I met someone once who had a Bible that was written entirely in a Scottish dialect. I believe that the young woman said that this was referred to as a “Scots Braids” Bible. Is that term familiar to anyone? Where can I locate such a Bible?
I am not referring to the book A Scots Gospel by Jamie Stuart. What I am wanting is much more comprehensive.
It exists, or at least the New Testament does: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841951447/wwwlink-software-21/026-9065792-6362050
And there’s a page image here: http://libraries.ou.edu/etc/bible/scottish.asp
It was probably the 1901 translation by Rev. William Wye Smith, called The New Testament in Braid Scots. It was apparently reprinted in 1904 and (according to some sources in 1924), but it is now out of print. A search of used book sites on the Internet indicates you can get it for between fifteen and two hundred dollars (plus shipping) depending on edition and condition.
Braid Scots an English dialect (or if you prefer, a language closely related to English) that is spoken by some people in the Lowlands of Scotland. “Braid” here is the Scots form of “broad” a word used in this sense to describe a distinctive accent or dialect.
Thank you both very much. I have tried to find information for years!
This would diverge into GD territory, but I feel strongly that respecting Scots as a distinct language that has become convergent with English is the proper move. The alternative would be to say something like “Dutch and Flemish: a variant dialect of the substandard Low German dialects, spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium respectively, and erroneously regarded as separate languages there.”
It’s a distinct language, with a few non-English wordforms and idioms, with a distinct national identity and literature, having much the same ancestral composition as English, and extremely strongly influenced by the much more widespread English, to the point that the two have converged to virtual identity.
(I’m not Scots in any significant part of my ancestry; I just believe in working with consistent definitions.)
Thank you, Polycarp, that’s the kind of succinct explanation of Scots that is all-too-lacking in most parts of Britain.