The Royal Society of Edinburgh RSE @ Lochaber English and Scots: Using the Past to Explain the Present

Professor Jeremy Smith FRSE Friday 24 May 2013, West Highland College, Kilchoan Report by Kate Kennedy The character and distribution of the languages of present-day Britain derive from their complex histories. This talk explored how present-day speech and writing can be used to find out how people spoke in the past, and an attempt was made, using evidence such as place names, to link language development to geography as well as history. The focus was on English and Scots, but the discussion was relevant for other languages as well. Professor Smith started by commenting that, as a language historian, it was exciting for him to be speaking to an audience in a linguistically complicated location. He explained that his talk would focus on language, linguistic phenomena and how current language can reveal interesting things about its history. During his drive to Kilchoan, Professor Smith had the opportunity to see many road signs, which contained evidence of many different languages, including varieties of Celtic, Gaelic and Norse. Celtic and forms of the Gaelic language were once widespread across Europe and evidence of this can still be seen in references to Galicia in Spain, Gaul and even the Turkish football club Galatasaray. Place names can take on their own life and remain in the landscape, even when the people who first used them have long since moved on and the originating language is no longer spoken in a place. Considering the local Gaelic place names in more depth, Professor Smith explained that Kilchoan is formed from two parts, Kil originating from the Gaelic word for Church, Cille, and Choan, relating to an individual named Chmhghain, who founded the church in this location. Other words found in place names in the area also have recognisable elements: the Ach in Acharacle means field; Allt relates to burn; Ard meaning point or high place, found in place names including Ardgour and Ardnamurchan; Bal referring to farm or township; and Ben meaning Hill. However, some words found in Gaelic place names, such as Corrie, Larig and Meall, do not actually have an equivalent in English. Professor Smith commented that it is usually obvious from a mountains name what shape it will be; those named Sgurr or Stob will usually have pointed peaks, whereas those described as Meall are more rounded in shape. Gaelic place names can also be quite poetic, for example Buachaille Etive Mor in Glencoe translates as The Great Shepherd of Etive. However, many of the place names are also descriptive and once translated into English are not quite so poetic; for example Ben Mor or Beinn Mhor simply means Big Hill. Professor Smith commented that it is also interesting to consider the way in which languages interact with each other. Language is not a pure entity, it borrows words and becomes corrupted over time and place. An example of this is found in the Scots word dreich, which many would assume is authentically Scottish but is in fact derived from an Old Norse word. Norse has left its mark on many Scottish place names and other aspects of the language. For example, the place name Dingwall, relates to the Norse word meaning a place for a traditional assembly. Other places using this Norse term are found throughout Europe in locations where the Norsemen settled; ingvellir or Thingvellir in Iceland; Thingwall on the Wirral near Liverpool,

Tynwald, the Manx Parliament; and Tinwald in Dumfriesshire. Furthermore, the Yorkshire Ridings were originally referred to as the Thrithings and have now developed into the Three Ridings. Kirkcudbright in south west Scotland is an excellent illustration of how a place name can incorporate different languages and cultures. Cudbright refers to the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert; the Northumbrian hegemony spread from the north of England to southern parts of Scotland. Kirk is the Norse for church and therefore, the word Kirkcudbright means the church of Saint Cuthbert. The third interesting cultural element of Kirkcudbright refers to the sequencing of the two words Kirk and Cudbright which is in a Celtic format. In Germanic languages, names are usually ordered with the specific element followed by the generic part, for example, Jeremy (specific) Smith (generic). This is the opposite to Celtic names, for example, Edinburgh was formerly known as the Celtic Dunedin; the Dun referring to Castle and Edin being the specific part, Edins Castle. In the current Germanic format Edin has been brought to the front and Dun has been replaced with Burgh, changing the meaning from Castle to Town or in the German language, fortified town. Kirkcudbright, therefore, brings together three cultures of the region; it has a Celtic ordering, a Norse generic and includes the name of an Anglo-Saxon saint. Existence of such place names usually indicates an area with a rich history of settlement by different cultures. Following the discussion about place names, Professor Smith continued by considering the history of the English and Scots languages. English has existed for many centuries and is found, in its earliest forms, carved on stones and depicted in runes and inscriptions dating from 7th Century. The earliest printed books in English date from the 15th Century, and from the 16th Century onwards scholars began to consider that English itself was worth studying and books were written detailing how the language was pronounced. At the end of the 19th Century, technology was developed and used to record peoples speech on cylinders. The Scots language is very closely related to English, but has a complicated relationship with it; some people regard it as a distinct language and others as a dialect or sub-variety of English. A language akin to Scots has been documented since the 14th Century. Materials and resources from the past are known as witnesses and scholars today spend much of their time interrogating these witnesses. Professor Smith commented that a major resource for the study of the history of language, other than inscriptions and text, is the present-day language. Its current format is the result of history and the things people say and write and their accents are receptacles of history. Just as place names are markers of historical development, so is the speech and writing used by everyone, everyday. The present can explain the past just as the past can explain the present. The history of English is typically divided in to four periods: Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon up to around 1100AD; Middle English, the language of Chaucer; Early Modern English, the language of Shakespeare; and Late Modern English, which continues to this day. Scots and English in Scotland also has a distinct set of periods: Old English up to 1100AD, a particular version of Anglo-Saxon known as Old Northumbrian; Older Scots to about 1375, of which only fragments of information remain; Early Scots from 1375 to 1450; Middle Scots from 1450 to 1700; and Modern Scots, 1700 to present day. Professor Smith explained that from around the period of Modern Scots, it is also possible to distinguish a form of the language known as Scottish Standard English. People started to write about this in the 18th Century and referred to it as Scottish purged of vulgarity. Languages and their development cannot be formatted in to a rigid family tree-style diagram with set boundaries and specific dates when changes occurred. Language development is a more fluid process with ongoing subtle changes; for example to vocabulary, altering it over time and place. Professor Smith likens language to a river picking up and depositing material as it moves along.

