LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 29.AUG.2000 (03) [S]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Standardization"

> From: "Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk>
> Subject: LL-L: "Standardization" LOWLANDS-L, 28.AUG.2000 (06) [S]
>
> The maist gripe A hae wud be the spellin 'duin'. A can see hou ye'd
be
> fur spellan it that wey gif ye'r fur a *phonological* spellin, bot
hit
> haes nae gremmatical grunds ava. The base form o the verb wud be
> 'dae', sae it maks mair sense juist pittan 'daen' fur the past forms.
> Else ye'r juist makan the haill thing mair complicate (or
> complicatet!) fae the gremmatical side.

Ye'r richt in pyntin oot that the'r a contradiction atween the spellins
"dae" an "duin", houanever, ye come the the wrang conclusion - it's no
"duin" that's ill-spelled, it's "dae"!

Ti see hou this is, consider thisablo walin fae the 1929 beuk "Mains
and Hilly", a series o dialogues that ettles ti shaw a preceese
transciption o the the Aiberdeenshire dialeck:

Mains.- Lat 's be thankfu' we wan aff sae easy, an' 'at the storm's
sattlet as quick 's it's deen. It'll tak' a lang time to weer awa', tho', i'
this short day. Hilly.- It wull dee 't. But gin 't keep aye fresh, an' eence
the watter begin ti rin aneth, ye wid winner foo seen it sinks.

As ye can see, dae/duin is soondit dee/deen in the Aiberdeenshire
dialeck. As ye micht ken (an if no, A'm shuir Andy's wabsteed gies the ful
explanation), this, alang wi ither considerations that can be fand, for
example, in the phonetic transcriptions in the CSD, means no juist that
"duin" is the richt wey ti spell the wird, but that "dae" should in
fack be spelled "dui"! Juist like in Central dialecks /ui/ is soondit [e:]
afore a /r/ (puir, fluir &c), sae /ui/ at the end o a wird should be soondit
[e:]. Anither guid example o this is shae/shuin, that should in fack be
shui/shuin.

Houanever, what's oor chances o cannin get sic spellins accepted? But
if we canna gar folk uise the richt spellins (duin > dui), we can at laest we
can try an stop them fae jaupin the guid spellins wi the bad (dae > *daen).
Come back inti the fauld, Ian, afore it's ower late!!

(On a different pynt aathegither, notice the interestin "...gin 't keep
aye fresh, an' eence the watter begin ti rin aneth..." - Scots conditional
tense)

> Thai'r twathree things A'm no sae sicar aboot, fur thai wud hae the
ae
> tungin (pronunciation) in Ulster. Wud it be, fur ensample, 'hairt' or
> 'hert' - A'm thinkan thai'r a differ, in some baeleids, atween the
> baith o them. An the wurd 'gremmar' at kythes abuin - is hit richtlie
> 'gremmar' or 'grammar'. Wud the spellin 'grammar' no show juist sae
> weel at the root vowel is /E/?

This, like a lot o ither things, disna ("disna" - richt or wrang? :)
faa sae aesy inti place as the diaphonemic /ui/. This is nar what me an Andy's
been sayin lately, an that A think John Magnus haes said an aa whiles, that
this isna reglar eneuch atween the dialecks an mibbie we juist hae ti dree a
bit variation atween writers here. The hairt/hert differ is described on
Andy's wabsteed an aa.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
A dinna dout him, for he says that he
On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
                          - C.W.Wade,
                    'The Adventures o McNab'

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