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Fair question. So, let’s see if I can address it.
(Big) Thread. 1/45 https://twitter.com/PonderingPanda6/status/1340893864798896128
(Big) Thread. 1/45 https://twitter.com/PonderingPanda6/status/1340893864798896128
Let’s start with a reminder of the nature of the complaints that Len was getting, and my response, so that we have a frame of reference for my response to you here. Responses that were not ad hominem attacks tended to focus on an assertion that Scots is not a language. 2/45
The other complaint was that she misspelled preconceived. 2/45
The latter is easily addressed. It was a typo. Some people reminded us that i comes before e except after c. My original tweet demonstrates that this rule has lots of exceptions. So, the rule is limited, and relying on it for every circumstance is incorrect. 3/45
Moreover, if all someone can do in response to a not unreasonable argument as to the nature of ignorance is to point out a spelling error, then I think we can agree that those tweets can be ignored on the basis that they do not add anything valuable to the debate. 4/45
So, to the former, more reasonable question. Is Scots a language? If not, is it a dialect? 5/45
We should start at first principles. How do we define a language? How do we define a dialect? And, in definitional terms, what’s the difference between the two? There are 2 ways to look at this, linguistic & socio-political. Linguistic first: 6/45
From a linguistics point of view, a language is a structured system by which humans communicate. A language has an internally consistent set of rules that govern it. This is in terms of lexis, syntax and grammar (the words and the way they are put together). 6/45
Often a language has a standard orthography (writing system) but not always. Sylheti, for example, spoken by 11 million people, does not have its own orthography. It uses Bengali script to transcribe Sylheti words. 7/45
Jamaican Creole (Patois) on the other hand is spoken by considerably fewer people (2.7 million), and does have a standardised orthography. It uses Roman script for this, and so do hundreds of other languages (both Sylhetti and Patois are considered to be languages btw). 8/45
So, on the basis of this, does Scots conform to the definition of a language? Scots is a structured system by which humans communicate with each other. It has an internally consistent set of rules that govern its lexis, syntax and grammar, and a standardised orthography. 9/45
So, you tell me. By this definition, is Scots a language? 10/45
Sticking with the linguistics point of view, if we agree that Scots conforms to the definition of a language, the question then moves to whether it is sufficiently dissimilar to English to be considered a different language to English, or a dialect of it 11/45
Defining the boundaries between different language is something that linguists have tried and failed to do. There are no objective boundaries between languages. We do, however, accept that some languages are closer to each other than other languages. 12/45
For example, Thai is linguistically very distant from English, to the extent that it uses different lexis, grammar and syntax as well as a different orthography. German, by contrast, is closer. This is in terms of lexis (water/Wasser, apple/Apfel, book/Buch, etc.), … 13/45
… grammar (both English and German have articles – the/der. Thai does not), and syntax (German places the adjective before the noun – the green apple/der grüne Apfel, while in Thai the noun precedes the adjective – แอปเปิ้ลเขียว, roughly ‘apple green’). 14/45
So, the linguistics question becomes ‘how close do two structured systems of communication between humans need to be such that they are considered variants (or in your terms ‘dialects’) of the same language?’ 15/45
This brings to bare the notion of ‘the tyranny of the discontinuous mind’. The gratuitous manufacturing of discontinuity in a continuous reality. The imposition of hard borders where none exist. 16/45
In the example you give, it is quite plain that there are differences between what is written there and what might be written in a ‘standard’ English rendering of the same thoughts. It is also quite plain that there are similarities. 17/45
So, are the differences different enough to describe that passage as written in a different language to English? Alternatively, are the similarities similar enough for one to be considered a variant of the other? 18/45
We could ask a ‘standard’ English speaker to read it and tell us what it says. That would give us a clue as to whether they are sufficiently similar for one to be intelligible to a speaker of only the other. Again, you tell me. Or ask a speaker of ‘standard’ English. 19/45
You ask specifically about the presence of ‘words found only in English’. First, if we can agree that the passage is in Scots, which (scare quotes notwithstanding) you have implied is the case, then the premise is incorrect. 20/45
The words that you say appear only in English, by your definition, do not only appear in English. They also appear in Scots. Perhaps then they are borrowed from English. This is normal. Lots of languages have incorporated loan words from other languages. For example… 21/45
