The Royal Society of Edinburgh What Is (And Was) Scots? Answers and Questions from an Historical Perspective Professor Jeremy
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The Royal Society of Edinburgh What is (and was) Scots? Answers and Questions from an Historical Perspective Professor Jeremy Smith FRSE, Professor of English Philology and Head, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow Monday 7 December 2015, Eyemouth High School Report by Kate Kennedy For many, Scots is a language; for others it is a dialect (or a collection of dialects); for some it is 'slang'. Whatever we call it, the language variety known as Scots is a complex and dynamic phenomenon with a fascinating history – a history which cannot be separated from the people who spoke (and speak) it. This interactive lecture offered some answers to the question in the title, but also posed some questions for further pondering. Professor Smith started by commenting that, as a language historian, people often ask him “what is Scots?” and this is very difficult to answer and define. No natural languages are pure and all undergo change, adding and losing material throughout time. Indeed, language and how it is currently used can reveal interesting things about its history. One aspect which demonstrates how languages change is that of place names, which can take on their own life and remain in the landscape, even when the people who first used them have long since moved on and the originating language is no longer spoken in a place. For example, ‘Eyemouth’ is a comparatively recent formation derived from ‘Invereye’, meaning ‘File Estuary’. Over time, the current derivation has kept the ‘Eye’ component but added ‘Mouth’ in place of ‘Inver’. In incorporating this style, it has changed from being a Celtic formation to a Germanic-style place name. In Germanic languages, names are usually ordered with the specific element followed by the generic part, as in ‘Eye’ (specific) ‘Mouth’ (generic). This is the opposite to Celtic names. For example, Edinburgh was formerly known as the Celtic Dunedin; the ‘Dun’ referring to ‘Castle’ and ‘Edin’ being the specific part, ‘Edin’s Castle’. In the current Germanic format, ‘Edin’ has been brought to the front and ‘Dun’ has been replaced with ‘Burgh’, changing the meaning from ‘Castle’ to ‘Town’ or, in the German language, ‘fortified town’. Kirkcudbright, in southwest Scotland, is an excellent illustration of how a place name can incorporate different languages and cultures. ‘Cudbright’ refers to the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert; the Northumbrian hegemony spread from the north of England to southern parts of Scotland. ‘Kirk’ is the Norse for ‘church’ and, therefore, the word Kirkcudbright means the church of Saint Cuthbert. The third interesting cultural element of Kirkcudbright refers to the sequencing of the two words ‘Kirk’ and ‘Cudbright’, which is in a Celtic format. Kirkcudbright, therefore, brings together three cultures of the region; it has a Celtic ordering, a Norse generic and includes the name of an Anglo-Saxon saint. The existence of such place names usually indicates an area with a rich history of settlement by different cultures. Professor Smith also referred to other place names local to the Borders; including ‘Merse’, which is Old English from the language that stretched from the Lowlands of 1 Scotland into the south of England, excluding the northwest of England (which remained Welsh-speaking), Wales and Cornwall. The ‘Ay’ in Ayton’ may be similar to the ‘Eye’ in Eyemouth, or may refer to an island in the middle of the ‘Merse’ or marsh. The ‘ton’ part is Germanic and describes a settlement. Within the word ‘Berwick’, ‘Ber’ relates to beer and barley, with ‘wick’ denoting a farm settlement. ‘Channelkirk’ is a Germanic name, but the Kirk element shows that it has been a Norse settlement in the past. Many places names which refer to rivers, such as the ‘Jed’ in ‘Jedburgh’, are extremely ancient terms dating from pre Indo-European languages. All these names and their changes through time tell us that the landscape in which we live has been home to many different people originating from many different places. Professor Smith likened place names to ‘fossils’ of the people who have lived in a region and commented that other aspects of language have similar ‘footprints’. The character and distribution of the languages of present-day Britain derive from their complex histories. The history of English is typically divided into four periods: Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon up to around 1100AD; Middle English, the language of Chaucer; Early Modern English, the language of Shakespeare; and Late Modern English, which continues to this day. Scots and English in Scotland also have a distinct set of periods: Old English up to 1100AD, a particular version of Anglo-Saxon known as Old Northumbrian; Older Scots to about 1375, of which only fragments of information remain; Early Scots