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@randomtinywords
8. Scots v. Gaelic
8. Scots v. Gaelic
Itâs only fair that when talking about Scots, we have to mention the other indigenous minority language in Scotland: Gaelic.
Geography
Weâve alredly looked at the geographic distribution of Scots speakers in a previous post, but itâs interesting comparing them to Gaelic speakers.
Once, Gaelic covered almost all of Scotland, but nowadays, Gaelic is mostly spoken in the Western Isles,âŠ
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Hey guys!!
I know itâs been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but Iâve been working on some stuff that Iâm excited to share with you all!
Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, itâs got a new home! Iâve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope youâll all check out what I write and spread the word! â€ïžïž
Twitter: @thescotslab
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab
Website: https://thescotslab.wordpress.com/
7. Snapshot: The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie
7. Snapshot: The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie
Beware they who enter here, there be foul language withinâŠ
The golden age of Scots literature saw a multitude of works written across multiple genres. One of the most typically Scottish, however, is flyting: essentially, a rap battle between two poets trying to out-insult each other. The most famous work of this type is The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, written around 1500.
Plot
ThereâŠ
View On WordPress
Hey guys!!
I know itâs been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but Iâve been working on some stuff that Iâm excited to share with you all!
Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, itâs got a new home! Iâve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope youâll all check out what I write and spread the word! â€ïžïž
Twitter: @thescotslab
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab
Website: https://thescotslab.wordpress.com/
Hey guys!!
I know itâs been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but Iâve been working on some stuff that Iâm excited to share with you all!
Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, itâs got a new home! Iâve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope youâll all check out what I write and spread the word! â€ïžïž
Twitter: @thescotslab
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab
Website: https://thescotslab.wordpress.com/
Hey guys!!
I know itâs been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but Iâve been working on some stuff that Iâm excited to share with you all!
Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, itâs got a new home! Iâve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope youâll all check out what I write and spread the word! â€ïžïž
Twitter: @thescotslab
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab
Website: https://thescotslab.wordpress.com/
More Than Just Haggis
One of my main areas of interest is in Scots (for more info on the language, see my series on Scots on my main blog) in particular, the lexicon. Despite a less than favourable relationship between Scotland and England for centuries (putting it mildly đ ) quite a few Scots words made the journey south and became a part of standard English vocabulary. Some of them may surprise youâŠ
blackmail:Â a compound noun dating from 1530 in English with the Scots variant blackmeal, the term originated as money extorted from farmers on the border around Scotland and England in order to gain protection from raiders called the Border Reivers. The word lost its violent connotations during the borrowing into English.
glamour: The Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) gives the meaning as âmagic, enchantment, witchcraft; a spell, esp. one affecting the sightâ and the word was introduced into English mostly through the works of Walter Scott. The OED also states that itâs âa corrupt form of grammarâ, which strikes me as a bit of a weird thing to say.
wow!:The exclamatory form is described as âchiefly Scottishâ in the OED, and most of the citations given are from Scottish writers- the first recorded usage in writing is in a translation of the Ăneid by Gavin Douglas (a Scot) in 1513.
skulduggery: The OED says that this is an American term, but that it is also an altered version of skulduddery, which is a Scots word. The DSL gives the meaning as âlewd behaviour, fornication, unchastityâ but specifies the contexts as literary or sometimes playful joking language.
References
Border Reivers, Wikipedia, link
List of English Words of Scots Origin, Wikipedia, link
OED Online
Dictionary of the Scots Language, link
From âCupâ to âHeadâ
If you look in the Petit Robert dictionary, the etymology for the French word tĂȘte âheadâ is given as coming from the Latin testa âtile, earthen pot or pitcherâ. The German equivalent Kopf has a similar etymology, descending from the Middle High German (MHG) kopf âdrinking vesselâ. This seems like a strange pattern to follow, but there is a very good reason these two words shifted their meaning in the same way.
Way way back in the mists of time, Old French (OF) and (MHG) used the same word to refer to both âcup/potâ and âheadâ:
OF test âpot, potsherdâ OF test âhead (metaphorical)â
MHG kopf âcupâ MHG kopf âhead (metaphorical)â
In his book Principles of historical linguistics, Hock states that âin medieval soldiersâ slang, battle was referred to as the smashing of pots or cups (= heads) into shards.â This explains the metaphorical application seen above. What then happened was that the original âcupâ meaning became obsolete, and the metaphorical connection to âheadâ was lost. Thus the former âcupâ words became the everyday words for âheadâ and alternatives had to be found to fill the gap left by them:
French tesson âshardâ French tĂȘte âheadâ
German Tasse âcupâ German Kopf âheadâ
References
Hock, Principles of Historical Linguistics, link
Kopf, Wiktionary, link
testa, Wiktionary, link
tĂȘte, Le Petit Robert- version numĂ©rique
I can relate when Iain said âOn the outside sheâs as cool as a cucumber but on the inside sheâs dropped three glasses of wine and smashed a teapotâ
% in Europe who agree it is important to speak the national language to truly share their national identity.
