LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.26 (01) [DE]

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From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>

Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.23 (03) [EN]



Andy wrote:

>From: Andy Eagle <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.21 (02) [EN]

>John wrote:

>>Yes.' Precious and Puggies' translated by James Robertson, whose view that
Scots is a language that writers turn to when they wish to use its
'less-than-respectable status ... a refuge for linguistic individualism,

anarchism, nomadism and hedonism' Â I was requested, by the Shetland dialect


promoters, not to criticise!

>As you previously mentioned, William McIlvanney has spoken of Scots as
being like English in its underwear.

>In all fairness, those thoughts were expressed in the introduction to a
collection of short stories primarily aimed at adults. I hope for decency's,
and the children's sake, that the English used is, at the least, strutting
its stuff in a bathrobe.

Yes. I'm not complaining about McIlvanney - he is just taking the situation
as he finds it, as any writer would. However, Robertson's purpose in quoting
him is to state that the language should stay at that level - should retain
its less than disreputable status - so that writers who wish to use it with
that connotation can do so. The implication is that we are supposed to think
(perhaps subconsciously) when we come across Scots in literature, 'Aha! Here
the writer is using Scots because he has shifted into less-than-disreputable
mode.' This seems to me to be a peculiar stance for someone engaged in Scots
promotion.


>Nevertheless, Itchy Coo seem to be very successful at what they are doing
and have likely done more to get young people interested in Scots than
anybody else recently. No mean feat considering the objections that are
often raised when the words Scots, school and classroom occur in the same
sentence.

Well, maybe. I have come across anecdotal tales of how Itchy Coo personnel
can 'engage a class' of primary kids. But you could engage a class of
primary kids by taking them outside to throw snowballs. Is there any
evidence that the influence lasts beyond the 'engagement' stage?

The acid test is first what happens when they reach the teenage stage, and
second, whether they pass it on to their own kids. As far as I can see, at
the teenage stage, Scots forms in speech are 'tribal,' identified with that
particular tribe known as 'neds' and eschewed by others who do not belong to
that tribe. In the high school here, speaking Doric - although anyone might
have done so - seemed to be particularly associated with 'footballers', the
point being that if you weren't a 'footballer' you were more likely to have
English-speaking friends and speak more English. My kids are now in their
early twenties, and although most of their friends are from the North East -
often from the small towns and villages which were until recently the
bedrock of Doric - they always speak English to each other because that's
what their social group does. Secondly, parents in general are not going to
pass on something which is regarded as disreputable.


>>The idea of Scots being promoted by people who hold these views, and
criticism of them being regarded as unacceptable, might seem like a scenario
from a black comedy if it wasn't true.

>Isn't comedy one of the niches that Scots is often confined to?

Exactly. And again, the efforts of both the Itchy Coo and Shetland dialect
approach seems to be to promote Scots by keeping it confined in more or less
the area that led to its demise in the first place.



>Perhaps Scots is like a supposedly wild animal that people are scared to
let out of the cage they have built for it. Humour and derision are often
used strategies employed when confronted with something that causes fear or
anxiety.

I think that's certainly the case with regard to mainstream reactions to it.
In Shetland, I think that there's a defensiveness on the part of some vocal
incomers who feel threatened by what they see as the parochial assertiveness
of certain 'natives' which is successful because Shetland as a whole is
mainstream in attitude. (As I said in the article I posted, 'Save us from
dialect fascists' was one comment elicited in a survey of the state of
literature in Shetland.) In Scotland as a whole, I have a feeling that,
except in certain areas where it is called 'dialect' or 'doric' or referred
to by the name of the locality ('Weegie'), most Scots don't have a concept
of 'Scots' at all, and simply react against people speaking in a down-town
or inappropriate manner. This view has been reinforced by the postmodern era
in education where the traditional teaching of Scots verse - usually Burns -
all but disappeared in the 60s or 70s, with the result that the succeeding
generations are mostly completely unaware of it.

John M Tait.



----------



From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>

Subject: Re: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.22 (01) [EN]



Sandy wrote:

>>From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.20 (02) >>EN<<


> Actually there is no problem with a word to describe people from
> Shetland - they are known as 'Shetlanders'. The problem I'm talking
> about arises in that there is no readily available word to describe
> whatever it is they traditionally speak, because there is no separate
> adjectival form from 'Shetland' as there is from, say, England
> (English), Orkney (Orcadian) or Glasgow (Glaswegian).

>This whole argument, seemingly based on the idea that "we don't have a
term for it so we can't invent one" seems rather an old-school approach
to language.<<

Well, yes. There are two things, though.

The first is the real aversion to the word Shetlandic among many ordinary
Shetlanders. This can probably be put down to simple lack of familiarity,
owing to it not being used in print, and ridiculed when it is (see below.)

