[Lowlands-l] "Alice’s Mishanters in e Land o Farlies" (Alice in Caithness Scots) published by Evertype

Tue May 26 13:19:02 UTC 2015

Evertype would like to announce the publication of Catherine Byrne's translation of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” into Caithness Scots, “Alice’s Mishanters in e Land o Farlies”. The book uses John Tenniel's classic illustrations. A page with links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk is available at http://www.evertype.com/books/alice-sco-caith.html . Bookstores can order copies at a discount from the publisher.

Introduction:

When Charles Lutwidge Dodgson set out one afternoon in July 1862 to invent a story about a girl disappearing down a rabbit hole, he could never have guessed that some 150 years later so many people would still be so entranced by the product of his imagination. 
Sunshine on the river, three little girls being rowed leisurely along and begging to hear a story, and the young clergyman at the oars turning to look over his shoulder at Alice at the helm, and saying: “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank…”

At least that is the conventional picture of the genesis of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the picture conveyed by the poem that opens the book. It may have taken place just like that—memories of the day differ slightly1—and if it did not it hardly matters. It is the outcome that is important, that Alice begged Dodgson to write the story down and, in due course, he did and published the book in 1865 under his pen-name Lewis Carroll.

Biographies of Dodgson and critical analyses of the Alice books abound. The outline of his life, however, is fairly straightforward. Born in 1832 into a line of Anglican clergy in comfortable circumstances, he was educated at home until he was twelve, then boarded at Richmond and later at Rugby schools, and studied at Oxford where he graduated in 1854 with a first-class honours in mathematics. He remained at Christ Church College in Oxford, studying and teaching, until his death in 1898. Although ordained as a deacon in 1861, he never went on to become a priest, and he never married. 

His academic and literary output was prolific—some 25 works in all, half of them in his chosen field of mathematics—but none have survived the test of time in the way that the Alice books have, principally the two volumes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Both these and Dodgson’s life have been subjected to endless scrutiny, and questions still cloud around what the books mean and the true character of their author. 

Such is the charm and mystery of Dodgson’s storytelling that the books have been often adapted for the stage and film, and translated into many languages. In autumn 2015,  on the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first book, the Grolier Club in New York will hold an exhibition of translations to coincide with the conference “Alice 150: Celebrating Wonderland” organized by the Lewis Carroll Society of North America at New York University. 

To tackle a translation of the first book into the Caithness dialect of Scots to be part of this great project was a challenge. Catherine Byrne met it by imagining how her mother, reading the book aloud, would have sounded—“hearing my mother’s voice in my head”, as she put it in an e-mail to this writer. The result is engaging and amusing, and those familiar with the Caithness accent will recognize the achievement at once. 

This writer has outlined the history and the main characteristics of the dialect in the essay written for Jon Lindseth’s accompanying volume on translations. Suffice it to say here that Caithness dialect is a form of Scots but has some unique features that reflect the cultural and political geography of the north of Scotland in the Middle Ages when the county was a frontier zone, the area where Norse and Gaelic societies met.This conjunction has left its mark on place-names and on the common speech of the inhabitants.  

The dialect has not fared well in the last century, a fate shared with some regional variations of other languages. The causes of the decline are easy to identify: increasing movement of people and the resulting dilution of the dialect-speaking core; the influences of mass media; and a lack of interest coupled with both unawareness of how unique the dialect is and a misguided sense of it being a sign of poor education and lack of status. 

In the case of Caithness, the relative neglect of the dialect as a topic for study and creativity has probably been enhanced by the fact that Caithness itself no longer exists as an independent local authority but has been incorporated into a much larger Highland Region. In contrast, the continuation of independent local government in Shetland, Orkney, and Aberdeenshire has had a beneficial effect on their own dialects.

Caithness dialect has nevertheless retained a place in the affections of the locals. A few years ago this writer attempted to produce an etymological dictionary of the dialect,2 and experiment with using it in poetry.3 

Only a few people have attempted seriously to use Caithness dialect in literature. John Horne (1861–1934), a Baptist pastor, was one notable writer whose poems are still popular today.4 Others were Donald Grant (1897– 1981) who wrote under the pen-name Castlegreen5 and Alexander Miller (1905–1945).6 This neglect has contributed to the feeling that the dialect has low status and is only appropriate in certain contexts.

Catherine Byrne’s rendering of Alice into the dialect is very welcome. We hope that readers will enjoy it. Dodgson loved wordplay and we think that he would have been intrigued to hear his work in a dialect and accent he almost certainly never encountered. Welcome to Alice’s Mishanters in e Land o Farlies.

James Miller
October 2014

_______________________________________________
Info mailing list
Info at alice-in-wonderland-books.com
http://alice-in-wonderland-books.com/mailman/listinfo/info_alice-in-wonderland-books.com