Scots vocabulary is formed from various different sources. Words originating from Celtic often relate to cultural objects, animals and topographical features. Other sources include Low German, with words such as golf and scone and, as previously mentioned, Norse words, for example, dreich. There are also words deriving from French, such as fash, from the verb facher (to be irritated) and words relating to Latin, which are largely found in Scots Law terminology. Furthermore, there are some Old English words which only survive in Scots, for example, gloamin, haugh and bannock. In present-day English, words that originate from old English are often mono-syllabic nouns which form the core vocabulary, such as hand, head and wife. English also has Norse words, including basic pronouns, and French words which are often used to show off. This relates to the time after the Norman Conquest when people wanted to use French-derived words to indicate their status and intelligence. It is interesting that many of these posh words are not special in French, they are simply the basic word that everyone would use. They do not have any connotations of grandeur; for example, regard from the verb regarder (to look at) and commence from commencer (to begin). There are also many words from Latin and increasingly from other languages, such Urdu and Hindi, for example, pyjamas, bungalow and shampoo. These words are often described as loan words, but Professor Smith commented that this is not technically correct as it suggests they will be given back at some point. However, sometimes words do drop out of favour and are no longer used in a language. Evidence of the sources of words, can be found in documents, ancient poetry and writing and in inscriptions on material culture. Old English looked very different to the language we read today; it included different letters such as one similar to the Icelandic thorn, (, ), standing for f. There were also letters known as Ash, ( ) and Eth (, ). Professor Smith read a piece of the poem Beowulf in Old English pronunciation, commenting that some academics differ on how they believe it was pronounced, but by and large there are accepted ways. On first look, and hearing the Old English text from Beowulf, it appears like a foreign language but, on closer study, aspects of current English can be identified. Peculiarities include the fact that Old English had more than one word for the and special endings for the depending on the role it was playing in the sentence. This is common in an inflected language; they have special endings to denote the relationships between words. Old English survives in manuscripts; for example, the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century. This manuscript draws on the Celtic traditions of book illumination and uses the diminuendo whereby the first word of the section starts with a big letter and subsequent letters decrease in size within that word. In this manuscript there are also scribbles that have been added at a later date. Professor Smith explained that these were added around 1050 by Aldred, who felt the need to gloss the manuscript and added words in between the Latin to help people read it. These scribbles are among the earliest recordings of Old Northumbrian, the ancestor of Scots. The actual words are not very exciting or revealing but their existence is of utmost importance to the history of language. Over time the English language developed and changed; for example, the Ellesmere manuscript of Chaucers Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English and looks and sounds more recognisable than the Old English of Beowulf. One of the earliest Scots texts to have continually been in print is Barbours Bruce. Originally composed in the 1370s, it was first compiled in a printed edition in 1616, the cover of which makes a claim for authenticity in that it was created from the oldest manuscripts. Professor Smith also showed examples from other early texts, including the first Shakespeare folio, dating from 1623, and written in Early Modern English. In the line from Macbeth, No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red," the verb incarnadine is placed at the end of the sentence, splitting the order of a complex verb phrase. Incarnadine is an inkhorn term, a

fancy word borrowed from another language, in this case Latin, which is deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious. Shakespeare uses it here to show an element of class. In some of his other plays, for example, Loves Labours Lost, Shakespeare mocks the use of these words but uses it here as a character trait; Macbeth and his wife often try to hide things using fancy words, for example the great kwell, an old word for killing. Shakespeare was the first person to use the word incarnadine in English. Printing started in Scotland in 1508, continued for two years and died out, only reappearing in 1560. An example of an early printed Scots text is Dunbars Golden Targe, in which Dunbar uses something similar to an inkhorn term in the phrase golden candle matutine, (golden morning candle), referring to the sun. Matutine is an aureate term. These date a little earlier than inkhorn terms and are derived from the Roman Catholic liturgy, which is then transferred across to the vernacular. Aureate means gilded or gold; fancy in some way. A final text, Burns Tam OShanter, includes elements of Scottish Standard English. The words hame and dame rhyme in Scots but storm rhyming with warm is Scottish Standard English, they do not rhyme in Scots pronunciation. This is the beginning of the phenomenon of language and class; 18th Century Scotland was beginning to associate some words and pronunciations with particular class groups, something that had been common in English since the 16th Century. During the latter part of the talk, Professor Smith encouraged the audience to participate in some interactive exercises used to show the differences in pronunciation. There are many examples in Scots where the Old English pronunciation has been kept where it has changed in English; for example How now brown cow is Hoo noo broon coo in Scots. Some sounds have mostly disappeared even in Scots. The gh in the word sight would originally have had a guttural sound similar to that at the end of lochl; this can still be seen in some pronunciations of bright (bricht) and might (micht). Scots pronunciations can still be found in many parts of the world with Scottish connections, for example, Ulster and the Appalachians in the United States. The words good, food and flood are largely pronounced in different ways in England and Scotland; in Scotland good and food rhyme but do not in England, the vowel is longer in many parts of England and makes an oo sound. However, speakers of English from both countries pronounce flood the same. Why do these words sound different despite the end letters being exactly the same? There have often been suggestions that spelling should change to reflect the differences; however, this ignores the basic function of spelling. Language in its written mode is designed for long distance communication through both time and space. Spelling is a fossil history and contains evidence of how words were pronounced in the past. It can be convenient to have an agreed spelling system that is not dependent upon the pronunciation; otherwise fish could be spelled ghoti!

A Vote of Thanks was offered by Professor Jan McDonald FRSE

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