Scots

Franco   Thu Feb 22, 2007 4:42 am GMT
Is Scots part of English or is it a separate language? Is it interintelligible with normal English?

Is it written or just spoken?

DOn't send me to wikipedia cos I looked and it is not informative. I'm a simple person, so I need a simple explanation.
Jim   Thu Feb 22, 2007 6:10 am GMT
Okay ... here's the Simple Wikipedia.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowland_Scots

How's that? Basically they're saying that nodody can decide. Now when you think about it ... what's there to decide after all? It's all just semantics, ain't it?

Is Pluto a planet? How's you definition of "planet" going there? Is a tomato a vegetable? Is a pumpkin a fruit? Is Sunday the first or the last day of the week?

Is is interintelligble with normal English ... or should you say "Can the average speaker of an(other) English dialect understand it?" I give you the Scots version of the same article.

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

Now, I'm Australian and I can safely say that I understand most of that article but it does look a lot different to any (other) English dialect I've read.
Robin   Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:08 am GMT
I am an English person living in Scotland.

Most Scottish people can talk 'posh' or they can talk in a local dialect. In different parts of Scotland, there are different local dialects which are mutually unintelligible to other Scottish people.

The only sort of people in Scotland who are totally unintelligible, are the sort of people who work on farms in rural areas, who have not received any education. Even those people watch television.
Josh Lalonde   Thu Feb 22, 2007 4:02 pm GMT
As explained above, whether a particular variety is a language or dialect is largely a question of semantics. I prefer however, to think of Scots as a 'para-English' like the Carribean Creoles. Although they are recognizably close to English, they are sufficiently divergent to be not entirely comprehensible. In response to Jim, I think reading a language and hearing it are very different, and the latter is more important in evaluating divergence. I speak French, and I can understand a lot of Italian or Spanish in writing; drop me in the streets of Madrid or Rome, however, and I'd be almost as lost as a monolingual English speaker. So the simple answer is, Scots is a part of the English family, but sufficiently different not to be fully intelligible to untrained speakers. It has a long written tradition dating to Old English times, through the Middle Ages until well after the Treaty of Union in 1707.
Robin   Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:48 am GMT
As an expression, people will refer to someone talking with a North East Dialect. The don't refer to someone talking with North East Para-English.

Para-English is a technical (jargon) term: i.e. a linguistic term, and not a normal expression in the English language.

So there!
Jim   Fri Feb 23, 2007 3:58 am GMT
"... reading a language and hearing it are very different ..." absolutely. I'd probably have little hope of understanding spoken Scots.
Josh Lalonde   Fri Feb 23, 2007 5:01 am GMT
<<Para-English is a technical (jargon) term: i.e. a linguistic term, and not a normal expression in the English language. So there!>>
Well, it's not really a linguistic term; I just made it up. I use it because these varieties are on the line between English and not-English: they're too close to be completely separate languages, but too different to be just a dialect. Also, what's your point?
Franco   Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:44 am GMT
Thanks for the de-light-ful information.


Does anyone know where it's possible to listen to Scots recording by means of the internet?
Franco   Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:45 am GMT
When I say I want to listen to Scots I mean I want to listen to an authentic recording of a native speaker. I don't want to listen to someone speaking with a Scottish accent.

Thank you and have a lovely day and night and life and eternity!

Loch!
Dand   Sat Feb 24, 2007 8:55 pm GMT
Travis   Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:20 pm GMT
I myself would classify Scots as an Anglic language, that is, a language descended from Old English, but as separate from and not inherently crossintelligible with Late New English proper. As for English-based creoles like Caribbean creoles, I would treat them themselves as creoles like any other *but* as also commonly existing in continua with uncreolized English dialects due to decreolization, such that one can easily encounter lects which have a mixture of English proper and creole features.
Dand   Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:17 am GMT
<< http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/kist/mclips/track21.mp3 >>

AVE ATQUE VALE
by Ken Morrice

Grumphy and pernickity wis Beezer Broon
Oor Form Maister. For three lang eers
He sought tae ding Latin
Intae oor wanwordy lugs.

My pal McNab wis nae muckle eese
At the leid. Ae day he heided his hamewirk
'Latin Exercise'. Beezer grumphed
And jist stroked oot the 'Latin.'

Syne McNab decided tae tak up widwirk.

Fan at last we quat Beezer's Form,
I wis tasked wi gaitherin siller
For a Class present as 'a token
Of our esteem and gratitude'.

I delegated McNab fa bocht, at lang
Last, a cassette o Cornkisters.
Cam the occasion, he gied ower the kistie
And nae blate cried oot 'Ave Beezer,
Te salutamus. Or, in my ain leid,
We're aa awa tae bide awa!'

<< http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/kist/mclips/track02.mp3 >>

EUROPEAN SCOTS
by Sheena Blackhall

Pict, Celt an nesty Norseman,
My, fitiver wid fowk say,
If they kent that they're still bidin
Here in Aiberdeen the day!

Aber's Pict fur river mooth
Roman Deva's Dee,
The Frenchmen gied us 'Bon Accord'
Corbie an pertrick tee!

Should ye gae up tae Hazleheid
O golf tae play a roon
As ye hunker in a bunker
Yer a Flemish kinno loon.

Takk a daunder up Deeside awhile
Tae loch an glen an Ben
Admirin strath an burnie
Thon's some Celtic wirds ye ken!

At the skweel ye meet the dominie
A Latin kind o mannie
An if yer gweed an tidy,
Ye'll be likit bi the jannie.

Watch oot fur the Scandinavians,
Vikings at the Brig o Dee!
They'll burn yer kirk aroon yer lugs
Withoot ae wird o lee.

European Aiberdonians
Skinnie dippin on the san
At nicht pairty wi the Germans
We're a mixed linguistic lan!
Yuliya   Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:11 pm GMT
I am living in Scotland more then two month and I still do not understand this people. It is normal English but with very different pronunciation.
Guest   Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:19 pm GMT
<<I am living in Scotland more then two month and I still do not understand this people. It is normal English but with very different pronunciation.>>

The people that you've come in contact with are probably speaking Scottish English (aka Scottish Standard English) with a heavy local accent. This language is significantly different from Scots.
Skippy   Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:23 pm GMT
No one has really mentioned that the basic difference between two dialects and two languages is the degree of mutual intelligibility. If you are a fluent English speaker and can't understand someone speaking Scots, then it should be considered another language. (This may be basically what Travis said).

I can understand a bit of Scots when spoken to, and can read almost all of it (courtesy of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting) but I'd still consider it a different language because it takes such a huge degree of getting used to. (Plus, I like to think that English finally has a little brother...lol)