Lallans

Whit leid ye spak? asked Morag (Scotland), Scrieve en Lallans!

Ma mither tung be Lallans. As a wee bairn I was aye blethrin the Lallans leid, nae scrieven, fer I wis but fower.

Scots frae Sterling tae Perth, south tae the Border, took nae pains their speech to balance, or rules to gie; but spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans like you or me. Lallans = lowlands (engl.); Scots frae the Hielans are aye blethrin in Gaelic (or Doric).

Robert Louis Stevenson scrieve :
"What tongue does your auld bookie speak?"
He'll spier; an' I, his mou to steik:
"No bein' fit to write in Greek,
I wrote in Lallan,
Dear to my heart as the peat reek,
Auld as Tantallon.

But poet Sydney Smith hae scrievit :
We've come intil a gey queer time
Whan scrievin Scots is near a crime,
'There's no one speaks like that', they fleer,
-But wha the deil spoke like King Lear?

FYI, the Scots Leid Associe wis fundit i 1972 wi an anely brief: tae promuive the Scots leid and leitratur bi furthsettin the anely magazine dedicatit til new Scots scrievin. Ower five decades later, that is the meission else. Asides Lallans, they rin an annual Scots-leid scrievin competition, the Sangschaw, an forby hae furthset an anely ingaitherin o Scots-leid recordins in the Scotsoun series o CDs. Mairfortaken, they hae annual Collogues, whaur they ingaither memmers an hear talks on Scots-leid cultur an hear Sangschaw winners readin their nain wark.

But, Morag, I want this blog to be read throughout the English speaking world, so I write it in English. When I attended my mother`s funeral a decade or more ago, the rest of the clan were speaking Lallans, and I found I could understand them, even Linda Fraser, but it took me 3 days until I could speak Lallans again. Been too long in Germany? If any readers have an interest in Lallans, I would point you to

It came out in 1985 afaik, the ISBN is 0-08-028491-4. It was a present, so I do not know what it costs. But beware, it only translates from Lallans to English, not vice versa.
If you are a Scot, or now brave enough to try reading a modern book written totally in Lallans, I can recommend But n Ben A-Go-Go, a science fiction work by Scots writer Matthew Fitt, notable for being entirely in the Scots language. The novel was first published in 2000.

ISBN-13 : 978-0946487820, make sure you get the paperback version. Amazon.de charges far too much for the hardback.

Comments (6)
Billions of Versions... wrote " Google translate doesn't have Lallen. The dictionaries mention it though. That must have driven your spell-checker nuts." Two spelling mistakes which I have just corrected myself. One grammatical error I have left in though, because I am no longer master of the language.
Schorsch (D) asks "Is it an own language or just a dialect?" There is a holy war about that, but I am not getting involved; although Google Translate does support Scottish Gaelic, which supports the argument that Lallens is merely a dialect in their opinion.
Morag (GB) points me to this book by Billy Kay ;-

Surprise; I also own a copy. The ISBN is 1 85158 033 6 published in 1986.
Ed (USA) asks "How many languages do you speak?" In order of learning : Lallans (badly), English(fluent), French(schoolboy), Latin(mostly just reading), German(fluent). So 5, but only 2 fluently, all the rest (e.g cold war Russian) I have forgotten. For comparison, 25 of the 45 US presidents only spoke English, but Adams and Jefferson allegedly spoke 6 to 9 languages !!!
Jenny (Ibiza) jokes "So why is it called the mother tongue? Because Dads can`t get a word in!" Groan.
Petra (A) notes "The German verb lallen means to babble drunkenly ;-)" That sounds Scots too ;-)

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on August 4, 2024 permalink Comments Email

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