About Scots gaelic...

[Southern Breeze]

I always thought that Scots and Scots Gaelic were the same thing. It's not just kilts that you learn about here.

[highlander_Daz]

Irish and Scots Gaelic share about 75% of the same words but many are pronounced differently, the langauage sounds very different than English and an English speaking person would be unable to understand either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic_language

http://www.savegaelic.org/ this is very good

George W Bush recently used the word "Kerfuffle" in a speech, which is a word derived from Gàidhlig.

Lallans http://www.lallans.co.uk/scots_steids.html

is sometimes spoken in the Lowlands, its a variantion of English and an English speaker can cut through the different pronounciation and understand most of the words

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Language

there is an interesting article on the letter "yogh" which looks like and old Z and resulted in words like "menzies" being pronounced "Mingus" but written "Menzies" becasues the Yogh looks like an old Z rather like a letter 3 so the letter Yogh would be replaced by a Z.

good luck

[Moosehead]

Ah, that would explain why Dalziel is pronounced Diell.

[highlander_Daz]

Correct Moose, the letter "yogh" looks like a number 3 with a tail which is an old way of writing a letter Z. somewhere along the line someone has mistaken the letter Yogh for a Z when writing down names.

[longshadows]

Ah, that would explain why Dalziel is pronounced Diell.

(This is fun!) Check out more on the old "yog" at this excellent site: BBC News


Cheers!

[highlander_Daz]

Quote of the week


"I don't speak Old English or Old Scots. Neither does anybody else. It's pretentious upper-class twaddle.
Neil Hoskins, Aylesbury, UK"

Welcome to Little England!

anyone whos ever worked in PR or sales knows that the easiest way to lose a sale or upset a client is to pronounce thier name wrong -and its basic bad manners.

great article very through, I love the guys asking how to pronounce Yogurt, you couldnt make it up!

[Moosehead]

"I don't speak Old English or Old Scots. Neither does anybody else. It's pretentious upper-class twaddle.

Yes, noticed that. More likely, this gent is a pretentious, upper-class twa...)

[highlander_Daz]

Twaddler?

[mudd]

Scots and Scots Gaelic are two completely different languages.

Rabbie Burns wrote in Scots, as does our good friend Pour1Malt. Scots is the language of the Lowland Scots, and is a Western Germanic language which has its origins in the Anglian dialect of German brought by the Angles when the settled on the east coast of Britain.

Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are related, although the Scottish variety has a bit of a softer sound to it; there's more aspiration, I believe, in Scottish Gaelic as opposed to Irish Gaelic. I believe that someone who speaks one could understand someone who speaks the other, much akin to, say, a Swiss German speaker and a high German speaker. It might take some effort on the part of one to understand the other, but it wouldn't be too difficult.

Someone who spoke only Scots would not be able to understand someone who spoke only Scottish Gaelic, and vice versa.

I always thought that, what you called Scots, is simply English with a Scottish Gaelic accent.

[highlander_Daz]

there is no "Scots" accent there are regional variations, which to be fair do sound similar to non scots, often when television programmes films etc. are set in one part of Scotland, the actors are from a different part of Scotland, I recently watched a film about Loch ness to find that the Highlands had been taken over by Glaswegians, a bit like watching Dallas and JR and co haveing New york accents. thats why so many people get the accent so wrong when trying to mimic it-there isnt one ! theres a wide spectrum.

Edward Woodward does a reasonable Highland accent in "The Wicker man" I think we had a thread on Accents before. there are some nice highland accents in Hamish Macbeth, although in some epsodes Robert Carlysle hops between the Highlands and Lowlands.
Johnny Depp isnt bad in finding neverland you can tell hes really done his homework and focused on one specific regional accent rather than a stereotypical Scots accent.