LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.01 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Ian James Parsley <parsleyij at yahoo.com>
Subject: Orthography

Sandy et al,

Ah, the old chestnut!

The issue of SLD (formerly SNDA), ie the 'dictionary
people', claiming authority over Scots spellings is
not a new one, although it is true they've claimed it
rather more vociferously in recent months.

This is, as you say, not necessarily a good or a bad
thing. Essentially it is a competitive situation - if
they are sensible, people will adopt the system. If
they are not, people will reject it. It is true,
however, that their own PR on the issue is not good -
if you really want your system to be adopted, it's
best not to *demand* it!

There are two key issues here in my view: firstly,
spellings must be developed *pan-dialectally* as far
as is possible (and 'as far as is possible' is a very
long way). _Guid_ is a perfectly apt way of
representing the Scots for 'good' in *any* dialect -
just because northeasterners say something more like
_gweed_ does *not* mean you write it differently, any
more than you would write _bath_ differently in the
north and south of England.

Secondly, 'standardization' is actually a much broader
issue than just 'spellings', and this is a point
commonly overlooked. There are also issues of lexicon
(eg _bairn_ vs. _wean_ - is one more formal than the
other? is one more appropriate is some meanings than
others?) and grammar (one is being debated currently
on another thread, re 'thae anes' and suchlike). The
latter, in itself, does impact on spelling (which
suffixes can/should be used and how?).

The thing is that too few people are prepared to think
*strategically* (a word certainly becoming overused in
government documents here in NI, but an important one
when used appropriately). You always have to think
'where you are', 'where you want to go', 'how you want
to get there'. But in this case it's also worth asking
'why?' - what is the purpose of a standard?

Perhaps, in actual fact, it's for use by people such
as Sandy on widely used Scots language websites!

Cheers,
--------------------------
Ian James Parsley
Co Down, Northern Ireland

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