I’ll be reading some Robert Burns poetry this weekend, and I want to make sure my pronunciation is reasonably correct. Is today’s (Lalland) Scots language close to the way Burns would have pronounced it in the late 1700’s?
Is there anyplace I could get hold of an MP3 of somebody reciting Bruce’s address from Bannockburn and/or John Barleycorn using the correct inflections?
Thanks, all!
I have no idea what “Lalland” Scots is, and I’m Scottish.
As for Burns, since he was from Ayrshire his accent would have been quite distinctive (I’m guessing this due to the fact that the Ayrshire accent now is very different to any other part of Scotland).
Are there any words you are having particular difficulty pronouncing?
Possibly pseudo-Sottish for ‘lowland’?
Don’t worry too much about the pronunciation. I have been asked to read “Tam O’Shanter” for three Burns Nights running; my advise was to read it as it is written. He did an incredible job of reproducing the sounds of the language.
Have some more of the haggis. It really is tasty.
For your amusement, http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/burnsnight/poetry/index.shtml
Realplayer, not MP3.
It’s the term used by certain Scottish folks to describe the Scottish Language - distinct from both Gaelic and English - that they use. Lallans (this is the spelling I’ve generally seen) or Scots, as it’s called, is descended from Old English and generally considered by English speakers to be a dialect of English. Those who claim it’s a separate language point out that it’s been linguistically distinct from English for over a thousand years. There were quite a few dialects of Old English, and many existed (and were rather mutually incomprehensible) into the Middle English period, but in England, the speech of London displaced all the other dialects/nascent languages. In Scotland, the local Old English dialect survived.
Personally, as an American, I find Scots incomprehensible in both written and spoken forms. Others will no doubt be in to claim (as they do in SDMB threads on the subject) that it’s easy to understand, but I think this speaks to having developed a degree of bilingualism; I suspect it takes some time for a native English speaker to develop the ability to understand Scots.
What Burns sounded like is pretty much guess work, as we obviously have no recordings of him or anyone of the period. But it’s safe to say that he did not sound like modern day Scots speakers. As with any language, dialect or accent, Scots is in a constant state of change. This change may have slowed in the last 100 years, as the numbers of ‘pure’ Scots speakers has reduced, but it has certainly had plenty of time to evolve since Burns’ day.
IMHO, if you haven’t studied Burns or Scots to any great extent it’s not worth attempting to get a genuine pronunciation. You’ll not get it and the chances are you’ll only bamboozle your listeners, which is hardly the point of reading aloud. Far better to read in your natural accent a reasonably phonetical representation of what’s written. It won’t be as Burns intended, but won’t get people laughing at you or scratching their heads either.
Yes, I got that wrong. I discovered that the language I’ve been calling Scots is officially called Lallans (for cites I’ll present the Scots Language Society and the Lowlands-L mailing list). When I was typing the message my hindbrain said “Lallans,” my forebrain said “Lowland,” and my fingers came out with “Lalland.” Humph. I gotta get these guys working together.
Great site, DrFidelius. Thank you!
A couple of specific questions from Auld Lang Syne:
“And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp”
“But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit”
And, by the way, I’m not trying to imitate Burns’ pronunciation–I’m just trying not to butcher it.
I believe it’s pronounced “Moan-y”