The second point is why it isn't used in print. I think one clue can be
found in the description of it as 'obviously political.' Accepting this for
the sake of argument, it is a reasonable deduction that the reason it has
fallen out of use in contexts where it used to occur is political in the
other direction (ie, a reaction by people who believe the use of it to be
political, but don't perceive their own point of view as political) and that
this reflects a change in Shetland attitudes.

Interestingly I found on the net an interview by the broadcaster who wrote
the 'jarringly jargonistic' article. In answer to the question:

"Q. Do you think that’s there’s a particular Shetland quality to the writing
or is it just that it’s talking about Shetland?"

He is reported as saying:

"A. There are Shetlandic qualities to the writing but I think the beauty of
it is its insight, which comes from distance as well as local knowledge."

'Shetlandic?' Must be a mistaken transcription, surely. Until you find an
article by him in the New Statesman. I quote:

"What I have now is a Rioja Red Defender 110 station wagon County TDi....Its
permanent four-wheel drive deals easily with the vicissitudes of Shetlandic
roadscape."

Hmm. Wouldn't be a double standard at work here, would there? At any rate,
it shows that I was overstating the case when I said (quoted below) that the
word 'Shetlandic' had never been used for anything other than the tongue.


>>When I was learning Icelandic and Czech, the usual remark from people
was, "What? Is there such a language?" (this was back in the 1980's). It
just means it's time to educate them about it. I would have no trouble
with using "Shetlandic" and then discussing it with whoever inquires. If
they didn't accept the term then I would put the onus on them to suggest
a better one, because it's something I want to be able to talk about.<<

That's not really the same situation, though, because there were large
amounts of Icelanders and Czechs in Iceland and the Czech republic who
recognised these.

>>> First, it's not unusual for internal areas in the UK not to have
> specific adjectival forms. Some do - Cornish, Glaswegian, Orcadian,
> Liverpudlian, etc - and some don't seem to (or at least not ones that
> come easily to mind) - Yorkshire? Somerset? Edinburgh? Â Shetland.
> Which ones do and which ones don't seems to be almost accidental.

>So what? There are big trends in English these days towards more
productive use of the lexicon, with people saying things like "Are you
Whitbying this year?", "I'm not deaf, I'm a hearie" and so on.
"Shetlandic" isn't exactly without precedent (Icelandic, Greenlandic,
Turkic). Assuming you're aware of the dialects/language, you'd have to
be deliberately pretending if you said you didn't understand the term.<<

I think that the Icelandic/Greenlandic (etc) precedent - and indeed the fact
that it is understood - is exactly what some people object to. They object
to it precisely because it is easily understood as referring to the language
of a particular place - rather than an undefined and varying sub-category of
'dialect' - which they see as a political statement.

>>> The problem with this expression is that, whereas it sounds perfectly
> natural when you are speaking the native tongue itself, it does not
> translate well into standard English. To write about 'Speaking

>This is just blurring the issue. We don't need a term that can be used
in two languages (or dialects) at once, we're talking about a term we
can use in English. A separate term can be used in "dialect", there's no
need to bring them together.<<

Except that the concept of 'dialect' does not automatically accomodate the
existence of separate forms. Dialect is seen as subsidiary to, not parallel
to, standard English. The idea that you could have an 'English' term which
would not be appropriate in 'dialect' would simply be nonsensical to most
people. Whereas the opposite - that you can have a term in dialect which
would not be appropriate in English as a whole - would seem obvious. This, I
would argue, is exactly how the term 'dialect' - which would originally have
been necessary only when using standard English - has become the default
word in the medium to which it refers (and yes, I'm trying for a
circumlocution award!) My example of the teeth illustrates this. The writers
and editors of this story could apparently bring themselves to use neither
the native term 'teeth' - because of its conflict with the standard - nor
the unnatural 'tooth' in a Shetland story, so they changed all references to
the plural to avoid a conflict. It is easily seen that there is here no
concept of the tongue in question as a parallel entity.

>>> than an entity? The semantic problems are not thereby solved; and even
> if The Shetland Dialect were satisfactory in, say, academic usage, it
> is too cumbersome an expression to use in everyday writing - by, for
> example, an organisation which is writing about it frequently, like
> ShetlandForWirds. Therefore, it tends to be reduced to 'dialect.'<<

>Of course they're solved. You could use "Shetlandic" or even just
"Shetland" in English. However much they want to calcify the terminology
in Shetland, it's fine for us outside.<<

Well, yes - but to use a term outside Shetland which is disowned by
Shetlanders is self-defeating.