There could definitely be a good comedy series set in an academic department. The humor, of course, would not be derived from academic in-jokes, it would be entirely interpersonal, with the academic setting providing novel situations for personality-based comedy - just like how The Office isnât about paper sales, or Veep isnât about policy, or even partisanship. You could have situations like the visit of Very Important Scholar to the department, where people are desperately trying to give off a good impression and ingratiate themselves, or intra- or inter-departmental rivalries (âfucking Communications is trying to take over one of our classrooms!â), or the day-to-day troubles of dealing with delicate and flighty undergrads, or awkward and tense faculty meetings, and so on.
Since the type of department would have some effect on the showâs content, it would ideally be set in a field that most members of the public have a passing familiarity with, and are neither entirely âhard scienceâ nor âhumanitiesâ, so you can draw on plot opportunities afforded by both realms of academia, and maybe have different factions within the department representing different wings. So, maybe geography or psychology? Linguistics is situated between the social and natural sciences, but the general public knows nothing about it.
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The Trouble With Elves
The word elf has been a part of the English lexicon since before English was English. The Old English (OE) form of the word was ĂŠlf and referred to a different type of creature to what weâd think of as an elf today. These creatures were masculine supernatural beings with more malicious intent and ambivalence towards humans. These creatures are common throughout Germanic mythology- look at the DĂžkkĂĄlfar (dark elves) of Norse mythology in the Prose Edda. By contrast, Latin had nymphĂŠ- gentle feminine creatures typically associated with nature (more what we think of as an elf)
This Latinate concept was introduced into Anglo-Saxon England, and during the 8th century ĂŠlf was used to represent both of the masculine and feminine creatures. However, this meaning range became too broad, so ĂŠlfâs meaning began to narrow again and refer to⊠the nympha.
During the period of polysemy, it was possible to tell the difference between the two meanings of ĂŠlf not just from context, but also from grammar. Ălf was a strong masculine noun, with these delensions. To highlight the newer nympha meaning, writers treated it as a weak noun, using these declensions. So grammar was used to help distinguish between two senses and help facilitate a semantic change.
References
ĂŠlf, Wiktionary, link
Dökkålfar and Ljósålfar, Wikipedia, link
elf, n.1. OED Online, (I used my uniâs subscription for access)
Hall, A., 2007. Glosses, gaps and gender: the rise of female elves in Anglo-Saxon Culture. In: Change in meaning and the meaning of change: studies in semantics and grammar from old to present-day English, pp. 139-170.
Old English/Nouns, Wikibooks, link
Unimaginative Etymologies
What is the similarity between the Sahara and cheddar cheese? Theyâre both yellow, you might say, and youâre right, but thatâs not what Iâm thinking of. What if I tell you that the Sahara Desert and Cheddar Gorge (where cheddar cheese originates) are examples of the same phenomenon in naming locationsâŠ
Itâs true, I promise!
The word âsaharaâ comes from the Arabic çahra âdesertâ, so etymologically speaking, the Sahara is called the âdesert desertâ. This same process of taking the word from a local language and using it in Present-Day English (PDE) alongside the English equivalent has been done all over the world, but it has also been done diachronically in the case of Cheddar Gorge.
As previously mentioned, cheddar cheese is named after Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England. It has been suggested that the gorgeâs name derived from the Old English ceodor âravineâ, which is essentially synonymous with âgorgeâ, thus Cheddar Gorge becomes âgorge gorgeâ.
Where âsaharaâ was borrowed from Arabic in the 15th century, âcheddarâ derives from the ancestor of PDE, but the original sense of the word became obscured, allowing the common noun to become the proper noun we know today.
References
sahara. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/Sahara
Cheddar cheese. Wiktionary, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cheddar_cheese
Everett-Heath, John. The Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, 2017, Google Books Link
Letâs Learn French with the cat! (Part One) - Matou en Peluche
âRomance in Lonomiaâ - The Secret Knots
My brain when I insist I donât need to try and memorise a word in my target language because âitâs such an important/unusual word how could I possibly forget it?â.
