"Wikipædia is a project tae big a free encyclopædia in mony leids.
This Scots edeetion wis shapit on 23rd Juin 2005. We hae 12,957 airticles the nou.
There's 16,417 veesitors/uisers here the nou."

Regards

Chas

Now, that's interesting! Thanks, Chas.

[neloon]

Chas and Caol,
There is a slight problem with the Scots Wikipedia and many similar ventures. In order for Scots to be recognised as a free-standing language by the European Bureau of Lesser-Used Languages it must have a standardised spelling which the activists have been hard at work developing - as used in Wiki. But, of course, the vast majority of the activists are from the Central Belt because (a) that's where most Scots live (b) they are more aware of the decline of Scots than we are in the Northeast where Doric is still in reasonably good fettle - likewise things are good in Shetland. The resultant standardisation seems unappealing to anyone ouside the Glasgow-Edinburgh axis. For example, the Lowland Scots prununciation of "schuil" (= school) is "skill" but in the Northeast we say "skweel" - how can these be harmonised? Of course, this happens everywhere - people in the North of Enland can say "loov" if they want to but the standard spelling is "love". Now there certainly isn't going to be a war over this but it may give a flavour of where we're at.
Alan

[neloon]

Bren,
My wife suggests that the following might be of interest to you

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Luath-Scots-...9730059&sr=8-1

I believe that the focus is on Northeast Scots and it comes with a CD. But I still think it would be quite hard for you.
Alan

[TheOfficialBren]

Awesome! Thank you, Alan. I was completely unaware of pretty much all of that.

I "duig" what you are saying about needing to be around a language so sprinkled by local flair in order to catch onto it properly.

;-)

As far as standardised spelling, you're right. There are great challenges. Spelling doen't have an accent but with a wide array of accents there must be a compromise.

Have they cnsidered borrowing a spelling rulemthat I seem to see in Gaelic? I note the word that you taught me, "duig," along with "uillean" (union in Gaelic) and apply the spelling to the Scots word for "school" that you mentioned to become "skuil," or some variant thereof. I'm by no means a lexicologist or linguistics expert but it seems like common sense from here.

I think that the only examples of local languages dying out where I live would be various Native American tongues that fewer and fewer young people are taking up, opting to be strictly English- and/or Spanish- speakers.

Sorry for wandering OT. I find this subject fascinating!

[neloon]

Bren,
Small comment. The uillean pipes were indeed originally called "union pipes" but "uillean" is actually Gaelic for elbow - because of the bellows action - i.e. "elbow pipes". In Scotland, bellows pipes in various forms are usually called "cauld wind pipes" i.e. not using the warm breath of the Highland pipes.
Alan

[Phil]

In Scotland the local church is called 'the kirk' if it is the Presbyterian church and either belonging to the Church of Scotland or the Free Church of Scotland (sometimes referred to as the Wee Frees). The Anglican church in Scotland is known as the Episcopalian church because it is governed by the Episcopacy (Bishops) who, in turn, look to the sovereign as the head of their church to whom they pledge allegiance. Chapels are generally regarded as the meeting places of non-conformist religions such as Methodists, Baptists etc..