F
owk can yae get intae a fecht aboot stannarts in Scots. Here’s a bittie frae a FB discussion aboot this postin whaur A wis claimin that ‘nae stannards’ is a myth.
[The airticle] recognises there is twa tungs, an awbodie yaises a mixter-maxter. “Most Scots, myself included, mash these up these two languages, using vocabulary, grammatical forms, and vocabulary from both, sometimes even in the same sentence“. Whit fowk dinna ken is hoo tae write Scots. There is nae need tae ‘mak up’ a written stannart, there is ane oot there awreddies. Jist stairt teachin it…
Whaur is this stannart”? Whaur d’ye stairt?
Nae mystery. Tae big up the core stairt warkin thou Colin’s http://www.amazon.co.uk/Luath-Scots…/dp/1906307431
Yaise http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modren-Scots…/dp/1908373393/ as a grammar back up an http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Scots…/dp/0748622012/ as a stairter dictionary.
Get a haud o http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manual-modern…/dp/1117717828/ tae get a historical perspective an tak a keek at the cuttie http://www.amazon.co.uk/Very-Peculiar…/dp/1908759631/ fur a bittie mair o the modern cultural context.
Readin? Stairt wi onie o the comic buiks owersett (translatit) by Matthew Fitt or Susan Rennie. There muckle, muckle mair but I’d say aifter getting thou that lot ye’d ken the current Scots prentit stannart” as weel as oniebodie here.
But are these no jist descriptive or parteecular fowk’s tak on things. An there are sindrie ither resources.
A’v warked wi aw thae resources (no the comics). A’v cross-referenced thaim line by line. There a bitite variation but gien they are written by sindrie fowk ower near a century they are that close that thegither they form a real standard. Gin yer luikin fur some high-hedyins tae tell us whit tae dae, weel that disna exist (nor fur English either BTW), sae whit haws kythed here for Scots is e’en mair remairkable. A’d say BTW the dismissal “juist parteecular fowk’s tak on things” is a kin o insultin in gien the scholarship an darg that haes gone intae the research. Onieweys hoo aboot comparing thaim yersel wi the ooutsaunin Alexander Bergs’ Modern Scots (the maist up-tae-date description o Scots gremmar an yiss) an telling us hoo this isna a stannard-in-practice? Bergs is a historical linguist an Chair of English Language and Linguistics in a Gairman uni, BTW.
But a grammar isna a spellin stannart. Onie spellins Berg uises he’s waled hissel fae the variations that’s aboot.
Onie publisht description o a language is in itself a stannart. Whit else is it? That’s the wey English warks, that’s the wey Scots warks. The fact that the correspondence a tween aw these accoonts is that high *athoot* a stannardisin bodie fae an academic perspective is richt meaninfu in o itself.
Whit aboot the dialeck staundarts frae Kynoch (on the Doric) and the like?
A wis actually tocht the Scots at the scull. The teacher stairtit by askin us whit wirds an seyins we yaised in the pleygroon. Whit oor fowks yaised, the grannies an awbodie. Whit did they mean, hoo wid ye (cud ye e’en) sey that in English? She then read bitties oot o Wee
McGreegor and we aw lairned ‘The boy on the train’ an we’d write wee stories. Sae the local (Central Scots Fife) dialeck an leeterarie leids wis yised thegither an as bairns we haed nae problem wi thon. A cam awa thinkin that Scots wis a richt respectable tung, we shud be prood o oor local dialect an Scots wis as ‘rael’ a language as onie ither, an (pace the comments abune) there wis nae quaistion that the leeterarie stannard wis *the* stannart. A doot A wis kinna luckie….
Kynoch jist aboot set oot a written stannart for the Doric. Gin A wis writ in in Doric A’d yaise thon, it’s grand, but a dinna. The problem wi monie ither Scots dialeck buikies (an A hae a wheen) is that they tak the Parliamo Glasgow approach of comedy orthography.
But whit’s wrang wi pleyin wi the language?
There a fankle here atween ‘creative’ Scots an ‘communicative’ Scots. A’m mair interestit in the latter. The hale pynt o communicative writin is that other fowk can (an dae) read it. Readin taks time. Interpretin fowks’ daft makkit-up spellins is jist a waste o ma time, in Scots, English or onie ither tung. Gin yer writin poetry, dialeck-specific stuff or comedie, thon’s a different maitter.
Sae, tae sum up, there isna a wheen o stannarts at aw. There is ainlie whit fowk yaise in publisht text. Dialeck wark is a reid herrin. These is dialecks, naethin mair nor less. Fowk haes aye makkit up their ain fantoosh spellin fantasies, ignoring whit fowk hae bin writin fur a hunnert year or mair. They’r richtlie ignored. Fin oot an follae real practice, an ye’ll no gang far wrang.
