February 9th, 2006

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Words
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Makkin Yer Voice Heard in the Scottish Pairlament

Karl writes with these amusing, peculiar pages from the Scottish Parliament’s site. They purport to be in ‘Scots’, a kind of patois (oh, linguists, go easy on me), which is not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic:

We want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as can is able tae find oot aboot whit the Scottish Pairlament dis and whit wey it warks. We hae producit information anent the Pairlament in a reenge o different leids tae help ye tae find oot mair.

Is this an official state dialect? If it’s not Scots, it’s crap?

Comments: 5 Responses so far

Andrea
February 9th, 2006
10:02 am

I don’t know if it’s a state dialect, but my grandmother is fluent in it.

[Reply]

double-plus-ungood
February 9th, 2006
10:15 am

It’s a standard in-joke among the Scottish ( particularily among the Glaswegians (particularily those from the Gorbals ) ) to write phonetically, as it becomes near-incomprehensible. The Scottish newspapers often do it, and formerly populur comics like “Oor Willie” and “The Broons” have all their dialog using this form of writing.

There are a couple of web sites that translate to and from “Weegie”, as the Glaswegian dialect is sometimes known as, as well as English/Scottish dictionaries, mostly humerous in intent, at least to the Scottish.

And yes, I’m from Glasgow.

[Reply]

double-plus-ungood
February 9th, 2006
10:20 am

FYI, here’s one of those Scottish vernacular sites.

And in my comment above, that should have been “Oor Wullie”, not “Oor Willie.”

[Reply]

Rob
February 9th, 2006
1:57 pm

That site’s pretty funny but “Scots” is an actual old language, with literature written in it and so on. Few people speak it now of course but many of the words are used within every day speak in many parts of Scotland.

“Whit” for “what” is an obvious example. “Aye” for “Yes” is another, “Tae” for “to”, etc…

Can’t say they’ll be speaking it in Parliament any time soon though (shame as it can’t make any less sense than the usual guff spouted by politicians)

There’s even an entire wikipedia in it… http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

[Reply]

double-plus-ungood
February 10th, 2006
12:14 pm

Ooo, tha Wikipedia sa guid find, Robbie.

[Reply]

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