Scots language

“ Not so the Scots:—they are everywhere recommending the antiquity of their own country to public notice, vindicating its history, and setting off its poetry, and, by dint of constant attention to their grand national concern, have prevailed so far, as to have the broken jargon they speak to be considered as the most proper language for our pastoral poetry. Our most polite ladies affect to lisp out Scottish airs ”

“ The schools of learning, for which the Scots became famous a few generations after his death, learning which contrasts with his own illiterateness, owe their rise to the contact with Roman ideas and the acquaintance with Roman literature which his labours, more than anything else, lifted within the horizon of Ireland. It was not only the religion, but also the language which was attached to it, that inaugurated a new period of culture for the island, and opened a wider outlook on the universe. ”

“ He says—‘The manners and customs of the Scots vary with the diversity of their speech, for two languages are spoken amongst them, the Scottish and the Teutonic, the latter of which is the language of those who occupy the seaboard and plains, while the race of Scottish speech inhabits the highlands and outlying islands. The people of the coast are of domestic and civilised habits, trusty, patient, and urbane, decent in their attire, affable and peaceful, devout in divine worship, yet always prone to resist a wrong at the hands of their enemies. ”

“ III Not Burns—Dunbar! That is the phrase which sums up the significant tendency which is belatedly manifesting itself in Scots poetry to-day. At first it may seem absurd to try to recover at this time of day the literary potentialities of a language which has long ago disintegrated into dialects. These dialects even at their richest afford only a very restricted literary medium, capable of little more than kailyard usages, but quite incapable of addressing the full range of literary purpose. They are the disjecta membra of a language ”

“ I know not whether it be not peculiar to the Scots to have attained the liberal, without the manual arts, to have excelled in ornamental knowledge, and to have wanted not only the elegancies, but the conveniences of common life. Literature soon after its revival found its way to Scotland, and from the middle of the sixteenth century, almost to the middle of the seventeenth, the politer studies were very diligently pursued. The Latin poetry of Deliciæ Poëtarum Scotorum would have done honour to any nation, at least till the publication of May's Supplement the English had very little to oppose. ”

“ What Scotsmen, as Scotsmen, should ever prize most is bound up inseparably with the native language. Ours is a matured country, and the stirring scenes of her history on which the mind of the individual delights to dwell, are so frequently enshrined in spirited ballad and song, couched in the pithy Scottish vernacular, that, to suppose these latter dead—they are not translatable into English—is to suppose the best part of Scottish history dead and buried beyond the hope of resurrection. For its own sake alone the Scottish tongue is eminently deserving of regard—of cultivation and preservation. ”

“ V. J. PREFACE There are few poets to-day who write in the Scots vernacular, and the modesty of the supply is perhaps determined by the slenderness of the demand, for pure Scots is a tongue which in the changes of the age is not widely understood, even in Scotland. The various accents remain, but the old words tend to be forgotten, and we may be in sight of the time when that noble speech shall be degraded to a northern dialect of English. ”

“ There were others who were far more successful.{63} “The conversation of the Scots,” wrote Johnson, “grows every day less unpleasing to the English; their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become in half a century provincial and rustic, even to themselves. The great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the English phrase, and the English pronunciation; and in splendid companies Scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an old lady.” ”

“ In the best Scottish houses, even the king’s palaces, the windows are not glazed throughout, but the upper part only, the lower have two wooden shuts or folds to open at pleasure and admit the fresh air. The Scots cannot endure to hear their country or countrymen spoken against. They have neither good bread, cheese, or drink. They cannot make them, nor will they learn. ”

“ You will find that the Scotch use many words which must have come originally from the French, though most of them have been changed so much that the real French words wouldn't know them for cousins even.
In the old days there was a strong friendship between Scotland and France. One of the early French kings, Louis XI., had a body-guard of Scottish archers; for the Scotch soldiery have always been famous for their bravery. Mary, Queen of Scots, was partly French herself, and was the wife of a French king, François II., as well as Queen of Scotland. ”

“ Just as among the Scots we find two distinct tongues, so we likewise find two different [4] ways of life and conduct. For some are born in the forests and mountains of the north, and these we call men of the Highland, but the others men of the Lowland. By foreigners the former are called Wild Scots, the latter householding Scots. The Irish tongue is in use among the former, the English tongue among the latter. ”

“ But, as associated ideas arise only where the connection is either in itself necessary, or the relation is so intimate, the two ideas are seldom found disunited; so of late years, that disunion has taken place in a twofold manner; for the language, even of the common people of Scotland, is gradually refining, and coming nearer to the English standard; and it has fortunately happened, that the Scotish dialect has lately been employed in compositions of transcendant merit, which have not only exhibited the finest strokes of the pathetic, but have attained even to a high pitch of the sublime. ”

“ If, then, it was not by a displacement of race, but through the subtle influences of religion, feudalism, and commerce that the Scottish Lowlands came to be English in speech and in civilization, if the farmers of Fife and some, at least, of the burghers of Dundee or of Aberdeen were really Scots who had been subjected to English influences, we should expect to find no strong racial feeling in mediæval Scotland. ”

“ How far different the value of the Scots poems is, four generations have on the whole securely agreed. The moral discomfort of Principal Shairp, the academic distaste of Mr. Matthew Arnold for a world of "Scotch wit, Scotch religion, and Scotch drink," and the purely indolent and ignorant reluctance of others to grapple with Scottish dialect, need not trouble the catholic critic much. The two first may be of some use as cautions and drags; the third may be thrown aside at once. Scots, though a dialect, is not a patois; it has a great and continuous literature ”

