LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.15 (06) [EN]

Tue Mar 16 00:30:48 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 15 March 2010 - Volume 06*
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From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.15 (01) [EN]

Ron wrote:

*
John (Tait),

My apologies for calling you “Jim” this morning. I wasn”t totally awake.

You wrote today under “Grammar”:

What I used to call “Shetlandic” - in the sense of a common perception of
the Shetland dialects - can now be definitively said not to exist.

I know that you have discussed this in installments before, John. But I
wonder if you could summarize for us why “Shetlandic” does not exist and how
we should now label the dialects of the Shetland and Orkney Islands in light
of this. If I understood you correctly, I ask why now “Shetlaen” (the native
name) instead of what seems to be the English equivalent: “Shetlandic”.

* I”ve looked for the post where you called me “Jim” and can”t find it!

Actually “Shaetlan” is off bounds as well, in my opinion! The entity, or
rather non-entity, in question is not now permitted to have a name at all!

The reason I say that “Shetlandic” does not exist is because that term is
not accepted, and indeed is actively resented, by most people in Shetland,
including many of those who see themselves as proponents of “dialect”. As
both the term “Shetlandic” and its native term “Shaetlan”, have fallen out
of favour, being replaced by the unqualified term “dialect”, I think it is
fair to say that the concept they embodied (that is, a concept of the
Shetland tongue as a whole and in contradistinction to other forms of
speech) does not exist, because the loss of the terms suggests that that
concept no longer exists in the apprehension of Shetlanders.

A fairly typical comment by a well-known Scottish broadcaster living in
Shetland is as follows:

“How much of a gesture is Shetlandic, to give the varying forms of dialect a
jarringly jargonistic name? It will never be a consistent set of grammatical
rules and pronunciation. It is not and never has been, though there have
been various attempts to control it, to render it in some kind of set form.”

This clearly states the position of the established Shetland/Scots
Anglophone hegemony - that “dialect” is simply “varying forms”, and that any
suggestion that it might have a distinctive grammar or pronunciation is the
attempts of purists and prescriptionists - such as myself - “ to control,
and by implication, stifle it. (This is more or less an echo of the views of
the most prominent proponents of Scots, although they continue to use the
term “Scots.”) Linguistically this is, of course, nonsense; but as mythology
it serves the purpose of making certain that the speech forms of Shetland
can never rise to a level which would threaten the total and absolute
domination of standard English - which, of course, is the area of competence
of Scottish broadcasters living in Shetland.

And a comment from the Shetlink forum:

“I also despise people calling the dialect “Shetlandic”. I don”t know why, I
just don”t like that word. One of my flatmates is from Turriff and told me
she”d heard someplace that this was the “proper” word for it - to which I
replied that no one I know refers to the dialect with this term.”

Because of comments such as these - and in case it was my website which
misled the flatmate in question - I have not only stopped using the term,
but have removed my website with this - and all its other - offensive
content.

I should explain that the late John J. Graham (regarded as the “doyen” of
Shetland dialect promotion) used both “Shetland dialect” and “Shetlandic” in
his writings on the subject. But public opinion has clearly rejected the
term Shetlandic, with its connotations of status and identity, in favour of
the umbrella term “dialect” (now often used without any qualification such
as “Shetland dialect” or even “the dialect”.) So I often see or hear simply
“talking dialect.” Of course, you don”t hear anyone referring to the use of
standard English as “talking language.” English has a name and identity,
“dialect” does not.

The term “dialect” has also taken over substantially in speech from the
native term “Shaetlan.” Interestingly, at a dialect conference I attended in
2004, the only speaker I can recollect using the term “Shaetlan”, apart from
myself, was a young incomer from England who had learned to speak it very
well. She had obviously picked up the term as used by native speakers, and
had not picked up on the fact that it was now (apparently) politically
incorrect to refer to it as anything other than “dialect”. I have even heard
people say “Sh-dialect” - ie, starting to say “Shaetlan” and then altering
to “dialect” in mid-word.

ShetlandForWirds, the dialect promotion group, use the unqualified term
“dialect” in their communications, eg:

- We previously agreed to give a prize for the best dialect performance at
this year”s Schools Music Festival to be held 8-12 March

- X explained that some time ago Visit Shetland had approached SFW with a
view to producing items with dialect texts

- X will update the Action Plan for the dialect project accordingly.

- Most heritage centres have shops and would probably be pleased to stock
dialect items

- The web address will be either shetlanddialect.org.uk or
shetlanddialect.co.uk...the fact that X is a dialect speaker is a big
advantage.

- X is scheduled to hold an evening class this winter on Writing for Bairns
in Dialect, suitable for 8-14 year olds

With regard to the general apprehension of “dialect” as a written medium,
the following comments were made by a well-known public figure (native
“dialect” speaker and PhD in a literary subject) recently in the Shetland
Times, with regard to why Shetland has never produced a prominent novelist
(Orkney has produced two, and one prominent poet.)

“And it is not really suitable for writing, the Shetland dialect....writers
in dialect irritate. X can make it readable, by some magic, but most add
unjustifiable emphasis and archaisms, and in any case, English is our
written tongue, the one we are trained to read.”

