Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Ulster Scots for wains…
A NEW website for children learning Ulster-Scots has just been launched. Jackie Morrison, principal of Balnamore Primary, believes teaching Ulster Scots to her pupils instils a sense of pride and “an ethos that celebrates cultural differences and in which pupils learn through desire”. It’s all a far cry from the days when the wains wur towl to quet ganshin’ lik culchies. Wonder if any of them will be downloading the website’s sound files onto their ayePod?
PS: This isn’t another thread dedicated to whether it’s a language or a dialect. Unless you’re a wee daftie.
Belfast Gonzo @ 03:04 AM
Shuggie
There were links on this earlier on the thread, but to be brief....There was no word for “learning disabled” in Ulster Scots, so the phrase “wee dafty wains” was used to describe children with this disability.
I have to hasten to add that Fair Deal has told us that this story has been discredited and an apology was issued.
But then, who ever let the truth get in the way of a good story?
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 10:51 PMmissfitz
That story’s so good it must be true.
Posted by on Apr 06, 2006 @ 12:09 AMBrian Boru:
Ulster-Scots is a dialect - of Scots.
Looking at the map of modern Scotland between the Forth-Clyde Line (roughly the route followed by Antoinine’s Wall) and the Solway-Tweed Line (roughly the route followed by Hadrian’s Wall), and in modern England a line roughly from Blackpool to Durham, in medieval times the eastern half was ruled by England and the western half by Scotland. The current border was basically established by a “land for peace” exchange by the two kings. Lothian was previously part of Anglic Northumbria; Cumbria part of Brythonic Strathclyde; Galloway a Gaelic Pale.
As to the Norman-French influence on Scots, “hogmanay” is from the NF “au gui mener” [to the miseltoe rite].
English:
Donegal, at least parts of it, was settled by gallowglasses from the Lordship of the Isles. These Scots were different, linguistically as well as geographically, and earlier than the Scots of the Plantation, who came mostly from sw modern Scotland.
Portugese can understand Spanish. Dutch can understand German. Are these then dialects?
English could described as a dialect of Frisian:
“Bûter, brea, en grien tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Fries.” [Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Frisian.]
On another thread on this topic, a poster quoted a linguist as saying [I parapharase], “A language is a dialect with its own army and navy.”
Posted by on Apr 07, 2006 @ 03:39 PMShuggie McSporran
It began with a letter to a newspaper attacking Ulster-Scots and among other things claimed the phrase “wee daftie wains” had been used to describe learning diabled children in the translation of an official document.
BBC’s Talkback ran a feature based on the contents of the letter with its normal lets all laugh at ulster-scots bent with a dash of moral outrage about Ulster-Scots and government being derogatory to people with disabilities.
However, Ulster-Scots groups checked the translations that had been done for government and there was no such document. They challenged the BBC to back up the claim and after a number of months of research neither the BBC nor the letter writer could produce the “claimed” translation. The BBC then issued an on-air apology.
Posted by on Apr 07, 2006 @ 04:06 PM“Ulster-Scots is a dialect - of Scots.”
I know but I meant that further back it is a dialect of the oldest form of Anglo-Saxon language spoken in Britain.
Posted by on Apr 07, 2006 @ 05:10 PMThank you fair deal for that fuller explanation.
I have come round to accepting Ulster Scots as an important element for the community that feels that it needs and wants this expression of their identity.
I think the discussion on “is it a lnaguage” is dead space now, you have to ask “does it matter”?It means something to people, and it should help in the confidence building process that is important here on both sides of the sectarian fence
Posted by on Apr 07, 2006 @ 05:13 PMI’m still amazed that Lord Laird and the rest of them haven’t coped on to the fact that the GAA get government funding and haven’t created a wee protestant spaort a der aown as a cultural opposition to Hurling! I’m sure there’s something out there in the Ulster cultural milieu that could be propagated as da auld sport auw da Ulster Scots since byegoon days a yoor. After what they did with “Ullans” this should be a breeze. “Ulster Shinty” Perhaps? Any suggestions?
Posted by on Apr 21, 2006 @ 09:09 AMOr maybe Jim Allister could pull a similar stunt to the one Ian Adamson used to legitimize “ULLANS” --i.e. combine Ulster with the name of a Scottish sport, say, Caber toss and you get Ulster toss. Now just translate it into Ulster Scots (don’t worry you can always just use a neologism) and yee git the goud auld “Allister Toss.” I think even the nationalist community would be cueing up to have a go! Any other suggestions?
Posted by on Apr 21, 2006 @ 10:37 AM