>>> The need for an expression to describe the tongue in standard English
> has probably been felt for a long time. The word 'Shetlandic' goes
> back at least as long as the 20th Century. However, because it has
> never been used for anything other than the tongue (because 'Shetland'
> is the natural adjective, as with 'Yorkshire') it has never become a
> part of normal usage. This is probably because of several factors:

>The need by who? We've never had any trouble with it on this list, not
even in the days when it came up often.<<

Of course there's not a problem with it on this list. The need, I would
suggest, was felt at that time by certain elements in Shetland - although
I'm not sure whether the term 'Shetlandic' was first used by Shetlanders or
outsiders. I suspect that this reflected a view (perhaps in tandem with the
pro-autonomy Shetland Movement of that time) which has now been reacted
against.

In this collection of Shetland poems (well worth a look in its own right,
BTW) there is a poem from this era by Rhoda Bulter (who has been called 'the
Queen of Shetland Verse) with the title 'Shetlandic.'

http://www.sdu.dk/~/media/3D088DF89C374550A6A3F423725ACCF4.ashx<http://www.sdu.dk/%7E/media/3D088DF89C374550A6A3F423725ACCF4.ashx>

Another example of the same process may be the 'Dunna Chuck Bruck' sign,
which was once common in Shetland, but is now gone. This obviously reflected
a desire to assert local identity which has since been superseded. On
Shetlink, the following exchange took place (posted by Ghostrider).

[>Frances144 wrote:

>>The Dunna Chuck Bruck campaign seems to have faded into the dim and
distant.

>>That was an effective slogan and should be part of the single track
"passing place' sign, therefore enforcing the message.

>Ghostrider:

>Only effective because your average Shetlander remembered it, for no other
reason than it being such an abortion of a phrase, half Shetland half
English slang.

>I still contend the entirely Shetland version of "Dunna bal Sh*te!", or for
the politer people "Dunna bal Traash" would have been better.]

Notice the peculiar view that 'chuck' is 'English slang' but the pan-(or at
least Northern) English 'shite' and characteristically American 'traash'
(displacing 'bruck' in his version) are 'entirely Shetland'.]

>>I'd put it to you that this is a problem created by people who don't
want a solution. There's no actual problem.<<

Well, yes and no. Firstly yes, it is a problem created by people who don't
want a solution. I would put it more strongly - if clumsily - and say that
it is a problem created by people who want there to be no solution. That is
because they are happy with the status quo (token gestures towards a dying
speech form which has no application for serious purposes) and therefore
don't see a problem as long as said speech form doesn't intrude into any
area reserved for serious language. However, as these people are decisively
influential in Shetland, and both reflect and influence popular opinion,
there is therefore a problem.

>>> Â Â Â Examples can again be found in the thread on Shetlink started by
> Â Michael Everson. One correspondent said that the term Shetlandic was
> an attempt to make the speech look Nordic, and was offputting because
> Â it was 'obviously political.' Michael pointed out that only a small
> Â number of the Nordic tongues have endings in -ic, and I pointed out
> that terms like 'dialect' are political as well - it's just that they
> express the political views of the establishment whereas 'Shetlandic'
> Â challenges those views. Unfortunately, when these facts are pointed
> out, the originators of the comments do not continue the conversation.

>Yes, but this is a normal feature of Internet discourse. Like many of
the problems you mention, it's not specific to Shetland language issues.
The problems you bring up also happen to a great extent with Scots. I'd
suggest that it's up to each individual to have their target and aim for
it.<<

Well, yes - and to recognise when they've missed! It's in the nature of
language that individual targets achieve nothing unless they can influence
other people - unless you're talking about maverick literary figures like
MacDiarmaid.

As well as the Internet, this - complex, I think I'll call it - also appears
on letters pages in newspapers. In the Shetland Times, 19th Jan 2007, a
letter appeared:

"As a non-local, local and having lived in Shetland for 26 years I have
always been interested in the local dialect and I read with interest Neil
Anderson's letter on Shetland dialect in last week's Shetland Times.

"I...was interested in his referral to us as "_Shetlandic_". Does this mean
people from Scotland are now _Scotlandic_ or is the correct term for us
"Shettish"? If people from France are French then maybe we are all
"_Shetch_."

...

"Please note all the underlined words are the ones my computer underlined in
red as it didn't know them - maybe a new _Shetlandic_ version of Microsoft
Office could be comisioned by the SIC allowing us to write our letters to
The Shetland Times in local dialect.

"Instead of defragging our hard drive we could have a _Muckle Redd Up_ icon.
I'm sure that would make for an interesting meeting for all the local
councillors. Maybe a trip to Microsoft head office in Seattle on expenses is
required?"

The tone suggests that the writer can assume a readership that will share
his view that the 'reductio ad absurdum' which he is attempting proves the
use of the term to be ridiculous, derisable and objectionable. The fact that
this 'non-local, local' (sic) felt the urge to write such a comment on the
appearance of a single letter containing the word 'Shetlandic' in the press
demonstrates the aversion - one might almost say, fear - which it engenders,
and suggests why it is not more widely used.


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