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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-family: Arial;">===============================================<br>
<b>L O W L A N D S - L - 21 March 2010 - Volume 01</b><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
<a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="gd"><span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Paul Finlow-Bates</span></span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.20 (03)
[AF]</span><br>
<br>
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! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Paul</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Derby</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">England</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="gd"><span><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span></span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "News" 2010.03.20 (05) [AF-EN]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Mark wrote:<br>
<br>
>From: Mark Dreyer <<a href="mailto:mrdreyer@lantic.net" target="_blank">mrdreyer@lantic.net</a>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.03.20 (02) [EN]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">>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?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
>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!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I think forgetting about the
name and getting on with it is exactly what ShetlandForWirds is doing. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
>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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">>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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">>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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
>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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This is exactly what my
former website tried to do. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br>
>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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Well, there aren't any other
Shetlanders on Lowlands-L, so I would be speaking to nobody!<br>
<br>
John M. Tait.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="gd"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Andy Eagle</span></span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:andy@scots-online.org">andy@scots-online.org</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "Language varieties"</span><br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 <a href="http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/" target="_blank">http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/</a>).
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' (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/manualofmodernsc00granuoft" target="_blank">http://www.archive.org/details/manualofmodernsc00granuoft</a>).
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.<br>
<br>
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."<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Learning and Teaching Scotland (<a href="http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/specialfocus/scots/index.asp" target="_blank">http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/specialfocus/scots/index.asp</a>)
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 (<a href="http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/knowledgeoflanguage/scots/" target="_blank">http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/knowledgeoflanguage/scots/</a>)
, 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').<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
The organisations Itchy Coo (<a href="http://www.itchy-coo.com/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.itchy-coo.com/index.html</a>) who publish books
in Scots for children generally present themsleves in SE, as is the information
on the backs of books in Scots (<a href="http://www.itchy-coo.com/resources/Precious+and+Puggies+cover.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.itchy-coo.com/resources/Precious+and+Puggies+cover.jpg</a>).<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
Andy</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
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