LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 13.AUG.2000 (10) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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  L O W L A N D S - L * 13.AUG.2000 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Standardization"

I've just returned home after two weeks and have been reading through  the
thread on "Standardization". I was very interested in Henry's  suggestion
of "soft" standardisation and Ron's example of this involving Nynorsk. The
case of Nynorsk is interesting because it shows that a _permanent_
standard  can be established which need not necessarily be _inflexible_. It
seems to  me that this is just what we need in Scots to solve the dual
problem we  have of on the one hand everybody not agreeing on spellings
because of  dialectical differences, and on the other hand avoiding a
"rolling standard", ie  one where an interim standard is established with
temporary compromises,  which reassures nobody.

It has been slowly dawning on me over the past few months as I've been
pondering how to standardise the texts on ScotsteXt, that the first  step
in educating people in a standard is not to specify how things _should_ be
spelled, but to specify how they _shouldn't_ be spelled, and why.

For example, I recently bought a map of Scotland in the Scots language
which turned out to have many spellings that I could only mark down as
incorrect. For instance, the Muirfit Hills was spelled "Mairfuit Hulls". In
a  standard (even soft standard) Scots, this can only be said to be
incorrect.  "Mair" favours certain dialects unnecessarily, since "muir"
could be written  and its pronunciation understood even in the dialects
that "mair" favours. "Fuit" isn't said anywhere in Scotland, this is just a
nonsensical  analogy with good/guid which doesn't apply to foot/fit. With
"hulls" a single dialect spelling has been favoured only in order to be
different from English. The end result is a spelling which makes no sense
in _any_  dialect (whereas "Muirfit Hills" can be read correctly in all
major dialects).

In a soft standard, my suggested spelling "Muirfit Hills" could be read
correctly by anybody, and NE writers could write "Muirfit Hulls" if  they
really did feel uncomfortable with "hills" and the rest of us could  still
read it and accept that that was just the writer's dialect. However,  _no_
native speaker could feel comfortable with "Mairfuit Hulls" - it's  Central
+ nonsense + NorthEast dialects. So even in a "soft" standard there are
right and wrong ways to spell things, and we really need some sort of
guidlines to say what _not_ to write, and enough of the "why" for the
writer to understand how to write a nationally-accessible Scots with no
more of  his own dialect than necessary.

I think guidelines prohibiting incorrect spellings like this would be  far
more effective in giving everybody confidence in producing correct  Scots
than producing some sort of absolute standard that practically  everybody
would feel uncomfortable with. We wouldn't get all Scots speakers  writing
exactly the same, but we could get all Scots speakers writing to a
standard that all other Scots speakers would feel comfortable reading, to
the  extent that they could even read out loud in their own accent, even
though the dialect might have unfamiliar vocabulary and constructions.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
  Things in this subloonary warld bein far frae
  perfeck, 'No that bad' is the maist that mortal
  man can venture tae say while here ablo.
             - Catherine P. Slater, 'Marget Pow'

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