Thursday, 05 May 2011 00:10

4 Comments

by Reid Wyllie

The Scots language has been variously, and often disparagingly or in ignorance, referred to as a regional dialect, as patois or, as a family friend said to me the other day when we were discussing the subject, “Och, it’s jist Inglish bit wi a Scoattish accent.”

“Awa an bile yer heid, wumman.” I replied, “If Rabbie Burns kent there wis onybdy in Ayrshur that thocht whit they wir bletherin wis Inglish he’d be birlin in the caul, caul grun.  Noo, Ah’m awa ben the hoose, fur Ah’m baith scunnert and wabbit fae listenin tae yer brattle.”

Saturday, 30 April 2011 02:00

1 Comments

bi Bob Fairnie

Hou aften hiv oo heard the cry gaun oot that Scots isnae a real leid in it’s ain richt but is juist a local byleid o English?  Weel, so is English!  Whan the Angles an the Saxons arrived in sooth-east England, they baith spake a diffrent byleid o an auld Germanic leid that they cried aither Inglis or Englisc.  The Angles spreidit aw the wey up the east coast tae the Firth o Forth takin thair Inglis wi thaim but the Saxons steyed in the sooth east o England an spreidit alang the sooth towarts the Welsh mairches an the wast kintrae.  Ower the centuries, as baith byleids growed up intae leids o thair ain, they baith chynged but it wad seem that English wis the yin that chynged the maist.