LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.12 (01) [E/S]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Andy (Scots-Online) <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2003.02.08 (02) [E/S]

Dan Prohaska wrote:

At the end of his message:
> Alright you Scots speakers out there - give it to me. No in all honesty
> I`m looking forward to reading what you think.....

Weel here's ma bawbies wirth.

> Sandy wrote:
>
> >When I did suggest using anspelling system independent of English
> (about >the beginning of last year, I think it was), you said it wasn't
> a good idea
> >because it wasn't familiar, and by familiar you meant what
> >was taught in schools, ie English.
>
> The idea of a pan-dialectal standard All-Scots (including Ullans)
> appeals to me. It is my impression that the Scots language is in a state
> in which it would require serious language planning to achieve
> respectability as a public medium beyond folkloristic contexts. Not
> linguistically, but sociolingustically it is reduced to a
> "dialect"-function (what is generally regarded as the 2dialect2 context,
> not what most of us Lowlanders consider to be dialect). English is its
> standard "roof" while Scots has fragmented. People lose touch and a feel
> for the languages as it is spoken in other areas of the country. This is
> a common phenomenon in a group of dialects that lack a standard, i.e.
> Breton, only the dialect of the native parish is considered correct, all
> other varieties are wrong, incorrect and bad Breton. From similar
> discussion here I get the impression that Scots dialect boundaries seem
> difficult to overcome, not in speech, but in writing.

With Scots I mean the 'traditional' varieties i.e. the broadest and least
anglified.
I would assume it would be sensible to take these as a basis for language
planning if language maintenance is the objective.
There are of course highly anglicized urban varieties - which are spreading
rapidly.
Some influencial circles seem to be pushing these as a the basis for a
'standard'.
I think the second approach stems from a socio-linguistic approach which
tends to document language change, which in the case
of Scots could be more accurately described as language death or even
language suicide:

"Language suicide occurs most commonly when two languages are fairly similar
to one another. In this situation
it is extremely easy for the less prestigious one to borrow vocabulary,
constructions and sounds from the one
with greater social approval. In the long run, it may obliterate itself
entirely in the process."

Jean Aitchison in 'Language Change: Progress or Decay?'  1991 p.198

>So how can a
> planned standard language be constructed? Would it help to raise the
> profile and prestige of the dialects? I think it could, if variety and
> dialect speech is somthing that is always promoted while giving the new
> standard its own place next to or opposite the old standard (i.e.
> Scottish English). What are the options for creating this "new" Scots
> orthography?

It stands to reason that the local pronunciations and grammatical forms
remain unquestioned, and no attempt at creating some kind of Scots 'RP' is
undertaken.

> It might be helpful to look at two Scandinavian languages with strong
> dialectal divesity, which used Danish as a standard language in the
> past: New-Norwegian and Faroese; (Icelandic is different here as it
> shows next to no dialectal variation). Orthographies were created quite
> recently for these languages. For me a pan-dialectal etymological
> approach would be desirable, however taking into account exsting Scots
> literature and building something a little more consistent. First of all
> a common phonemic base for Scots has to be established. From then on we
> can pick out the most common spellings in the texts and in use, and
> assign these to the phonemes. A word like "good" would be spelt <guid>
> ragardless of dialect, as dialect speakers know how to pronounce it
> anyway. A word like "took" would have the spelling <tuik> as the both go
> back to an Old Anglian form /o:/;

These all go back to the Old Anglian form /o:/ but a further split occured
where before /k/ and /x/ it became /(j)u/ or /(j)V/ depending on dialect,
usually spelled <eu> e.g. teuk.

>I`m no expert in Scots, but I`m sure
> the mechanisms applied in other languages such as New-Norwegian and
> Faroese can be applied by finding a compromise between etymological,
> phonemic and historical forms. It would thus not debase a new Scots
> orthography from the Scots texts written to date, but would function as
> a standard for all Scots dialects nonetheless.

True, but those with the socio-linguistic bias see this as artificial
because 'authentic' language is produced unconciously and study subjects who
know what is going on tend to spoil the fun.
So presenting a piece o writing that fulfills your suggestions above is seen
as an artifiacial construction, especially when
some of the vocabulary has been acquired through reading and self-teaching.
Strangely the state endeavours to give people at least ten years of
schooling in English so thay can do exactly that in English and
 no one seems to suggest that the result is 'artificial'.

