LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.21 (01) [EN]

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.20 (03) [AF]

Actually, this is the first post on the "Shetland Question" I've read all
the way through! Your opening comment probably goaded me into it!



To be fair, I don't ignore messages in Afrikaans (next to English they are
the ones I can read most easily, even more than German). I just can't write
it quickly or well enough to respond properly.



Your history of the struggles of Afrikaans, and how it both compares with
and differs from that of minority dialects and languages was very
interesting.



One point I will make (again!) is that when speakers of other languages
compare their condition with that of English, they seem to assume that this
global status is automatically a Good Thing. I disagree; Danes have Danish,
Afrikaners have Afrikaans, even Germans have German, in a way that the
English no longer have English, and never will again.



Paul

Derby

England

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From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "News" 2010.03.20 (05) [AF-EN]



Mark wrote:

>From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.20 (02) [EN]

>Afrikaans is no poorer for having an alternative term, 'Die Taal' = (The
Tongue). An added point is that the latter is not a captured & converted
pejoritive of the enemy, but aword out of the native speech, given (with the
support of the definite article) an added specific meaning. Can you not do
the same out of the heart of Shaetlan speech?

Well, 'Shaetlan' would be that native form. But there would be no
possibility of agreement on how to spell it - as I explained in the last
posting - and I've little doubt that it would raise almost as many
objections as 'Shetlandic' in a standard-English context (ie, while you
couldn't claim that the term was invented or political, you could claim that
the spelling (ie, spelling it in any manner other than the English form
Shetland) was, and that the use of a 'dialect' term within standard English
was illiterate, jargonistic, etc.) I think the only reason it hasn't come in
for a similar opprobrium is that it has never been used extensively in
writing.


>But all this is beside the point: How to prevent that hostility from
severely negative impact on the language. It is not an Englishdialect
because to the RP English-speaker it is not intelligible.I mightargue the
point with some 'dialects' though,of Scots. Maybe you(plural) should just
forget about the name, dammit, & get on with it!

I think forgetting about the name and getting on with it is exactly what
ShetlandForWirds is doing.


>I trust there is no need to push the use of Shaetlan informally. It seems
people are quite happy to communicate therewith 'in shirtsleeves' so to
speak.

>Not really. The point is that it has receded so far in the last - say
thirty years - that it will certainly die out altogether quite soon.


The only burden now is to make place for it asa language of public address,
plain & proud. With both feet planted firmly in the assembly-hall & the
homedo not doubt the language will develop its mythology & literature.

>Actually, the trend is the opposite. Ironically, in spite of its lack of
official status, the spoken form was traditionally used in most, if not all,
official contexts where you would rarely hear Scots used on the Mainland.
But it was never written in any context other than poetry and occasional
humour. But now that so many incomers and younger people do not speak it,
there is increasing pressure to use either standard English, or a very
diluted form of the traditional speech where everything that conflicts with
standard English is excluded - which really amounts to English with a few
Shetland forms.


>Incidentally, I see hope in the use of an un-specific orthography for all
the dialects of Shaetlan. One can do that in English, withits historic &
idiosyncretic spelling system, serving as it already does a host of other
dialects throught the British Isles, & without the need for more than a
minimum of concessions, for example toScouse on the one hand & Somerset on
the other.

This is exactly what my former website tried to do.


>By the way, should you be talking to us at all? In English? Let's hear you
in Shaetlan - to Shaetlanders. By all means keep us in the loop - in LL-L,
in Shaetlan.

Well, there aren't any other Shetlanders on Lowlands-L, so I would be
speaking to nobody!

John M. Tait.



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From: Andy Eagle <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties"

John's contributions about the dialect approach taken to the the Shetland
varieties by those wishing to promote them seems to be inline with
contempory practice in Scotland overall.

