LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.11.02 (07) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

Sorry this went out under the wrong heading. RFH
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 L O W L A N D S - L * 02.NOV.2002 (07) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic
               V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: ntl <shoogly at ntlworld.com>
Subject: Scots residue in other countries of Scots immigration

Seein as monie fowk here whae'll be gettin this message will nae be haein
Scots, A'll pit this in the Inglis leid.

As I know not many people who will get this message will speak Scots, I'll
put it in English.

I know post pre independence  Norway, when trying to "reconstruct" a more
original form of Norwegian from the Danishied version - researchers went to
the states to find Norwegian communities there who had preserved a more
"pure" form of Norwegian.  I wondered if anything similar had happened
amongst the Scots emigrant communities ( i.e original forms of the language
were preserved - before the encroachment of English). Of course one of the
main problems I can envisage is the fact the Scots and English are so
closely related that it would be so easy for any individual Scots forms to
be subsumed into the English forms abroad - due to the "prestige" value of
English, when the two are brought into close contact over an identical
linguistic form of expression, it is the English that tends to always win
out.

I just wondered if anyone had any ideas on this - especially as we seem to
have so many people from the States - or Canada here.  I am also a Gaelic
speaker, and until about 10 -20 years ago it was thought that Gaelic had
died out in Canada - to find out that it had actually survived -just - and
now has an active community supporting it.  I was curious if we were able to
find any vestiges of the Scots language out there.  This is an area as far
as I know has never been academically investigated - unlike the Gaelic
example.

Chris Ferguson

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Hi, Chris, and welcome to Lowlands-L!  It's great to have another speaker of
both Gaelic and Scots among us.

Perhaps we should not discount Australia and New Zealand in this regard
either, given that both countries have very strong Scottish heritage.  South
Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Argentina are possible havens of older forms
of Scots too.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: I just thought I should get a word in for our antipodean members,
being antipodean  by choice myself and as the LL-L _baas_ have
bihemispherical obligations.  :)

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