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Archiver > GENIRE > 2004-01 > 1074939398


From: "Allan Connochie" <>
Subject: Re: Graham Family History problem
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:16:38 -0000
References: <400c0209.78602500@ca.news.verio.net> <buheh8$f9a$2@pcls4.std.com> <400c5b33.101428015@ca.news.verio.net> <400c69a8.12039712@news> <1074600158.542569@ananke.eclipse.net.uk> <400d8aa9@news.greennet.net> <400d62ac.2848445@news> <400e774c@news.greennet.net> <400e943a.1799467@news> <400ee0e9@news.greennet.net> <400f34dc.2077427@news> <4011f3b7@news.greennet.net> <40121ee0.28760054@news>


"Murchadh" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 01:25:24 -0000, "Allan Connochie"
> <> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Murchadh" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> Excellent translation! I have a feeling that the above is how an older
> person would have spoken in those days; say your great or great-great
> grandfather. I know from my own researches that WWI opened a huge
> window of change in rural areas and complete dialects began to die
> during this time, leaving behind dialect words interspersed with
> standard or near-standard English.

The onset of mass communication [ie Radio etc] would have affected how folk
spoke, but so did the Education Act of the 1880s [can't remember the exact
date] which gave the educational establishment further encouragement to try
and stamp out what many regarded as rude uncouth bad English. Although many
Borderers [young and old] still use the full range of the dialect. It's
changed a bit of course as all language does. Pronounciation I can imagine
is much the same - for instance my grand-father pronounced things in much
the same way that I do excepting perhaps the 'ch' sound and the 'it' endings
in words like 'skelpit' was more pronounced. He'd say skelpit where I'd say
skelpt. I'd actually use much the same grammar as he would. The biggest
change would be in the loss of word stock. There are some words that my
grand-father would use that I'll only use occassionally. The passage you
quoted had some words I'd never seen but apart from one or two exceptions
they were all farming terms. Still there is no doubt that many Scots words
have fallen out of use. Unfortunately the last serious study of the Borders
dialect, and possibly the Scots langauge as a whole, was in the 1949
Linguistic Survey of Scotland so it's hard to know just exactly how intact
the dialect still is.


>
> In fact I've heard this myself in the speech of two Borderers I knew
> here in Vancouver. One was an old lady, noe deceased, who used all the
> words your granny would have; the other was a nurse in her thirties
> whio had a Border accent but spoke English, lapsing into Border
> dialect when talking to Scots like me who understand her localisms.

I understand what you're saying and overall you are correct, the breadth of
the dialect is being eroded each generation, but such variations exist
within the age groups themselves. I know some pensioners who would baulk at
using the dialect except for comic effect, and I know young folk who still
speak what could only be described as Border Scots. Still I do think that
Scots is far more endangered than official statistics suggest. The
government estimate that there are one and a half million Scots speakers,
but this was simply based on a survey which asked people if they could speak
any Scots. It takes no account of what was meant by Scots and just how
anglicised the speech is. The 1949 study questioned people on their
grammar, pronounciation and the words they used.



> It's like a window into another world, isn't it? He's a fit man; he
> gangs bei Jethart and Denum, aa the wey tae Haiick!

When I was in my teens we used to take a walk on a Saturday morning as there
were no record shops in Jedburgh, and damn few clothes shops bar David
Thomsons. We'd go up over the Dunion to Denholm and stop off at the Cross
Keys for a pre-lunch pint, then from there either carry on to Hawick, catch
the mid-day bus, or just get pissed in Denholm. Actually before that as a
kid we used to walk from Selkirk to Gala and back [6 or 7 miles each way]
just to go to the swimming pool as Selkirk didn't have one at the time. My
father had brothers in Gala and regularly walked back and forth. He was [eh
still is actually] quite a dishevelled character and was picked up by the
police one day as someone had reported to them that they'd seen Bible John
on the run :-) Anyway you should hear my kids moan if we decide to walk
down into Kelso rather than take the car, and it's only about a mile into
the square.

cheers

Allan
>
> Murchadh.


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