With this comment, the writer was dismissing by implication a number of
highly regarded (not only in Shetland) Shetland dialect writers - unless,
that is, they were also possessed of the “some sort of magic” which enables
dialect writing and which is out of the reach of ordinary irritating
mortals, or were exempted owing to being dead. The fact that there were no
replies to this in the letters page next week, and the only article in reply
concentrated only on the literary aspect and scarcely mentioned “dialect”,
demonstrates how widely this view of written dialect is tacitly accepted in
Shetland.

This illustrates the value of the unqualified term “dialect” to the
mouthpieces of the prevailing Anglophone hegemony. Because it is “dialect”
and not “language” it can be exempted from all the characteristics of
“language”. Not only does it have no grammar, but if a writer in it is found
to be irritating, this is attributed to the medium rather than the writer,
because “dialect” is per se unsuitable for writing. And if someone is found
who does not irritate, then, as this cannot be attributed to competence
because written competence in a medium which is not suitable for writing
would be a contradiction in terms, it must be attributed to “magic.”

As, then, the terms “Shetlandic” and “Shaetlan” are offensive to the
perception of Shetland society, as reflected in the unchallenged comments of
its intelligentsia, I take the view that these terms, and the offensive
concepts they embody, can fairly be said not to exist.

Ron wrote further:

*By the way, I have been made aware of two people having translated the Wren
story (http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/english.php) into Shetl...
dialects:
http://www.shetlink.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=73610#73610

I have long wished for at least one version is Shetl... (preferably
accompanied by audio). To see these posted without being included in or
collection (http://lowlands-l.net/anniversary/) is highly frustrating to me.
I wish people would “donate” them to the “source”, even if they wish to do
so anonymously. (I would keep anyone”s name confidential if requested.) This
has happened before. Someone posted a Jersey Norman version for another
forum and never responded when one of us asked them to share it with us. Of
course it”s their prerogative to use our story and not to share their own
versions, but it”s highly frustrating to me, as you can probably imagine.

*
I must say “mea culpa” here, because I am the DePooperit on the forum who
made one of the translations. However, I made this off the cuff and
deliberately have not offered it to Lowlands-L for the same reason that I
have removed my website. As an expatriate Shetlander, I have no right to
misrepresent the views of resident (or other) Shetlanders by presenting
material on the internet which appears to give “dialect” written status, and
which Shetland society as a whole is therefore likely to find offensive. At
the dialect conference I attended, the first speaker (the Shetland
archivist, himself a Shetlander) used some of my writing as a bad example,
describing it as a “horrible abortion” because of its use of the term “lay
up” (make, establish) outside of the fossilised phrases he (probably as an
archivist) had encountered it in, as referring to (1) socks, and (2)
riddles. More recently, a clergyman who has translated parts of the Bible
into “dialect” from English has commented that “translating Greek and Hebrew
into Shetland dialect doesn”t really work.” As the owner of a former website
using the jarringly jargonistic term “Shetlandic”, and contained irritating
writing in that unwriteable medium including unworkable translation from
Greek and the odd abortion here and there, I have taken the hint.

As to how the dialects of Shetland should now be labelled on Lowlands-L, I
am afraid I have no idea. The only safe avenue, it seems to me, is not to
mention them at all.

(BTW - In the most recent e-mailing from ShetlandForWirds I noticed with
some amusement the following item:

“Intangible Cultural Heritage

X hed met Y fae da Napier University national project on “Intangible
Cultural Heritage” an agreed ta send her some information on da dialect an
Shetland ForWirds fur her website.”)

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>

Subject: Language varieties

John,

The posting in which I addressed you as "Jim" is archived here:
http://tinyurl.com/yarlwh7

Thank you very much indeed for responding so promptly and thoroughly to my
inquiry about the status of Sh ... uh ... dialect.

My head is still reeling. I'm not yet sure which is to blame for me having a
very hard time wrapping my head around the goings-on: my aging mind or the
apparent bizarreness of the story. It seems even more bizarre than people
under French-speaking hegemony having been conditioned to call
*patois*every indigenous non-French language variety under
French-speaking hegemony, but at least there you get away with specifying
them as things like *patois normand* or *patois alsacien* when you are in a
different location. (And it is similar with *idioma *in Spanish-dominated
areas.)

So it seems to me that Shetland's popular concensus is that what people like
you and I used to call "Shetlandic" does not officially exist, and that it
is *verboten *to specify "dialect" even in terms of location so as to
deprive it of any modicum of legitimacy. I assume that as a result "dialect"
will cease to exist (apprently this being the intent). As they say, "that's
one for the record." (Might this be how the Norn language became extinct?)
Will Shelanders in, say, a hundred years ask (in English of course), "Why,
oh, why did our ancestral language disappear?" and the answer will be
"People decided it didn't exist."

Yeah, what to do ... I appreciate the position this puts you in. I as a true
outsider, however, have *Narrenfreiheit* (German for "fool's liberty") on my
side. While I do not wish to offend anyone, I wonder if I should bow my head
to this ... uh ... whatdoyoucallit. The only problem is that I do not want
to embarrass you, John, since you are the author of our "dialect" bits. If
you don't mind, I will consult you about this off the List.

In the meantime, for practical and sentimental reasons, I took the liberty
of downloading the zipped version of your former site Wirhoose (
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wirhoose/but/).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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