Shetland Dialect

SIR, Although an Englishman, my 12 years’ sojourn in this country has given me an interest in anything concerning the manners and customs of the people, and I have therefore attentively read the correspondence on the above subject. I agree with those who have expressed regret that the noble language should be dying out – though they one and all express their regrets in the most irreproachable English. But how is the Scots language to be preserved? Simply by teaching it in the schools, so that the rising generation may speak and write it with facility. Being a language, it has, of course, a grammar, and a dictionary. Let these replace the Lindlay Murray and the Webster now used. Instead of dictating to Scots children such a sentence as: - “He was longing to go down the little stream to fish the next morning,” let the master or mistress dictate “he wis ettlin tae gang fishin’ in th’ burn th’ morn’s morn,” and instead of conjugating the verb “to ask,” “I ask, thou askest, he asks,” etc, let the lesson be “A’m speerin’, thou’rt speerin, he’s speerin.” Were this done the guid braid Scots tongue would be raised into the proud pre-eminence which its purity, its beauty, and its linguistic resources merit. In the course of a decade or so the Scottish people would be freed from the reproach – partly merited – that they have no language of their own, and are obliged to write and speak in English. Commercial correspondence would be written in Scots; the leaders in the papers, even the items of news, would be couched in that mellifluous tongue; and the baraguoin of the Saltmarket or Trongate would be no longer accepted by the Southern stranger as the language of the Scottish people. Surely this is end is worthy of attainment. The Scot abroad, though ever proud in his heart of his nationality, makes haste to drop the few lingering traces of his mother tongue, and to speak pure English. Why is this? The Frenchman endeavours to make himself understood, when on English soil, by the few words of that language which he can master; but he never forsakes his own tongue, and is only too pleased to return to its use. Not so the Scot. He drops his Scots phrases and pronunciation, never to resume them; and his children is taught that their father’s English is more genteel than the speech of their forefathers, and cultivate it in preference. I think were some such plan as that which I have suggested possible the future might even see Scots authors arise who would pen their essays, their treatises, or even their novels in the mellifluous language, which, as far as literature is concerned, is at present so poorly represented. I am, etc., W.K. Dowie.

Dowie’s letter anticipates our modern approach to re-establishing the place of Scots in the public domain. His suggested solution, of simply teaching the children in Scots, rather than replacing it in schools with English, was, in fact, normal before state inspection of schools commenced in 1845. By Dowie’s time, however, the teaching establishment in Scotland had become thoroughly Anglicised and had embarked on a misguided attempt to suppress Scots and replace it with English. As another commentator in this period once remarked, we pay the teachers to teach our children English, not to unlearn our native language. Dowie’s opinion, that if children were taught to read and write the language they spoke they would grow up to use the language in various areas of public life, is certainly true.  Although he does not make an explicit comment, Dowie’s letter clearly skirts around what was then (and still is) an issue that lies at the heart of Scottish cultural and political identity, evident in his comparison between Scots and French. To Mr Dowie the solution to supporting and encouraging the use of Scots was simple. His comment that those defending Scots do so “in the most irreproachable English” also sends a powerful message to any one who wishes to foster Scots: “tak tent or it’s tint (use it or lose it)”.

Further examples of bird song can be heard at the BBC or tradebit.

The gled and the peasie (kite and lapwing)

 

The merle or blackie (blackbird and ring ouzel)
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The mochrum elder (cormorant)
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Scotch canary (yellowhammer)
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The phasie (pheasant)
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The shelfie (chaffinch)
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Black heidit seagulls (blackheaded seagulls)
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Mallards and teals
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Wood lark (tree pipit)
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The Braes o' Balquhidder

Chorus:

Let us go, lassie, go
Tae the braes o' Balquhidder
Whar the blueberries grow
'Mang the bonnie Hielan' heather
Whar the deer and the rae
Lichtly bounding thegither
Sport the lang summer day
On the braes o' Balquhidder

I will twin thee a bow'r
By the clear silver fountain
And I'll cover it o'er
Wi' the flooers o' the mountain
I will range through the wilds
And the deep glens sae dreary
And return wi' their spoils
Tae the bow'r o' my dearie

Chorus

When the rude wintry win'
Idly raves roun' oor dwellin'
And the roar o' the linn
On the nicht breeze is swellin'
So merrily we'll sing
As the storm rattles o'er us
Till the dear shielin' ring
Wi' the licht liltin' chorus

Chorus

Noo the summers in prime
Wi' the flooers richly bloomin'
Wi' the wild mountain thyme
A' the moorlan's perfumin'
Tae oor dear native scenes
Let us journey thegither
Whar glad innocence reigns
'Mang the braes o' Balquhidder

Chorus

Edmonston, Thomas (1866) An Etymological Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect, with some derivations of names of places in Shetland, London: The Philological Society.

