LL-L "Language policies" 2002.07.27 (01) [E/S]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 27.JUL.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Language policies"

> From: Simon Hoare <simon.hoare at mail.be>
> Subject: Language policies
>
> I strongly disagree with Philip Hensher about register. Could you really
> write a 200 page thesis about splitting the atom in Scots that would be
> immediately understood by another Scots-speaking scientist? Oh really,
> O'Reilly?

You certainly could. I would modify Colin's assertion that:

>From: Colin Wilson <lcwilson at btinternet.com>
>Subject: LL-L "Language policies" 2002.07.25 (04) [D/E]

>The simple answer is that you could, provided that the other
>Scots-speaking scientist (a rare sort of person in the first
>place) was not only a speaker but an active enthusiast, because
>the latter is generally the only sort of person who can read
>Scots of *any* sort and immediately understand it.

...to say that a person doesn't have to be an enthusiast
to immediately understand well-written Scots.  Some Scots
speakers aren't used to reading Scots and just don't like
to do so, but I know many "casual" readers of Scots who
will read and discuss prose and poetry in Scots, and when
presented with my own writing, will suggest intelligent
improvements. If I show a story to a group of Scots
speakers they will even sometimes discuss my usage at
length amongst themselves, whether a word is slang or
"richt Scots" whether it's used too much, and suchlike.

Although it's not "the done thing" to write in Scots,
especially not prose and even more especially not factual
prose, this doesn't mean that Scots doesn't have "bookish"
forms. Consider the following "bookish" Scots against the
"bookish" English equivalents:

Bookish English             Bookish Scots

Regarding...                Anent..., Forenent...
...in accordance with...    ...conform tae...
Sincerely...                Aefauld..., Aefauldlie...
...withal.                  ...forby.
Take note that...           Tak tent...
Alternatively...            Aliter...

...amongst many others.

Now, when I was a student learning to write scientific
reports I picked up such terms in English from my Profs
& Peers, and when feeling not quite up to the mark in my
subsequent career would refer to a guide called "Scientists
Must Write" by some author whose name I forget (obviously I
think I've mastered the craft, since I can't find it on my
bookshelves any more!). This guide had lists of terms in
English pretty much as I've given above. This sort of
experiance and guidance is all that's stopping any
Scots-speaking scientist from writing bookish Scots. It's
not right to suggest that this sort of thing can't be done
in Scots - the language has the resources, it's just that
the academic culture demands writing in English or other
major languages.

Note that the problem is not with the fact that these guides
don't exist - if scientists decided they wanted to write in
Scots, I, or Colin, or Andy, or John Magnus, would waste no
time in producing such a guide!

What would scientific writing by a Scots-speaking scientist
actually look like? Unfortunately the nearest I can get is
this little ditty (to the tune of "Comin Throu the Rye" by
James Clerk Maxwell:

Gin a body meet a body
   Fleein throu the air,
Gin a body hit a body,
   Will it flee? An where?
Ilka impact has its measure,
   Ne'er a ane hae I,
Yet a' the lads they measure me,
   Or, at least, they try.

Gin a body meet a body
   A'thegither free,
How they traivel efterwards,
   We dinna always see.
Ilka problem has its method,
   By analytics high;
For me, I kenna ane o them,
   But what the waur am I?

This is good idiomatic Scots on the whole (though as always
I've had to eradicate nonsensical English spellings and, as
with almost any Scots poet, Maxwell will stoop to borrowing
English - eg "high" - just for the sake of a rhyme). Maxwell
has no problem with using Greek/Latin terms as in English. As
usual, we have to remember that just because a word's used in
English doesn't mean it's not Scots.

Apropos of those Greek terms, however - which was coined first
by scientists, the English or the Scots? Electromagnetic theory,
radio, the theory of colour vision, facsimiles, pneumatic tyres,
television, telephone, inert gases (argon xenon &c),  and the
geological origins of rock formations were all first discovered
or devised by Scots speakers. Who knows what language some of the
terms in these fields were in when they were borrowed into in the
discoverer's head, or in what language the discoverer first spoke
of them to family or colleagues, before the were put down in
mandatory English on paper? I'm just suggesting that some of
these terms, after they were Greek, may have been Scots before
they were English!

The Scottish National Dictionary does have an addendum titled
"A List of Scientific Terms with Scottish Connections", not
all of which will have originated with Scots speakers, but
many must have. A few of the more interesting ones are:
aitchisonia, the Aitken effect, allanblackia, ammonia (this
was "ammoniac" in English but the Scots variant was borrowed
by English scientists), anstrutheria, argon, bel (the physical
unit - therefore probably not coined by Bell himself and so
probably not Scots in origin!), brownian motion, burnettization,
caledonite, the suffix -cene (as in Eocene, Pleistocene &c),
colquhounia (obviously Scots!), Dewar flask, fergusonite,
flemenia (English "flemingia" - showing original Scots in
original form), graphophone, Gregorian (talescope), Gregory's
series, houstonia, isotope, Kelvin, the Kerr effect, kirkdomina,
knoxii, krypton, latent heat, Macadam, macadamia nuts, mackintosh,
Maclaurin's series, Maxwell (unit of magnetic flux), Mungo-Park,
Naperian logarithms, neon, penicillin, peroxide, photophone,
Stirling's approximation, strontium, tantallosperma, Watt, Wilson
cloud chamber, xenon, zetlandicus.

I didn't mean to put in as much, but it got quite fascinating!

This is all before we get to Colin's other point, though:

> It may be true that Scots doesn't have the *lexis* for
> certain areas of discourse, bit A'm nae shuir avaw that
> ye cudna cantate on spleetin haets/atoms in Scots - efter
> aw, maist o the vocabular for the pairticles is taen fae
> Greek an cudna be said tae belang mair tae English nor
> tae onie ither tongue (forby Greek itsel).

We have many native Scots terms like "haet" that could be
adopted for atom or particle - for example I'd suggest
"atom" for for "atom", "haet" for "subatomic particle" and
"stime" for "wavelet". And so on for other concepts. The
fact that the writer's  meaning may not be immediately
apparent shouldn't be a problem in scientific literature,
since it's normal to explain any previously undefined terms
in scientific documents, and it's also normal for different
writers to use the same term differently.

The important point here is the nature of Scots - it's not
purely personal, nor does it pose any problems for using as
a scientific language - other than the fact that the demand
isn't there. If there were any demand for it, then guides
on writing this sort of Scots would also be available to
supply the demand.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'

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