LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.02.21 (07) [EN]

Mon Feb 22 02:21:56 UTC 2010

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L O W L A N D S - L - 21 February 2010 - Volume 07
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From: Tom Mc Rae <thomas.mcrae at bigpond.com>
Subject: LL-Linguistics

Yet another Glasgwegian decrying Edinburgh's cultured population.

Ur Ye awright Pals

Kevin McKenna

Sunday February 21 2010

The Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/21/kevin-mckenna-scotland-language

In a Glasgow tavern of an afternoon and evening there are two topics always
guaranteed to rattle the synapses after the third Bacardi chaser: to what
extent did the great European vowel shift of the late 14th century  [
http://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm" title="]affect the
Scots language? And if Johnny Rep [
http://www.world-football-legends.co.uk/rep.php" title="] hadn't scored for
Holland immediately after Archie Gemmill's Cordoba waltz in 1978  [
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1axsnMRbbo" title="]could we have scored a
fourth and qualified?

But it's that old chestnut, the vowel shift, which most often divides
opinion and never more so than last week. For it was then that the world's
first-ever translator of the Glaswegian dialect started his new job for an
international language agency [
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Ah39m-a-real--master.6074272.jp"
title="]. The new Glaswegianator wasted little time touring bingo halls,
taxi ranks and factory floors for, though he possesses a formidable
knowledge of the west of Scotland dialect, there can be no room for
complacency. This is a language that is in a constant state of
metamorphosis.

In the interests of journalistic ethics I should declare an interest here. I
was one of the many who applied for this position and didn't get an
interview. Either my CV was lost in the post or they decided that my seven
years working in Edinburgh must have contaminated my pure Glaswegianish to
an irreparable degree. If so, then I have been harshly treated. For in those
years that I toiled in Lothian's capital I found myself almost compelled to
alter my registers of speech quite radically. Instead of shortening my
vowels and curbing my glottal instincts to fit in with fey Morningside, I
discovered that my accent was becoming coarser rather than softer.

As one of my Edinburgh friends put it: "It's as if you are paranoid about
turning into one of us, Ken." I was too polite to state the bleedin'
obvious. That so long as I kept buying rounds of drinks in the pub there was
little danger of that actually occurring.

Thus I peppered my conversation with exaggerated phraseology such as:
"Howzit gaun?"; "Geeza brek"; and "Nae bother, big man." Even when I was
addressing a lady. Often this could lead to distressing scenes. There were
references to chinas and banjos even when the chat was not of country and
western music or matters of the Orient.

When I look back upon this period of my life I must have sounded like Billy
Connolly [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0175262/" title="] on temazepam. I was
becoming a professional Glaswegian and self-appointed cultural ambassador
for my great city. It wiznae real, so it wiznae. See what I mean? I found
myself nightly studying the canon and oeuvre of Bud Neill, [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud_Neill" title="] the great Glasgow humorist
and autodidact. Neil's immortal appreciation of fiery-haired maidens ? "Ah
love rid herr. Rid herr's rerr" ? I would intone to myself until sleep's
silvery wraiths enfolded me and gave me release.

Yet curiously, on my return to the city of my birth, my speech patterns
returned to normal and now there may only be fleeting references to "pure
dynamite, as a matterafact" and "jist gonnae no".

Obviously, everyone knows that the Great Vowel Shift irrevocably transformed
the English language, forming a cultural and linguistic bridge between
Middle English and Modern English. And that it was probably occasioned by a
mass exodus of northerners to the south-east of England following the Black
Death. Yet I believe that the Scottish government ought to encourage
research into what some Sauchiehall Street linguists are already calling The
Great Glaswegian Glottal Stop Matrix.

In particular, they may wish to focus on how this waspish patois has become
a badge of identity for those of us born in the shadow of the Clyde. And how
it has beautifully mutated into Punjabi, Sino, Hispanic and Italo
Glaswegianish. Thus making this city the most inclusive and diverse in
Europe. By the way?

Indeed, each of Scotland's main dialects are dynamic, ever-changing
organisms of beguiling beauty. I am always mesmerised by the way a sentence,
uttered by a citizen of Leith, wanders desultorily through peaks and troughs
before seemingly always ending with a question mark. Or how Aberdeen taxi
drivers, once they have established you are from the west, lapse gently into
a wondrous tour of the Doric that is as inscrutable and precious as the
cadences of Kathmandu mountain goatherds.

And how will I ever forget one night in Turin with a company of Dundonian
football fans who were sparkled with Special Brew and whose verbal cantrips
were taking vowels to places none had ever previously visited?

If you have any questions about this email, please contact the
guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp at guardian.co.uk.

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010

Registered in England and Wales No. 908396

Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG

Best Regards
Tom Mc Rae
Brisbane Australia
An honest man's the noblest work of God (Robert Burns)

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