Lowland Scots

[Salikoko S. Mufwene]

At 06:08 PM 3/6/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>This sounds suspiciously like the supposed Appalachian / Shakespearean
>nexus. Since this friend knows even less than I do, does anyone have any
>insight on his observation?

    Your observation is undoubtedly partly right, but there is a chance
that Scots English has retained a subset of features from the time English
was first taken to Scotland which other English varieties have dispensed
with. That would make it possible for somebody to find similarities between
features of Chaucerian English and Scots English. Unfortunately in almost
all such comparisons the conclusions have been broader than warranted by
the relevant data.

Sali.


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Salikoko S. Mufwene                    s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
Distinguished Service Professor
University of Chicago                    773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene
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