from 1375 to 1450; Middle Scots from 1450 to 1700; and Modern Scots, 1700 to present day. Professor Smith explained that from around the period of Modern Scots, it is also possible to distinguish a form of the language known as Scottish Standard English. People started to write about this in the 18th Century and referred to it as “Scottish purged of vulgarity”. The Scots language is very closely related to English, but has a complicated relationship with it; some people regard it as a distinct language and others as a dialect or sub-variety of English. A language akin to Scots has been documented since the 14th Century. Professor Smith commented that he is frequently asked whether Scottish Standard English should be considered as an entirely separate language to English or as a dialect of English, to which he replies that it is a “very complicated question”! Languages and their development cannot be formatted into a rigid ‘family tree’-style diagram with set boundaries and specific dates when changes occurred. Language development is a more fluid process, with on-going subtle changes, altering vocabulary over time and place. Scots vocabulary is formed from various different sources. For example, the word ‘dreich’, which many would assume is authentically Scottish, is in fact derived from an Old Norse word meaning tedious or lasting. Words originating from Celtic often relate to cultural objects, animals and topographical features. Other sources include Low German, with words such as ‘golf’ and ‘scone’ and, as previously mentioned, Norse words such as ‘dreich’. There are also words deriving from French, such as ‘fash’, from the verb ‘facher’ (to be irritated) and words relating to Latin, which are largely found in Scots Law terminology. Furthermore, there are some Old English words which only survive in Scots; for example, ‘gloamin’, ‘haugh’ and ‘bannock’. In present-day English, words that originate from old English are often monosyllabic nouns which form the core vocabulary, such as ‘hand’, ‘head’ and ‘wife’. English also has Norse words, including basic pronouns, and French words which are often used to ‘show off’. This relates to the time after the Norman Conquest when people wanted to use French-derived words to indicate their status and intelligence. It is interesting that many of these ‘posh’ words are not special in French; they are simply the basic word that everyone would use. They do not have any connotations of ‘grandeur’; for example, ‘regard’ from the verb ‘regarder’ (to look at) and ‘commence’ from ‘commencer’ (to begin). There are also 2 many words from Latin and, increasingly, from other languages, such as Urdu and Hindi; for example, ‘pyjamas’, ‘bungalow’, ‘mulligatawny’ and ‘shampoo’. Evidence of the sources of words can be found in documents, ancient poetry and writing, and in inscriptions on material culture. Old English looked very different to the language we read today; it included different letters such as one similar to the Icelandic ‘thorn’, (Þ, þ), standing for ‘f’. There were also letters known as ‘Ash’, (Æ æ) and ‘Eth’ (Ð, ð). Professor Smith read a piece of the poem Beowulf in Old English pronunciation, commenting that some academics differ on how they believe it was pronounced; but by and large there are accepted ways. On first look, and hearing the Old English text from Beowulf, it appears like a foreign language but, on closer study, aspects of current English can be identified. Peculiarities include the fact that Old English had more than one word for ‘the’ and special endings for ‘the’ depending on the role it was playing in the sentence. This is common in inflected languages; they have special endings to denote the relationships between words. Old English survives in manuscripts; for example, the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century. This manuscript draws on the Celtic traditions of book illumination and uses the ‘diminuendo’, whereby the first word of the section starts with a big letter and subsequent letters decrease in size within that word. In this manuscript, there are also ‘scribbles’ which have been added at a later date. Professor Smith explained that these were added around 1050 by Aldred, who felt the need to gloss the manuscript and added words in between the Latin to help people read it. These scribbles are among the earliest recordings of Old Northumbrian, the ancestor of Scots. The actual words are not very exciting or revealing, but their existence is of utmost importance to the history of language. Over time, the English language developed and changed. For example, the Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English and looks and sounds more recognisable than the Old English of Beowulf. One of the earliest Scots texts to have continually been in print is Barbour’s Bruce. Originally composed in the 1370s, it was first compiled in a printed edition in 1616, the cover of which makes a claim for authenticity in that it was created from the oldest manuscripts.