“ Take the single kingdom of Scotland alone. Englishmen are carelessly wont to suppose there is such a thing as a Scotch temperament. Scotchmen know better. Even if we omit from the reckoning such remoter and more doubtful elements as Black Celts, and so forth, we may say, roughly speaking, that Scotland consists of six distinct nationalities—the English of the Lothians, the Welsh of Strathclyde, the Irish Scots of Argyllshire, the true Gaels of the Highlands, the Picts of the east coast, and the Scandinavians of Orkney, Caithness, and Sutherland. ”

“ The influences which went to fashion and to disintegrate the speech of the North are very clearly and systematically traced in Dr. J. A. H. Murray’s introduction to his Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, London, 1873.
[4] Dr. Murray in a note (p. 71) upon the dialect of Scottish poets of the modern period remarks, “‘Scots wha hae’ is fancy Scotch—that is, it is merely the English ‘Scots who have,’ spelled as Scotch. Barbour would have written ‘Scottis at hes’ ”

“ The passion of the Scots, from whatever race derived, for poetry and music, developed itself in the earliest stages of their history. They possessed a wild imagination, a dark and gloomy mythology; they peopled the caves, the woods, the rivers, and the mountains, with spirits, elves, giants, and dragons; and are we to wonder that the Scots, a nation in whose veins the blood of all those remote races is unquestionably mingled, should, at a very remote period, have evinced an enthusiastic admiration for song and poetry ”

“ They have characteristics in common; for rugged grandeur is as truly a feature of the Scottish language as it is the dominant feature of Scottish scenery. True, its various dialects are somewhat tantalising. The Forfar man is vividly identified by his “foo’s” and his “fa’s,” and his “fat’s” and his “fans”; and the Renfrewshire man by his “weans,” his “wee weans,” and his “yin pound yin and yinpence,” etc. Taking a simple phrase as an example— (Anglice) :—“The spoon is on the loom.” The Aberdonian will tell you that “The speen’s on the leem.” ”

“ The brief and very partial presence of a Scandinavian race in Scotland is still traceable in its dialects and topographical nomenclature; but no such indications within the limits of the ancient Dalriada, or in the Erse as contrasted with the British dialects of the Celtic language, betray indications of the Irish Scoti having interfused any elements of a foreign tongue into the ancient language of the Scottish Gael. ”

“ It would be truer to say that it is Braid Scots—not Scots—with which they are concerned. Their method is that of exact dialectical demarcation—they do not believe in mixing dialects—they contemplate no synthesis. What alienates the young creative writers, conscious of the inadequacy of their purpose alike of English and of what has still any currency as Scots, from the Vernacular Circle people is precisely that the latter have anything but a literary purpose. ”

“ In the course of time and events the dynasty of the Argyll Scoti from Ireland gave its name to Scotland, while the English element gave its language to the Lowlands; it was adopted by the Celtic kings of the whole country and became dominant, while the Celtic speech withdrew into the hills of the north and northwest.
The nation was thus evolved out of alien and hostile elements, Irish, Pictish, Gaelic, Cymric, English, and on the northern and western shores, Scandinavian. ”

“ The higher branches of education have always been thoroughly taught in the schools throughout the shire, and pupils have long been in the habit of going directly from the schools to the university.
The native Scots are long-headed, shrewd, careful, canny, active, persistent, but reserved and blunt, and without demonstrative enthusiasm. They have a physiognomy distinct from the rest of the Scottish people, and have a quick, sharp, rather angry accent. ”

“ Sir Robert winna let me correc' your language."
In respect of language, no doubt, a very important change has taken place in Scotland during the last seventy years, and which, I believe, influences, in a greater degree than many persons would imagine, the turn of thought and general modes and aspects of society. In losing the old racy Scottish tongue, it seems as if much originality of character was lost. ”

“ But a finer education than what is necessary for trade, hath been, in imitation of the French, the misfortune of this kingdom; but perhaps the union with England may open their eyes to their own interest.
The language of the Low-Countries of Scotland is the same with that which is spoken all over England; only an Englishman will understand a Scotchman better by his writing than speaking ”

“ Charles Murray, who in the South African veld writes Scots, not as an exercise, but as a living speech, and recaptures old moods and scenes with a freshness which is hardly possible for those who with their own eyes have watched the fading of the outlines. It is the rarest thing, this use of Scots as a living tongue, and perhaps only the exile can achieve it, for the Scot at home is apt to write it with an antiquarian zest, as one polishes Latin hexameters, or with the exaggerations which are permissible in what does not touch life too nearly. ”

“ Those Highlanders that can speak English, commonly speak it well, with few of the words, and little of the tone by which a Scotchman is distinguished. Their language seems to have been learned in the army or the navy, or by some communication with those who could give them good examples of accent and pronunciation. By their Lowland neighbours they would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race. ”

“ But the English toung, in fine, prevailed more in Scotland than the French did in England; for English became the language of all the south part of Scotland, the Irish (or Gaelic) having before that been the general language of the whole country, since remaining only in the north."—Verstegan's Restitution of Antiquities, A.D. 1605. ”

“ I can remember men and women in good society, who if they did not ordinarily speak pure Scots, at least habitually introduced369 Scots words and phrases, laying emphasis on them as telling expressions, for which they knew no English equivalents. ”

“ The interesting thing to notice is the remarkable similarity of Scotch and Irish folk-tales. The continuity of language and culture between these two divisions of Gaeldom has clearly brought about this identity of their folk-tales. As will be seen from the following notes, the tales found in Scotland can almost invariably be paralleled by those found in Ireland, and vice versa. This result is a striking confirmation of the general truth that folk-lores of different countries resemble one another in proportion to their contiguity and to the continuity of language and culture between them. ”