Fenton, James (1995, 2000) The Hamely Tongue. A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County Antrim, Belfast: Ullans Press. An annotated glossary showing present-day currency.

Graham, John (1979, 1999) The Shetland Dictionary, Lerwick: Shetland Times.

Gregor, Walter (1866) The Dialect of Banffshire with a Glossary of Words not in Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, London: The Philological Society.

Jakobsen, Jakob (1921,1928) Etymologisk Ordbog over det Norrøne Sprog på Shetland. Translated as An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland, 2 volumes, London: David Nutt, reprinted New York: AMS Press, n.d.

Kynoch, Douglas (1996) A Doric Dictionary. Two-way Lexicon of North-East Scots. Doric-English, English-Doric, Edinburgh: Scottish Cultural Press.

Lamb, Gregor (1988) Orkney Wordbook. A Dictionary of the Dialect of Orkney, Birsay: Byrgisey.

Macafee, Caroline (1983) Varieties of English Around the World: Glasgow, Amsterdam: Benjamins. A study of Glasgow Scots, past and present, in current speech and literature.

Macafee, Caroline ed. (1996) A Concise Ulster Dictionary, Oxford University Press.

Mackie, Albert (1984) The Illustrated Glasgow Glossary, Belfast: Blackstaff.
MacTaggart, John (1824, 1981) The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, London: printed for the author; reprinted by Clunie, Strath Tay, Perthshire
Marwick, Hugh (1929, 1992) The Orkney Norn, Dunfermline: W. I. A. Murray. Originally published by Oxford University Press.

Montgomery, Michael, From Ulster to America. The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English, Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2006.

Munro, Michael (2001) The Complete Patter, Edinburgh: Birlinn.

Pepper, John [Fred Gamble] (1981) John Pepper's Ulster-English Dictionary, Belfast: Appletree Press.

Riach, W. A. D. (1988) A Galloway Glossary, Glsgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Occasional Papers 7.

Smyth, Anne, Michael Montgomery and Philip Robinson eds, The Academic Study of Ulster-Scots: Essays for and by Robert J. Gregg National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, 2006.

Watson, George (1923) The Roxburghshire Word-Book, Cambridge University Press.

Wright, Joseph (1898-1905) English Dialect Dictionary, London: Henry Frowde. Words and phrases from all over Britain, including a generous amount of  Scots from different parts of Scotland

 “I supposed that when I arrived in Paisley I had only to ask for Tannahill, the poet, but to my astonishment nobody knew who he was. I was sent from one Tannahill to another, and many others, but none of them the object of my search. At last I found him on his loom, one of a long range, bearing no external indication of the intellectual lava tide that slumbered in his soul…During the whole night we sat together, and he sang many of his choicest melodies…”

This description suggests that while Tannahill may have been know in literary circles, he was not yet established in the popular mind of the locality. It was after his death, and the publication of memoirs, that he began to become well known. Even today, though, Tannahill seems little known, being overshadowed by such figures of his own period as Burns and Scott. But his songs and poetry have something to offer everyone.

Tannahill, like Burns and others, wrote in a Scots that is typical of the times. In the 18^th century English came to replace Scots for most prose writing, as a result of English becoming the language of officialdom after the political union with England (1707). English became the template for most writing and when people came to write Scots, they generally adapted to the conventions of English spelling. Scots forms such as ‘hae’ ‘an’ and ‘aw’ came to be written as ha’e, an’ and a’ because in English these seemed to have missing letters - have, and, all. Tannahill wrote according to this (English) rule. Like Burns, he also sometimes used both English and Scots forms together for effect and rhyme, which is why we see both go and gae, for example, or night and nicht. Spellings such as ‘head’ and ‘spread’ were generally pronounced as Scots ‘heid’ and ‘spreid’. The following song - ‘Braes o’ Gleniffer’ – is a good example of his art and one which will always be intimately associated with his name:

Keen blaws the win' o'er the braes o' Gleniffer
The auld castle's turrets are covered wi' snaw
How changed frae the time when I met wi' my lover
Amang the brume bushes by Stanley green shaw

The wild flowers o' simmer were spread a' sae bonnie
The Mavis sang sweet frae the green birkin tree
But far to the camp they ha'e marched my dear Johnnie
And now it is winter wi' nature and me

Then ilk thing aroun' us was blythsome and cheery
Then ilk thing aroun' us was bonnie and braw
Now naething is heard but the win' whistlin' dreary
And naething is seen by the wide spreadin' snaw

The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie
They shake the cauld drift frae their wings as they flee
And chirp out their plaints, seeming wae for my Johnnie
'Tis winter wi' them and 'tis winter wi' me

Yon caul sleety could skiffs alang the bleak mountain
And shakes the dark firs on the stey rocky brae
While doun the deep glen bawls the snaw-flooded fountain
That murmur'd sae sweet to my laddie an' me

'Tis no' its loud roar, on the wintry win' swellin'
'Tis no' the caul' blast brings the tear to my e'e
For, oh, gin I saw my bonnie Scots callan
The dark days o' winter war simmer tae me

Dorward, D. (1995) Scotland’s Place-names, Edinburgh: Mercat Press.

