[Closed] No True Scotsman...

He has well muckled that one up, time for a wee skelf around the lug from his mam.

Skelp, surely Matt?

A dinnae ken Scots Wikipedia wiz actually a hing. But dinnae fash, noo that mair folk ken aboot it, we can aw mak it richt.

jings!

Crivens

Help ma boab!

Skelp, surely Matt?

Naw, he'll be gettin a skelf efter she rattles him roon the heid wi her carpet beater she keeps in the lobby press.

As someone who grew up totally unaware that I was unwittingly Speaking Ulster Scots, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I guess that’s the whole problem with a site that anyone ca contribute to.

As an aside, I guess it’s another amusing tale of Americans who regularly tell you “I’m Irish” or “I’m Scottish” or “I’m polish”. My automatic reaction is always “no you’re not, you’re American”. But it never seems to do any good.

I never kenned at there wis sic a thing as Scots Wikipedia. Which wis an an awfy guid thing, for noo that I dae ken aboot it, I hae taen a richt scunner tae it.

Och, ahm feelin' richt at hame hereaboots.

Wait till PC Murdoch gets his hands on him.

^ 😂

joshvegas
Member

Skelp, surely Matt

Must be getting a tiny piece of wood in his ear

A small splinter in the finger that hurts like xxxx is skelb
A skelp was usually round by the lug for being cheeky

Where I was brought up the small splinter in the finger was called a skelf.

East coast West coast, some of us have a Willy on the East and a Boaby through the West

@redmex ye'll hae tae chinge yer username tae ****adgers gin ye hae yin oan the east an another yin oan the west

Yes Mrs Kenny is east coast and I regularly have to point out how totally wrong much of what she says is. (-:

Mrs Kenny is east coast and I regularly have to point out how totally wrong

Shis nae fae thi Kingdum is shi, eh?

from his mam.

*Maw FTFY

🤦‍♂️

*Maw FTFY

Something about boiling your head... 🤣

Stumbled across this when i was looking at this story on Twitter

Thought it was very good, goes into the history of the Scots language and the downsides of telling most of a nation that how they speak is "wrong"

Thanks richmtb - found this fascinating - and could really relate to being told, by societal influence, that words that were normal to me were frowned upon.

Scots language

😆

Dialect.

If ah kin 99.9% unerstaun it, it's no a difrint langwij. 😆 No ma-ir how miny borried words and difrint spellins it uses.

Yon eejits at thon Guardian hiv confuddled yon translation o “an aw”. It’s “as well” in ma heid!

To be fair there isn't really any strict linguistic definition for what is a language and what is a dialect.

As the joke goes a language is a dialect with an army.

Norwegian / Danish / Swedish are pretty much mutually intelligible

Serb / Croat / Bosnian are even closer

Catalan / Castellan (High Spanish) are very similar

I think a Serb would have a better chance understanding a Bosnian than someone from Kent would have understanding Doric Scots!

“This is going to sound incredibly hyperbolic and hysterical,” wrote Ultach, “but I think this person has possibly done more damage to the Scots language than anyone else in history. They engaged in cultural vandalism on a hitherto unprecedented scale.”

FFS, some people need to get a sense of humour. It was a misguided kid ****ing around on the internet, no lasting harm done.

Aye but language develops over time it's living thing, go back 7/8/900 year and you'll not even be able to understand english.

Scots as scots speak it today, is simply a dialect of english. Going back 200 years aye there's loads of words in scots, but there's also loads of words and phrases in english that I'd struggle to understand more the further back you go and I'd imagine regional variations were probably stronger due to less literacy.

And what about all the regions variations in england as well, there'd have been many in england all with their own unique words etc. I'd struggle to understand some heavily thick english accents, are they different languages?

Yer man in the video did not grow up speaking a different language, the vast majority of the words he's even suggesting for the scots language are literally just down to accent and aren't different words at all. The "scots language" is a tributary of English I'd suggest, given the developing nature of english on this island.

I'd bet loads of english people can spell funny if they like tae and have a selection of words I've never heard..

We've been told its a dialect or accent for so long it that its becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most people in Scotland do indeed speak standard English with an accent, but Scots is a different distinct thing.

Yer man in the video did not grow up speaking a different language, the vast majority of the words he’s even suggesting for the scots language are literally just down to accent and aren’t different words at all.

There are loads of Scots word that aren't just "English with a funny spelling"

Burn, crabbit, coup, dreich, hoolet, midden, gallas, glaikit, stoor, tod, guddle, scunner, skelf, bonnie, braw, ken, semmit, timorous, swither, carnaptious... Nae doot thair are hunners mair.

