XPost: soc.culture.welsh, soc.culture.cornish, soc.culture.irish   
   XPost: soc.culture.scottish   
   From: smaill@SPAMinf.ed.ac.uk   
      
   Féachadóir  writes:   
      
   > Scríobh "Westprog" :   
   >>   
   >>"Féachadóir"  wrote in message   
   >>news:2ev5c3lea9fljq4rart9ajsb70qk3fhgsk@4ax.com...   
   >>> Scríobh Alan Smaill :   
   >>> >"Chess One"  writes:   
   >>> >   
   >>> >> I had just wondered what you meant by your list, Bob. Obviously lowland   
   >>> >> scots would have to speak something, and I wondered what your emphasis   
   >>was?   
   >>> >> Certainly 'most highlanders don't speak a form of lowland scots   
   >>[dialect]'   
   >>> >> and most lowland scots don't speak Gaellic. Even 'standard' English is   
   >>a   
   >>> >> [invented] dialect, courtesy the BBC.   
   >>> >>   
   >>> >> I doubt lowland scots to be any more difficult to ken than Cornish   
   >>accented   
   >>> >> English.   
   >>   
   >>> >The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language will   
   >>> >disagree with you on that, FWIW.   
   >>   
   >>> I would expect it depends on the listener.   
   >>   
   >>I think the idea that there are two separate things, one of which is the   
   >>language "Lowland Scots", and the other English spoken with an accent,   
   >>doesn't really bear close examination. There's a spectrum. There are plenty   
   >>of sub-dialects as well.   
   >   
   > Usenetters rush in, where linguists fear to tread.   
   >   
   > Defining the difference between language and dialect is notoriously   
   > difficult.   
      
   Indeed.   
      
   For the curious, here's what is said in the CEEL:   
      
   " The identity of English in Scotland has become much more than   
     a distinctive regional accent and the occasional habitual feature   
     of grammar and vocabulary.  It reflects an institutionalized social   
     structure, at its most noticeable in the realms of law, local government,   
      religion and education, and raises problems of intelligibility   
     that have no parallel elsewhere in Britain.  However, despite   
     these national underpinnings, and the extensive language loyalty,   
     Scots so far has not been able to make inroads into the use of Standard   
     English as the language of power and public prestige, and it has no   
     official existence. Outside certain specialized publications, its public   
     use tends to be restricted to literature and folklore, to a few programmes   
     on radio and television about local issues, and to jocular contexts, such   
     as cartoons and comic strips.  At the same time there have been major   
     publications, such as the translation of the New Testament into Scots.   
     The situation, in short, is complex and unclear.  However, even those   
     scholars who debated whether to call Scots a language or a dialect end up   
     by recognizing its special status -- for they are faced with no such   
     dilemma in considering the other regional varieties of English in Britain. "   
      
   > --   
   > 'Donegal:  Up Here It's Different'   
   > © Féachadóir   
      
   --   
   Alan Smaill   
      
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