LL-L "How do you say ...?" 2002.04.21 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "How do you say ...?" 2002.04.19 (06) [E]

Sylvain wrote:

>I also wish to recall John M. Tait words. He typed ...
>
>"Perhaps the phrase 'Watter o Oof' doesn't sound Scots, not only because
>of the word _oof_ (after all, obsolete words might occur in place
>names), but because its construction doesn't look like a natural Scots
>placename. It looks, in fact, like a word-for-word translation of the
>original"
>
>...   that recalls me the italian aphorism "Traduttore, traditore".

Absolutely. Not that I believe that translation is impossible - up to a
point, that is. But it is a particular problem in Scots, where 'Scots'
writing is very often heavily influenced by the English norms that all
Scots have been educated in - further exacerbated by the fact that many
people who write Scots do not speak it, and thus can reproduce the Scots
vocabulary and word-forms, but often without any native syntax or idiom.
Sir James Murray, in his classic study of border Scots, described such
Scots writing as 'English in marquerade.'

John M. Tait.

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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "How do you say ...?" 2002.04.19 (01) [E]

Sandy wrote:
>
>There may be a reason for this - there's a local legend
>in my area which says that the last wolf in Scotland was
>killed in a house on the edge of the forest above my
>village. Apparently it smelled cooking and went into the
>kitchen, where the woman hit it over the head with a frying
>pan and killed it. Maybe not true, but the retelling of the
>tale might have preserved the word.

Some enterprising journalist type could probably compile quite a large
volume of all the stories in Scotland about where, when, how, and by
whom, the last wolf was killed!
>
>However, "wolf" is still by far the most common way to say
>the word in the area - and yet on the other hand, the /l/
>is usually labialised, so the actual pronunciation is
>/wuof/ or /wu:Of/ or similar. It just goes to show once
>again that spoken language is much less predictable than
>the written forms would have us belief.

Is this the general pronunciation of /l/ which I think of as
characteristic of certain Central accents? Do you know of any rules for
this?
>
>> The fact remains that you don't often have to speak or write about
>> wolves in Scots!
>
>One thing I can say is that in our Scots the plural is
>always "wolfs", never "wolves"!

Of course - so it would be - like 'leafs', etc.

John M. Tait.

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