Talk:Scots language/Archive 3

message: We seem to have a bit of an edit was between
	|states=Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland	
and 	|states=United Kingdom
It would be better to discuss it here rather than just revert back and forth. I also think that the discussion would be better on technical and clarity grounds rather than polarizing into Scottish Nationalism and English nationalism/Unionist positions. The intent after all is to show  where the Scots language is spoken.--Nantonos 01:41, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. But whichever we choose (and I'm not too worried which it is) let's make sure it's right. In my opinion the most accurate would be UK and ROI for the states and Lowland Scotland, NI and County Donegal for the regions. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 17:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It would seem more sensible to do it by region, since it is a regional language.  For instance, Javanese language says it is spoken in "Java (Indonesia)," not just Indonesia. john k 21:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Because of the clearances, the folk who live in the Highlands are very few in number with a fair proportion of incomers. In the Eastern Highlands you are more likely to find Scots and in the West more likely to find English, so its not strictly accurate to say that Scots is only spoken in the Lowlands but neither would it be accurate to say that it is spoken throughout the Highlands. Note that most Gaelic speakers now live in the Western Isles or on the West Coast (and to a lesser extent in the cities). The Highlands themselves are extremely sparsely populated nowadays and it would almost make sense to say that no language is spoken there. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 06:38, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Highlands themselves are extremely sparsely populated nowadays and it would almost make sense to say that no language is spoken there - strange, I could swear I hear people speaking every day!  The main language spoken by locals in the north and west is Highland English, which is essentially English but with a strong Gaelic influence on vocabulary and grammar. Lianachan 00:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes. Of course. That's why I said it almost makes sense... But you and I could easily point to parts of Rannoch Moor or the Cairngorms where you'd have to walk twenty miles to find anyone to talk to. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, but the question was what language do the people that are there speak, not are there any people there..... Lianachan 18:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

text: The British Isles contains an AngloSaxon dialect continuum which can be split many ways depending upon the features chosen to do so. Neighbouring dialects have more in common with each other than those far apart, so it is not surprising that there is a lot of commonality between dialects on each side of the Border. However I don't think that there would be many from Northumberland who would go as far as to say that they spoke Scots, even though the similarities are there. Most would be likely to say that they spoke a form of Northern English. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 18:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoken in 

message: This article is hugely biased towards the 'Scots is a true language' POV.  I happen to agree with that view, but the article as it stands is scarcely neutral.
::What is the difference between 'a true language' and 'a not true language'?
:: Ken Mair 09.08.2005
:::An army and a navy, apparently.  Seriously, though, you're right.  The distinction between language and dialect is very, very fuzzy.  On the one hand you have languages like Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, which are almost mutually intelligible, and on the other languages like Chinese which have 'dialects' which are as different or more different to each other than English is to German.  Where is the dividing line?  Well, in the case of Scots, it's quite hard to say.  A lot of its speakers would consider it no more than a dialect of English, and yet the Scottish executive recognises it as a seperate language.  The problem is that this article leans heavily towards the latter point of view, on no particular evidence.  BovineBeast 19:53, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you looked at the German article: ?  In some ways less detailed, but has a sample from the Lorimer Bible with commentary, and on this question it leans to the opposite view. --Doric Loon 05:49, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That certainly needs NPOVing as well.  I would, but I don't have a great deal of time on my hands.  BovineBeast 12:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Standardisation is undoubtedly important. That is why one of the indications of a language is taken to be a body of literature. Such as Scots has. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 18:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Would you put any date restrictions on the literature that you find acceptable. After all the heyday of Scots would be pre-1603 at which time novels hadn't been invented, and academic literature was written in Latin which rules out two of the three categories that you have suggested. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 20:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think that it's strictly true that no one was trying to claim Scots was a separate language prior to 1603. Elizabeth I is said to have claimed it as one of the languages in which she was fluent. So I think that Scots can be fairly claimed as a historical language. In fact our own Scottish literature article gives a good starting point for a historical literature search. As to the modern status of Scots as a language, there's no doubt that the range of published modern literature is much smaller than for most langauges. However, as I am sure you are well aware, there are strong reasons (financial, cultural, political, etc.) why someone wanting to make their mark is more likely to publish in English rather than Scots. At its most basic, no one will ever get rich writing best-selling novels in Scots. However that's not to say that it isn't possible to write well-crafted novels at all. Just that it isn't a good idea from the individual author's financial or "status" point of view (unless they love the language so much that they are in danger of being accused of belonging some daftie fringe in any case.) Derek Ross |  Talk 18:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, Loon, it's nice to see that we agree on why Scots literature tends to be a bit thin on the ground since 1707 but I thought that we were discussing whether it is reasonable to claim Scots as a separate language from English or not. And I don't see how the native community's lack of motivation fits in to that. After all Gaelic speakers don't have any more motivation to publish in Gaelic than Scots speakers to publish in Scots, yet no one is in any doubt that Gaelic is a language. The only reason that I brought up the lack of motivation issue was to indicate why it might be a bit difficult to come up with modern examples of the type of evidence that you are looking for. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 02:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: The reason why Navajo is considered a separate language is because it qualifies as Abstandsprache which Scots does not. The lack of the use of a Scots Ausbausprache, that is to say, its lack of use as modern literate language in all domains of a literate language and not only in some restricted folkloristic domains, cannot be explained by financial, cultural, political, etc. reasons, as Derek Ross claimed on october 8th, since there are languages that have fewer speakers than Scots, but nevertheless are used as perfect Ausbausprache in all domains, e.g. Estonian language (1.1 million speakers according to Wikipedia), Latvian language (1.4 million speakers according to Wikipedia – compare with Scots having more than 1.5. million according to Wikipedia). -- j. 'mach' wust | ✍ 12:22, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Better sample: Icelandic language, 300 000 speakers. -- j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 17:00, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOVing

