Map of Scotland in Scots Guide and Gazetteer
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Map of Scotland in Scots Guide and gazetteer Scots Language Centre Centre for the Scots Leid order to make the pronunciation more apparent, or where a previous change Guide to had made a name seem less familiar. With significant additional research we have a map of also added a substantial number of names Scotland which did not appear on the MMA Map. What time period do the in Scots names come from? The names used are those attested What is the map based on? within the Modern Scots period, which In 1994 MMA Maps in Glasgow produced is defined by academics as the dialects The Scots Map and Guide/Cairte in spoken from 1700 to the present day, the Scots Leid with an introduction by but we have also had an eye to continuity Billy Kay. It was the first map in Scots with the period preceding 1700. It is produced in modern times and derived important that place-names in Scots are its information from the place-names either those known and used today in section of The Scottish National Dictionary, speech, or at least names that have been volume X, (Edinburgh, 1976) produced used within living memory and so may by The Scottish National Dictionary be easily recovered by speakers whose Association from research covering parents or grandparents used them. the previous 100 years. The map also included evidence from a large group of Is every Scots name included? individual Scots academics, supporters No. Constraints of space alone mean that and writers, such as the Scots Language is would be impossible to include every Society, who are listed in the guide. single name in Scots at parish level in a The Scots Language Centre in turn has readily accessible map of the country. referenced the MMA Map as a general We have endeavoured to include all the guide for our newly-produced map, but main cities, towns, many villages, and with certain differences. Occasionally some some places of historic significance. of the spellings have been readjusted in Why are two names given for some places? It is important that where regional differences exist they are acknowledged and highlighted. This means that a particular town or region may have a place-name that is different from the form generally used by other regions. In other words, there may be two versions of a place-name existing alongside each other. Where this is the case we have highlighted two names on the map such as, for example, Arbroad and Arbroath, Embra and Edinburrae, Lerook and Lerrick or Montrose and Munross. This makes users aware that they have a choice of using either the form particular to the place itself, or the form used by the rest of the dialects. Such a choice depends on whether or not someone wishes to identify closely with the traditions of a particular area. Please refer to our gazetteer for further guidance. Who will use place- names in Scots? Why are some place-names Place-names are already currently in the same as English? daily use in the various spoken dialects. Technically speaking English does not Individuals or groups in a given region have equivalent names for many places may wish to further use Scots names in in Scotland and has often adopted or speech or in writing – such a community borrowed Scots names for official use, such groups, schools and cultural organisations, as Dundee or Perth, but without altering and even newspaper columnists. In recent them. Over time the public may forget that years Scots has occasionally been the these names were ever borrowed and come medium for producing formal or semi- to think of them as English. In producing a official documents, such as voter guides map in Scots it is just as important to make for local and Scottish parliament elections, users aware that names such as Dundee and translators and writers may wish to and Perth are, in fact, already in Scots. include Scots versions of place-names in their texts. We hope that this map will assist and inform a greater use and Spellings awareness of our distinct place-names. Place-names have developed over a long period of time and are subject to spelling conventions of different ages. This means that there is no hard rule as to spelling and we have attempted to include both spellings that have become customary while also employing spellings that are readily understood. We hope users and readers will approach this aspect using the map as a general guide and it should not be regarded as precluding well-established conventions in regional writing traditions that dialect writers may wish to use. Scots Language Centre Centre for the Scots Leid scotslanguage.com investigated the origins and development Origins of Scots of the Scots language, defined the dialect place-names boundaries, and compiled a history which is divided into the following time periods: Place-names in Scots have developed over many hundreds of years. The territories that make up the modern country of Scotland Older Scots were formerly inhabited by several ethnic 1100 to 1700, which is subdivided into – groups who spoke their own languages. In Orkney and Shetland, Norwegian, later • Pre-Literary Scots 1100-1350 influenced by Danish, continued to be • Early Scots 1350-1450 spoken as late as the 18th century, though • Early Middle Scots 1450-1550 Scots was also spoken in the islands from • Late Middle Scots 1550-1700 c.1400. Large parts of Scotland also spoke Scottish Gaelic. Scots and Scottish Modern Scots Gaelic share a common origin with their 1700 to present sister tongues English and Irish, both pairs gradually branching off from each Since the 1870’s the modern language has other and taking their now familiar shapes been defined by scholars as comprising between the 14th and 16th centuries. four main dialects which are in turn subdivided into ten sub-dialects as follows: This means that Scotland has never been in its recorded history a monolingual (1) INSULAR, subdivided into – nation or a country with a single national • (1) Shetland language. The main languages that went • (2) Orkney into the melting pot that produced Scots were Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Dutch, French, Gaelic, Latin and Middle English. Modern (2) NORTHERN, subdivided into – Scots is predominantly a Germanic • (1) Caithness language, but with significant Latin • (2) North East influence, either directly or through French. • (3) East Angus & Kincardine Since the late 18th century a number of language scholars and organisations have (3) CENTRAL, subdivided into – • (1) East Central North • (2) East Central South • (3) West Central • (4) South Central (4) SOUTHERN • (1) Southern (aka Borders, the main and sub-dialect are one and the same) Scots Language Centre Centre for the Scots Leid scotslanguage.com Braid Gait of Aberdeen was changed to Broad Street. In St Andrews, Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair, provost during 1842-1846, had a policy of anglicising the names within the town, changing, for example, Baxter Wynd to Baker Lane, something the modern council has now acknowledged in signage. In Glasgow the Briggait officially became that curious hybrid the Bridgegate having not quite made it to way. The 1841 census is also very instructive. The There are no surviving texts written wholly enumerators, who were mostly parochial in Scots before the reign of Robert II schoolmasters and their assistants, (1371-1390). However, between 1100 generally wrote down personal and place- and 1370 many charters, written in Latin names as they knew them in the local and French, contain many words, phrases dialects, but by 1851 there are clear signs and place-names in the vernacular, or that instructions were to ‘standardise’ commonly spoken language. These names with the English equivalents. include both names of town and villages From 1845 an inspector for schools in and also names of areas and streets Scotland was appointed and for the first within towns. From the 1370’s whole time there was a national policy that texts written in the language begin to insisted Scottish children not only read appear. From this evidence it is clear English but be made to speak it too. Many that certain place-name elements are teachers interpreted teaching English closely associated with Scots speech with punishing those who spoke Scots so and provide important evidence for the place-names in Scots, such as Aiberdeen, presence of the language. Scots continued Glesca, Lithgae, Jethart or The Broch were as a language of the royal court from the branded ‘incorrect’ and banished from 14th to 17th centuries and as a language the classroom and formal discourse. The of the church, law courts and other Ordnance Survey began to catalogue administration well into the 19th century. place-names from the 1850s and also From the late 18th century until at had the effect in establishing anglicised least the mid-20th century there was forms as standard. Often an element in a movement among many landowners, the name was changed to the equivalent intellectuals and administrators to alter preferred in English. Scots inner was personal and place-names in Scotland replaced with inver, braid with broad, auld and in this respect the 1840s mark an with old, heid with head, brig with bridge, important watershed. The Old Statistical and watter with river. Scots pronunciations Account of the 1790s and New Statistical such as boonds, heich, hoose and laich Account of the 1840s both refer to this were ‘corrected’ in favour of their English process – how place-names and even equivalents, boundary, high, house and street names were altered to sound more low with different vowels. It is for these English, or replaced.