‘Le weekend’ - English borrowed into French; a ‘matinee’ performance – French borrowed into English; ‘kiosk’ – Turkish borrowed into English, and so on. 22/45
Indeed, so much of English is borrowed from other languages that, if the presence of ‘non-native’ words is the defining criterion, one might very well ask if English is a language in its own right or a dialect of other Indo-European languages. 23/45
So, that doesn’t get us very far. So how about Scots being a Creole. Creoles are considered to be languages in their own right, but they are made up of substrates and superstrates. The superstrate (or lexifier) of Jamaican Creole, for example, is English. 24/45
That is, many of the words in Jamaican Creole are linguistically close to English words. Its substrate comes from African languages. That is, the grammar to which the superstrate is applied is based on Akan, Bantu and Kwa African tribal languages. 25/45
The fact that Jamaican Creole is based on other languages says nothing of the validity of Jamaican Creole as a language in its own right. All languages are based on other languages. 26/45
So, Scots may be a kind of Creole, with an English influenced superstrate and perhaps a Gaelic influenced substrate. Whether it is or not (and I must profess ignorance on this specific point) Creoles are nonetheless considered languages in their own right. 27/45
To sum up the linguistics point of view: there is no difference between a language and a dialect that can be argued on objective linguistic grounds. All we have are language variants. Some of those variants are close to each other: … 28/45
Portuguese and Spanish, Thai and Lao, German and Austrian, Scots and English. Some are distant from each other: Italian and Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese and Gaelic, etc. The validity of Scots as a language is unassailable from this point of view. @Lenniesaurus is correct. 29/45
So, to the socio-political view: 30/45
Sociolinguist Max Weinreich defined the difference between a language and a dialect as follows: “A language has an army and a navy”. What he meant by that is that any notion that unitary languages exist is wrapped up in socially constructed phenomena like nationhood. 31/45
National boundaries are arbitrary - England only stops being England in the middle of the channel because it has come to an agreement with France that that is where one stops and the other starts – there is nothing objective to say that that is where it should stop. 32/45
In exactly the same way, the abstract borders between named languages are arbitrary. We only call Portuguese Portuguese (and not a dialect of Spanish) because of the arbitrary physical border between the two countries. 33/45
The two languages are very close, to the extent that a speaker of one can understand much of what is said by a speaker of the other. Conversely, in China, for example, it is common to think of Cantonese and Mandarin as two Chinese dialects. 34/45
However, they are linguistically much more distant compared Spanish and Portuguese. Because Mandarin and Cantonese sit inside the same national border, unlike Spanish and Portuguese, some say they are different dialects. But these are ideological not linguistic. grounds. 35/45
Following the same logic, one can argue that Scots is a different language to English because English sits inside England and Scots sits inside Scotland. 36/45
If, however, you want to use to notion of unitary languages as a way to argue that Scotland and England are the same thing (a single socio-political entity), you can argue that Scots is an English dialect (or that English is a Scots dialect if you like). 37/45
But when you do either of those things you have to acknowledge that you are doing so on a subjective ideological point, not an objective linguistic one. 38/45
You have suggested that I might be a nationalist separatist. I am not. I am a third-generation Scottish immigrant to England. My grandfather enjoyed freedom of movement within this island, as (for now) do I. 39/45
But I think that the question of Scottish independence is one for the people of Scotland. I would prefer that we remain united, but I understand why some Scots might not agree. 40/45
What I am quite sure of is that belittling members of the Scottish community who use Scots on the basis that it is not a real language is hardly a sensible way to win hearts and minds if preserving the Union is your goal. 41/45
In sum: The validity of Scots as a language cannot be questioned on the basis of objective linguistic criteria. By the same token, the difference between a language and a dialect cannot be determined by objective linguistic criteria. There is no difference – only distance. 42/45
Therefore, arguments about the difference between a language and a dialect can only be made on socio-political grounds. That’s fine, but you must recognise that such arguments are subjective and ideological, not objective or immutable. 43/45
One cannot, therefore, say that the mere presence of English loan words in a Scots passage of writing constitutes “proof [that] Scots is an English dialect of the British Isles.” No such “proof” is available to you. 44/45
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. 45/45
*letting me know
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