message: (The following is a duplicate of comments I made here: Talk:Scottish_English#Inaccurate_map.)
The following map has been applied to the English English page, and to Scottish English:
It appears to have one major flaw, and several quibbles:
*Where on earth is the Scots language? Its ommission seems particularly inappropriate considering the debt owed to Scots by Scottish English. Somewhat bizarrely, only one dialect of Scots is included, and that is the tiny number of Ulster Scots speakers, only about 2% of all Scots-speakers! I know that the map is titled "Selected languages", but it is baffling why the only language the auther has "selected" not to include is Scots!
*Why on earth have two distinct languages, Scottish Gaelic language and Irish language, been shown as a homogenous blob?
*Highland English is missing: another rather stark absence on this Scottish English page.
*Why are several subdivisions of English English shown, but only two of Scottish English? The differences between the Fife dialect and Aberdonian are just as big, if not bigger, than the differences between Brummie and Yorkshire dialect.
*Where on earth did Shetland go? A stunning ommission, considering that it is one of the most distictive linguistic groups in the entire British Isles?
I find it very depressing to hear that a German textbook publisher wants to use it in textbooks for 600 schools. No wonder many people grow up with a very strange perception of the language situation in the United Kingdom.--Mais oui! 10:31, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's absolutely bizarre. One can take the view that Scots is a language or the view that it isn't, but it seems distinctly perverse to claim (as the map does) that Ulster Scots is a language/dialect (solid border) and completely ignore Scots, letting "Scottish" just be an "accent"! I suppose this is another result of the unco situation we have where Ulster Scots has more legal recognition than Scots -- Mendor 11:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Still outstanding: Mais, could you organise getting a draft for discussion listing languages / main dialects that we want included, perhaps with clarifying notes and pages to be linked. Once agreed, this could be taken up with the author of the original map, or a new (ping format) map put together using one of the commons base maps. Quickly pleads being a bit busy just now myself, ...dave souza 15:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Only just spotted your comment, one month on. "a draft for discussion listing languages / main dialects that we want included, perhaps with clarifying notes and pages to be linked" on WP:SCOWNB presumably?--Mais oui! 01:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh my god there are so many things wrong with that map. Who did it? I could strangle them! It seems Welsh is not spoken in Wrexham. Welsh is just one language and ignores the north / south split. And Scouse gets a mention. Apparently Sunderland and Middlesbrough speak Geordie (try telling that to a local and be attacked!). Poor, poor German students.--Luccent 15:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccurate map