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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 November 2012 - Volume 01<br><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a>
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<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font><font><br></font></font>From: <span class="gI"><span name="Andy" class="gD">Andy</span> <span class="go"><a href="mailto:andy@scots-online.org">andy@scots-online.org</a></span></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gI">LL-L "Language varieties" 2012.11.19 (03) [EN]<br><br></span></span><div class="im"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Sandy wrote:<br><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
I haven't started reading this book yet, but would like to discuss the
idea of what a standard language is, especially with respect to the
current situation in Scots. Not that the >subject hasn't been done to
death in the past; but my ideas have changed since then, so it needs
doing to death again.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
The situation with Scots is that nobody agrees on how it should be
written. There are groups that agree vaguely, but even within these
groups, an agreement that would >produce a standard form of the
language isn't forthcoming. Indeed, it's very rare for a writer in Scots
to even agree with himself (women writers not excluded!), and the only
>way I can achieve self-consistency without an external standard is
by concordancing on a computer.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
I haven't actually explained what I would consider to be a standard form
of a language. Maybe I could give a few examples to start.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
Like Catalan, a standard form of the language would make it possible to
publish regular newspapers in the language that everyone's happy to
read.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
Like Finnish, it would be a form that people can write consistently even if nobody actually speaks it.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
Like English, any variations would be generally understood and not
significant enough to be worth worrying about (eg colour vs color: I
know some people moan about this, >but that's nationalism rather than
linguistics; there can't really be a rational basis for making a fuss
over a very limited number of insignificant differences that are agreed
on >throughout a wide publishing domain and recognisable outside that
domain).<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
With Scots, a lot of people, especially academics, think that Scots
shouldn't be written in anything but dialectical form, possibly with
some creatively fantastic forms thrown in.<br>
But there are also those who believe that Scots will never thrive unless
a standard form is laid down and accepted. Unfortunately, their actions
tend to contradict their >beliefs: they'll accept taking words they
don't know from dictionaries and learning to use them to strengthen the
language, but they draw the line at allowing words, or even >just
variant pronunciations, to creep into what they see as standard
language. Put briefly, they're happy to use new forms in their writing,
as long as it's only augmenting >their own dialect, not contradicting
it.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
I think there comes a point where if a language is to survive against
media onslaught and natural erosion, it's necessary to go fundamentalist
on the idea of a standard form >of the language, and for someone
(lexicographers? publishers? government? - whatever works) to say that
"you have to spell this word this way or you're not writing Scots,
>but a dialect of Scots".<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
But Scots writers and academics, even the ones who want a standard
language and imagine they're supporting the idea, seem much more
attached to their own dialects, >sometimes only certain aspects of
their own dialects, than to any concrete idea of a standard language
where they'd have to spell the way they're told. Is it worth dropping
all >your own notions about how Scots should be written, in order to
ensure a future for Scots? Few seem to think so!<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
In the Victorian revival of Scots, it was normal for Doric writers to
write "wha" rather than "fa", and "no" rather than "nae". They went
along with the accepted practice in other >dialects. This would be
less likely now, and the opposite idea, of basing standard Scots on
Doric pronunciation, would seem almost impossible to implement.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
To me, this means that Scots, whether you think of it as a language or a
set of dialects, will eventually die out. For a language to reach full
maturity, its speakers have to stop >thinking of it as their baby.
Especially if, as with Scots speakers, that means choking it to death
rather than letting it play with the horrible children across the
street.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
It seems ever more likely that Scotland will gain independence in the
next few years. I don't think this means anything in terms of the
survival of the language, although it >might put standardisation
higher on the political agenda, which could be helpful. Nationalists
tend to use the language as a political tool, however, some even making
out >that they speak it even when it's obvious that they don't. There
seems no reason to believe they'd continue the charade once they'd
achieved their political ends.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
I think that the most likely scenario is that Scots will go the way of
Cornish. Once nobody speaks it any more, there will be a generation who
want it back and are willing to >learn it, but aren't emotionally
attached to specific dialects. I'm thinking Scots would then fare even
better than Cornish, considering the large amount of material the
>neoScots would have to work with, including a large corpus of
literature and several dictionaries, two of them very large and
scholastic.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
Of course, the Scots they devise as a standard for themselves wouldn't
be like the Scots we know, and would be pooh-poohed (or rather
"[a:xt]-ed") away by Scots speakers of >the present time, but then so
would any standard anybody might create for us now.<br></span>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
Perhaps start by defining the principles behind the orthography.<br><br>
Should the orthography be phonetic, phonemic, morphemic, syllabic, etymological etc. or a combination of some or all of those?</span>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br><br>
What graphemes or logographs are to be used? On what basis should they be chosen?</span>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br><br>
Should the orthography mirror an idealised standard spoken form, or an
extant spoken form declared the de facto standard, or should the
orthography be capable of representing various dialect realisations?</span>
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br><br>
Andy Eagle</span>
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