Drummond, Peter (2007) Scottish Hill Names (new edn of Scottish Hill and Mountain Names 1991), Scottish Mountaineering Trust.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H. (1976, 2nd edn 2001) Scottish Place-Names: Their Study and Significance, Edinburgh: John Donald.

Ordnance Survey:  lists of Gaelic, Welsh, Norse and Scots terms on its maps:  http:/www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk

Scottish Place-Name Society (Comann Ainmean-Aite na h-Alba),  voluntary organsation which coordinates the work of different groups and individuals, from academics to interested laymen. Twice-yearly newsletter.   
 http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/institutes/sassi/spns

Personal names

Black, George (1946) The Surnames of Scotland. Their Origin, Meaning and History, New York: New York Public Library.  Reprinted by Birlinn 1996. Not always accurate in identifying continental origins.

Dorward, David (2003) Scottish Surnames, Glasgow: Collins.

Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia (1988) A Dictionary of Surnames, Oxford University Press.

Hanks, Patrick and Hodges, Flavia (1990) A Dictionary of First Names, Oxford University Press

Whyte, Donald (1996) Scottish Forenames: their origin and history. Edinburgh: Birlinn.   

http://www.spatial-literacy.org/  Go to 'family names > surname profiler' for maps based on UCL research on the distribution of surnames in Great Britain

Allan, Alasdair (1995) 'Scots spellin - ettlin efter the quantum lowp', English World-Wide 16:1, 61-103.
Lallans 56 and 57 (2000) has several articles on spelling,  with discussion on the 'Report o the Scots Spellin Comatee'.

McClure, J. Derrick (1985, 1995) 'The debate on Scots orthography' in J. Derrick McClure Scots and its Literature, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 37-43.

Purves, David (1997, revised 2002) A Scots Grammar. Scots Grammar and Usage, Edinburgh: The Saltire Society. See pp. 57-61.

Scots Style Sheet (1955) Lines Review 9, 30-31 (with introduction by Albert Mackie, 29-30). Reprinted (most recently) in David Purves, A Scots Grammar. Scots Grammar and Usage Edinburgh: Saltire Society (2002).  Some basic points, notably 'aa'  for 'all, a' and in 'baa', caa' etc; compiled in an Edinburgh pub by poets of the Scottish Renaissance in 1947.

Grammar

Purves, David (1997, revised 2002) A Scots Grammar. Scots Grammar and Usage, Edinburgh: The Saltire Society.

Rennie, Susan (1999) Grammar Broonie: A Guide tae Scots Grammar, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association. For schools.

Robertson, T. A. and John Graham (1952) Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect, Lerwick: Shetland Times Ltd.

Robinson, Philip (1997) Ulster-Scots. A Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language, Belfast: Ullans Press.

Tannahill’s father was a weaver who had feued a piece of ground at Queen Street, Paisley and bulit a house on it in 1775. This house, or rather cottage, is where Robert grew up and lived most of his life. In 2003 it was greatly damaged by a fire, but is now restored and sometimes open to the public. It is the meeting place of the Paisley Burns Club who upkeep the property as an important monument connected with Tannahill and the Scots language.

Young Robert was apprenticed as a weaver at the age of 12 in 1786 and spent a brief time working at Bolton, in Lancashire, England. He returned home to Paisley and began to compose pieces of verse in Scots which were published by various journals. Scottish weavers had a reputation for literacy and cultivated tastes because their work, often done at a loom with the feet, allowed them the freedom to hold and read books. When his father died in 1802, Robert joined the newly established ‘The Paisley Literary and Convivial Association’ which was an oulet for his literary tastes. He was also a founder member – and secretary – of the Paisley Burns Club in 1805. This is believed to be the oldest formally constituted Burns Club in the world.  His major breakthrough came in 1807 when a volume of his poems and songs was published under the title ‘The Sodger’s Return’. He is also remembered for his song ‘Braes of Balquhidder’ which is the basis of the ballad ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ (which has the line ‘will ye go lassie go’), as popular today in Scotland as ever. The band ‘The Tannahill Weavers’ are named after him.

However, Robert was prone to depression – the mark of many a creative mind – and could not take the rejection of some of his work by Edinburgh publisher Archibald Constable in 1810. Robert drowned himself in the Candren Burn and his body was later discovered by his two brothers. He was buried at Castlehead Cemetery, Canal Street, Paisley, in an unmarked grave in what was formely the West Relief Church. In 1866 a granite monument was erected here to his memory. There is also a statue to Tannahill in the grounds of Paisley Abbey, erected by public subscription in 1883.

On the left hand menu you will see a number of articles relating to the life, music and poetry of this respected Scots language writer and Paisley buddie.

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