> There is also the possibility of departing from historical Scots
> radically and creating something new altogether. This may however not be
> accepted by the majority; or maybe it would, who knows, if the goal is
> to be as far away from let´s say, English, then it might work. Now what
> I`m giving here as examples is just messing about. I`m not competent in
> Scots to make any proposals which can be taken seriously, but it´s just
> to demonstrate practically what I`m getting at in general. So dear Scots
> speakers, forgive my general ignorance and bear with me a little, may
> the competent speakers will be inspired to extrapolate on one of my
> proposals:

Radical departures from historical Scots - or English for that matter - are
an extremely hard sell.

> "Sae fill up yer glasses, let the bottle gae roon
> fur the sun has come up, tho the mune hae gane doon
> an if the room be rinnin roon anoot, there`s time aneuch tae flit
> fur when we fell, we aye got up again, an sae will we yet!"
>
> This I think is more or less traditional Scots orthography. I think we
> can make it more consistent by looking at the historical phonemes and
> giving the historical vowel the same spelling. And maybe we can do away
> with the magic-e:
>
> "Sae fill up yer glassis, let the bottel gae roun
> fer the sun has cum up, tho the muin hae gaen doun
> an if the roum be rinnin roun about, thaer`s tym enuich tae flit
> fer when we fell, we ay got up egen, an sae will we yet!"
>
> -<bottle> => <bottel>
> -<roon> => <roun> from original /rund/ with lengthened /u:/ => <roun>

As far as I'm aware /u/ isn't long here.

> -<doon> => <doun> from original /dún/, the same applies to <room> and
> <aboot> => so we have <roum> and <about>, though spelt as it is in
> English - the pronunciation is different, but if we change the
> unstressed vowel to <e>, we have <ebout>;
> -whether we use <u> or <e> as the neutral vowel schwa in unstressed
> position is arbitrary, for consistency´s sake I choose <e>, hence <fer>
> and <yer>

Fair point. I just hold with what ever 'vowel grapheme' has been most common
in the past.

> - the underlying phoneme of <sun>, <come> and <up> is the same, => <u>
> fo all => no magic-e => <cum> (<k> before <e>, <i>, <y>; <c> before <a>,
> <o>, <u>)
> -<mune> historically has /o:/ as does <guid>, <tuik> etc. => <muin>, the
> same goes for "enough" => <enuich>

See the point above, before /k/ and /x / => <eu>

> -<gae> and <gane> have the same vowel => <gae> and <gaen>
Regular pt. morpheme. This is one word which could follow one of two 'rules'
I suggest.
First regular pt. = gaen . Second the (ployphonemic) cluster <ane>  is
usually /en/ but /in/ in the North.
I settled for 'gane'.

> -what to do about diphthongised old /i:/, we pull magic-e into the root
> vowel giving us <tiem> (I don`t think this is a good idea, as <ie> is
> used as something else in traditional Scots orthography). Scots has <y>,
> and we can look to another LL-L that uses <y> in the same position -
> Afrikaans: so why not: <tym>
> -pronouns and other functional high frequency words having both stressed
> forms and unstressed forms have to be treated separately, and I`m
> clearly not knowledgeable enough to make even an educated guess.

Would it not just be simplest to use the stressed form in (formal) writing
and thus avoid a multitude of (written) forms which people might use
incorrectly?

> We could also add etymological <d> where it belongs, as a Scots speaker
> would know anyway where it is silent.
I recommend that because some dialects still pronounce it and in others it
occurs in derived forms.
I especially like "as a Scots speaker would know anyway where it is silent".
It avoids the trap of trying to write Scots in the hope
that a person acquaint with English might, when reading it out loud, produce
something that might sound Scots. This usually never works.
Languages (other that English) tend to gear their orthographies to the needs
of native speakers an not to the needs of monoglot English speakers.

> "Sae fill up yer glassis, let the bottel gae round
> fer the sun has cum up, tho the muin hae gaen doun
> and if the roum be rinnin round ebout, thaer`s tym enuich tae flit
> fer when we fell, we ay got up egen, an sae will we yet!"
>
> Something a little more radical could look like this:
<snip>
> The idea here is to indicate historical long vowels, as well as
> historical short vowels that underwent early lengthening common to all
> Scots dialects with <´>, an <l> and <v> following a vowel with <´> would
> be silent (<ae> would be treated like a vowel + <´>; I`d retain
> word-final <ie>:
>
<snip>
> <shún> = Sc <shoon> = E "shoes"
Shoon = shuin, The singular shae is infact a central rendition of 'shui'. I
stick with shae because its so well established.

> <let´s shút the krá>
shoot = shuit Same vowel as in shuin.

Here's what I do now:

> "Sae fill up yer glesses, lat the bottle gae roond
> for the sun haes come up, tho the muin haes gane doun
> an if the room be rinnin roond aboot, thare`s time eneuch tae flit
> for whan we fell, we aye gat up again, an sae will we yit!"

Andy Eagle

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