I'm not suggesting that we should all start speaking like Burns, but at the very least we should be able to recognise it as distinct language / dialect and eliminate the cultural cringe that has been long associated with people speaking their mother tongue in large parts of Scotland

Distinct dialect is a much as am giving ye! 😆

Catalan / Castellan (High Spanish) are very similar

Not really, Catalan is probably closer to French than Spanish. Spanish is closer to Italian and Portuguese.

Richmtb+1 Tod is a guid yin but dinnae forget the puddocks, hurcheons, kye, ettercaps, and even the flittermouse which admittedly sounds very like the german.
@Seosamh .Naebody really kens with certainty which language or dialect lent a word tae which other language or dialect.

Has anyone said 'tiny wee' like that lovely Lorraine Kelly does yet?

Its all turning into a stramash above!!

The oor willue quotes cheered me right up though.

I'd never cringe at guid Scots words and phrases.

That god awful West End accent that everyone seems to have on the other hand....

Scots as scots speak it today, is simply a dialect of english.

Arguably, Scots as Scots speak it today may be the result of gradual anglicisation of an original Scots language. I don’t know - just a suggestion.

Yer man in the video did not grow up speaking a different language, the vast majority of the words he’s even suggesting for the scots language are literally just down to accent and aren’t different words at all.

It's possible he may have been moderating his language, to some extent anyway, to remain comprehensible to his audience. Again, I don't know - just wondering.

Nae doot thair are hunners mair.

Just a quick glance at the Concise Scots Dictionary suggests you are entirely correct - hundreds, if not thousands, of words which I suspect would not be recognisable to the average reader of English, myself included.

Very interesting website here - Dictionary of the Scots Language - with some interesting comments about language versus dialect. I’m off to educate myself.

tod

I’ve read the book.

That god awful West End accent that everyone seems to have on the other hand….

Clearly you've never been to Wishy.

Arguably, Scots as Scots speak it today may be the result of gradual anglicisation of an original Scots language. I don’t know – just a suggestion.

Undoubtedly, but there were also active efforts to suppress Scots and encourage Standard English instead.

By the 1940s, the Scottish Education Department's language policy was that Scots had no value: "it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as a suitable medium of education or culture".[39] Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process of language attrition, whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from Standard English. This process has accelerated rapidly since widespread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after the Second World War.[30]:15 It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift, sometimes also termed language change, convergence or merger. By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of language death over much of Lowland Scotland.[40] Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang.[41] A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards the Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language".[42]

I'm as guilty of this language assimilation as anyone. My wife is Hungarian and has made a real effort to teach our daughter Hungarian which she is fluent in, but I've made no effort to teach her any Scots words.

That's how a language (or dialect) dies.

I met a wishyite on Lowther hill last week, a very pleasant chap he was too.

Arguably, Scots as Scots speak it today may be the result of gradual anglicisation of an original Scots language. I don’t know –

Agreed, but in the same way that old English is different thing from English. It's a result originally of the west Germanic and various other European influences and languages coming over to the uk, this would have been far from standardised, and it would have butted up against various "indigenous" languages, creating variations all over.

As I say, Imo, old Scots is a tributary to modern English, just happens that the standardisation of the English language in modern times resulted in the Southern tributaries having more impact on the language for political reasons. "Scots" has a very similar genealogy to English, in that it's influenced by European immigration etc.

I get it, but Scots today and calling it a language as it currently stands, is making up something new. Particularly when you look at silly variants like ulster scots. There's a very revisionist bent to it imo, with no real basis in history, it's almost like it's an attempt to develop a new language from current dialects. Seems off to me.

Like I say language develops over time it's not static. Scots isn't a thing anymore. Might have been 3/400 years ago. and might have developed into an entirely unique language, but the political situation on the island meant it didn't.

It's a bit like English people trying to bring back Middle english without real historical reference. if the goal is to bring back the tongue and tone of 15th/16th/17th Scotland I doubt it'll be similar.

Just my opinion and impression. I'm not an expert, would be happy for one to jump in.

ps edited my thoughts a bit.

I’d struggle to understand some heavily thick english accents, are they different languages?

Probably a few hundred years back they could have been considered as such since it wasnt just accents but different word usage.
Now though with standardised dictionaries and national media they would be mostly written the same way and just have difference in pronunciation/speed of talking and most of the unique words are vanishing.
Like coming up with the definition for species (most fit the able to have viable offspring but not all) defining dialect vs language seems rather difficult. The "has an army/political support" does seem to have a fair amount going for it as a workable definition.
I suspect if Scots had the same sort of support as Scottish Gaelic has it would quickly become agreed it was its own language although of course thats a bit circular.

I met a wishyite on Lowther hill last week, a very pleasant chap he was too.

Wishawtonian.

What was his accent like?