LL-L: "Language policies" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 18.MAY.1999 (02)

[RFH]

 ==========================================================================
 L O W L A N D S - L * 18.MAY.1999 (02) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
 Posting Address: <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
 Web Site: <http://www.geocities.com/~sassisch/rhahn/lowlands/>
 Users Manual: <http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html>
 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachian, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian,
 L=Limburgish, LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic
 ==========================================================================
 You have received this because your account has been subscribed upon
 request. To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l"
 as message text from the same account to
 <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or sign off at
 <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
 ==========================================================================

From: "Sandy Fleming" <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Language policies

Ron wrote:

I can see that Scots is in a rather similar situation vis-à-vis English.  It
is also used in what amounts to two countries (i.e., Scotland and
Ulster/Northernb Ireland), and then there are questions regarding the Shetlandic
varieties.
It is people's natural inclination to follow the English writing tradition
despite the inconsistencies it creates, just because they have grown up with
this
system.

It seems to me that in both cases the thinking mode is "We want our language
to be independent, but not *that* independent."  In other words, they want
their cake and eat it too.

>>> My reply:

In the case of Scots I think it might be going too far to call the
traditional spellings "the English writing tradition". Scots has always had
a continuous written tradition of its own, even if it has generally followed
English on account of most Scots speakers being used to writing English.

But there are many centuries-old spellings in literary Scots (even modern
literary Scots) that aren't seen in literary English: the "ae" of "gae",
"ey" of "gey", "ui" of "guid" are obvious ones. Less obvious is the "-in"
ending. In English "-ing" is written even although many (most?) native
English speakers don't pronounce it this way: if the "g" isn't written, then
it's considered dialect writing in English, whereas in Scots the "-in"
spelling is considered normal even in literary registers.

Throughout the centuries there have been fads: sometimes moving spellings
closer to English has been favoured (for example, from the early 18th
century to the late 19th century efforts were made to write Scots in a way
more conformable to English by using apostrophes to indicate spots where
there would be letters in English) and sometimes moving further away (for
example in the 20th century - although sometimes I wonder if writers who try
to force Scots as far as possible from English are the ones who run into
real problems because they force it so far that traditional Scots
conventions start getting broken as well).

One thing that Scots and English do have in common is the "layered"
vocabulary of "Greek", "Romance", "Saxon" and "Recent Borrowings", which are
treated differently orthographically, although I put them in quotes because
the categories are treated loosely and the boundaries are vague and
judgemental (certainly not etymological!).

In spite of the ambition (perhaps hopeless) of many 20th century writers to
devise their own, improved, orthography, the traditionally evolved
orthography has remained strong, even giving rise to a fifth vocabulary
layer, due to the fact that much of the reading in Scots throughout the
century have been from comic books such as "Lobey Dosser", "Oor Wullie" and
"The Broons". They tended to have their own spelling standards with the
result that words learned from these sources were taken to be spelled by the
conventions of the comic-book publishers. For example, most Scots following
tradition would write "scour" [sku:r], yet would find it strange to see
"scoush" [skuS] written - in fact it might take them some seconds to realise
what was meant by "scoush". They expect to see it spelled "skoosh". The
reason - because although it's a common word in speech, in written form it's
mostly seen in comic books.

Another recognisable category in Scots that (by definition) doesn't exist in
English are those which Scots, due to having been taught to read and write
in English in school, prefer to spell as in English if the word happens to
be pronounced the same as its English cognate - though for some words which
have such cognates the preferred spelling is different from in English!

All this leads to the strange result that the orthography that native Scots
speakers find easiest to read is not only extremely complicated and
irregular - but _much_ more so than English!

Sandy Fleming
http:\\www.fleimin.demon.co.uk

==================================END======================================
* Please submit contributions to <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>.
* Contributions will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are to be
   sent to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> or performed at
   <http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html>.
* Please use only Plain Text format, not Rich Text (HTML) or any other type
   of format, in  your submissions
 ==========================================================================