Traditionally (over the last few hundred years) in Scotland (Scottish)
Standard English is the high form for most writing and certainly for
transactional writing. Nevertheless a tradition of writing in what may be
described as non-regional literary Scots emerged in the 19th century after
SE relaced the previous Scots tradition. (see the SND Introduction
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/). This literary Scots tradition has more or less
contined to this day. This tradition can be seen in the works of Allan
Ramsay, Fergusson, Burns, Scott and many more besides. Albeit influenced by
the standard English of the time, the Scots orthographic conventions used
are (if SE spellings are not being used) applied fairly consistenly.
Unfortunately because many of these writers did employ SE spellings many
people do not realise that, apart from vocabulary, there is a very great
difference between written and spoken Scots. This literary Scots may not
have been a standard in the contemporary sense of 'one word - one spelling'
but the literary Scots tradition was based on broadly accepted orthographic
conventions employed by many writers from differing dialect backgrounds.
That tradition is well described in Grant an Dixon's 1923 'Manal of Modern
Scots' (http://www.archive.org/details/manualofmodernsc00granuoft). A more
regularised literary Scots can be achieved by simply applying (some of)
those conventions more consistenly and, as is becoming more common, avoiding
the apostrohes which usually represented consonants which occurred in the SE
forms. It must also be borne in mind that the pronuciation is that of the
reader's own dialect rather than any concept of (a non-existant) standard
Scots pronunciation.

Alongside that tradition there also devolped, what may fairly be described
as dialect writing. Where the orthography was intended to represent the
pronunciation in a more phonetic manner. An insight in to how both styles
were applied is described in the introduction to the SND "Some writers even
vary their Scots with their subject or with their supposed audience - e.g.
Charles Murray in Wha draws a Blade is addressing all Scotsmen, and on a
dignified subject - therefore he uses the conventional literary dialect. In
Fae France he puts the "braidest Buchan" into the mouth of the poacher who
becomes a soldier."

Although there is a lot of talk about the Scots language, when in comes to
teaching in or about this language in schools, or elsewhere for that matter,
the approach seems to concentrate on dialect writing.

Learning and Teaching Scotland (
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/specialfocus/scots/index.asp) suggesting
that it "is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as
you hear the sounds in your head." I assume that because Literary Scots is
not taught, the sounds in the head are mapped to SE graphemes. The children
will of course be able to do just that because the same organisation wishes
to ensure that when it comes to SE children will be "writing fluently and
legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation." That has recently been
added to (http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/knowledgeoflanguage/scots/) , the
guidance on writing is "there is no standard written form of Scots" but no
mention of the (non-regional) literary tradition. It then continues: "It can
be daunting writing in a language whose orthography is not set in stone. But
having no standard allows Scots writers great freedom. It gives flexibility
to those who want to express themselves in their own dialect. However, there
are some guidelines new Scots writers can follow to help them find their own
writing style." In all fairness, I must say that the guidelines do cleary
originate in the literary tradition, but regularisation of the traditional
conventions does not appear to be much of an issue. The emphasis is clearly
on creative and entertaining dialect writing rather than transactional
writing in any form of 'literary Scots' (perhaps a less controversial term
than 'Standard').

Scottish Language Dictionaries also point out that "Scots has been primarily
a spoken language for many years, and as a result, a standardised system for
spelling has never been agreed" but once again no mention of the
(non-regional) literary tradition. They then continue "while this can cause
problems for some writers who wish to use a 'correct' spelling" - a question
which could be answered by simply describing the literary conventions and
suggesting that they be appiedt in a consistent manner - "others find that
the variability of regional spelling and pronunciations gives their writing
a unique flexibility". Of course writing can be done flexibly in most any
language - simply ignore the conventions! Here the emphasis is once again on
creative and entertaining dialect writing rather than transactional writing
in any form of 'literary Scots'. Once more, in all fairness, I must say that
the spelling suggestions do generally originate in the literary tradition,
but regularisation of the traditional conventions does not appear to be much
of an issue here either, so anyone who wishes to to use a 'correct' spelling
or get guidance on how to write consistent literary Scots may well find a
Scots dictionary of little use.

The organisations Itchy Coo (http://www.itchy-coo.com/index.html) who
publish books in Scots for children generally present themsleves in SE, as
is the information on the backs of books in Scots (
http://www.itchy-coo.com/resources/Precious+and+Puggies+cover.jpg).

The above approaches would all seem to imply that, for transactional
purposes, the standard written form of the language is in fact (Scottish)
Standard English and consequently this Scots language is in reality just the
dialects of English spoken in Scotland.

Andy



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