Thursday, November 20, 2008

First Rant Repeated

The Scots language does not exist!!!!!

That's not entirely true. It exists if you're one of the folk making money out of pretending to speak it, or rather pretending to write it. I have travelled widely throughout this beautiful nation of ours in my capacity as encyclopedia salesman and engineer on a tramp steamer and have never ever met anyone who spoke Scots the way it's portrayed by Scots language poets. The reason for this is because they invent it. Turn a Scots language poet upside down and shake him/her and sooner or later a dictionary will fall out.

A Raik tae the Letter-box
Oh, whit swippert the muin gaed breengin
Southlins ablow the cloudspast Barra leamin in the sea,
and deil a bit did we ken
at hus it wes at wes vaigin lik the skiffsnorlins ayebidinlie,
Galileo abuin Garrynamoniean Copernicus
heich in the liftan the wast wunn waffin the electric wires
an the letter gaun hurlin out o sicht.

Derrick McClure

Eh? What? norlins ayebidinlie? Urf Gurg Quark!

Either it's complete gibberish or it becomes Scots simply by misspelling the words.

Exile

Wi’oot leavin yer ain lanye can still be an exile
wha watches the lies othe lan, the leidaw taen fae within.
A sleekit kinna weyo kiddin ye wiveneers o democracy.
At least here in Prague
it was clear that oppressors wir in.
An ye kent fir sure
when they left.

Liz Niven"

At least here in Prague/it was clear that/oppressors WIR in"

That's all you need to do to make it Scots. Spell it wrong. I know Liz Niven. She is a beatiful and gifted woman and writes and speaks English perfectly well.

1 comment:

The Brokendown Barman said...

i ken whicht yi mene auld laddie bucht sum folkes juscht dinnie unner stande if its aww richten doon in the tung oh they inngulish folk.