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The Royal Society of EdinburghRSE @ 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 fromtheir complex histories. This talk explored how present-day speech and writing canbe used to find out how people spoke in the past, and an attempt was made, usingevidence such as place names, to link language development to geography as wellas history. The focus was on English and Scots, but the discussion was relevant forother languages as well.

Professor Smith started by commenting that, as a language historian, it was excitingfor him to be speaking to an audience in a linguistically complicated location. Heexplained that his talk would focus on language, linguistic phenomena and howcurrent language can reveal interesting things about its history. During his drive toKilchoan, Professor Smith had the opportunity to see many road signs, whichcontained evidence of many different languages, including varieties of Celtic, Gaelicand Norse. Celtic and forms of the Gaelic language were once widespread acrossEurope and evidence of this can still be seen in references to Galicia in Spain, Gauland even the Turkish football club Galatasaray. Place names can take on their ownlife 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 explainedthat Kilchoan is formed from two parts, Kil originating from the Gaelic word forChurch, Cille, and Choan, relating to an individual named Chmhghain, whofounded the church in this location. Other words found in place names in the areaalso have recognisable elements: the Ach inAcharacle means field; Allt relates toburn; Ard meaning point or high place, found in place names includingArdgourandArdnamurchan; 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 notactually have an equivalent in English. Professor Smith commented that it is usuallyobvious 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 morerounded in shape. Gaelic place names can also be quite poetic, for exampleBuachaille Etive Mor in Glencoe translates as The Great Shepherd of Etive.However, many of the place names are also descriptive and once translated intoEnglish are not quite so poetic; for example Ben MororBeinn Mhorsimply meansBig Hill.

Professor Smith commented that it is also interesting to consider the way in whichlanguages interact with each other. Language is not a pure entity, it borrows wordsand becomes corrupted over time and place. An example of this is found in the Scotsword dreich, which many would assume is authentically Scottish but is in factderived 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 placesusing this Norse term are found throughout Europe in locations where the Norsemensettled; ingvelliror Thingvellirin Iceland; Thingwall on the Wirral near Liverpool,

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Tynwald, the Manx Parliament; and Tinwald in Dumfriesshire. Furthermore, theYorkshire Ridings were originally referred to as the Thrithings and have nowdeveloped into the Three Ridings. Kirkcudbright in south west Scotland is anexcellent illustration of how a place name can incorporate different languages andcultures. Cudbright refers to the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert; the Northumbrianhegemony spread from the north of England to southern parts of Scotland. Kirk isthe Norse for church and therefore, the word Kirkcudbright means the church ofSaint Cuthbert. The third interesting cultural element ofKirkcudbright refers to thesequencing of the two words Kirk and Cudbright which is in a Celtic format. InGermanic languages, names are usually ordered with the specific element followedby the generic part, for example, Jeremy (specific) Smith (generic). This is theopposite to Celtic names, for example, Edinburgh was formerly known as the CelticDunedin; the Dun referring to Castle and Edin being the specific part, EdinsCastle. In the current Germanic format Edin has been brought to the front and Dunhas been replaced with Burgh, changing the meaning from Castle to Town or inthe German language, fortified town. Kirkcudbright, therefore, brings together threecultures 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 anarea with a rich history of settlement by different cultures.

Following the discussion about place names, Professor Smith continued byconsidering the history of the English and Scots languages. English has existed formany centuries and is found, in its earliest forms, carved on stones and depicted inrunes and inscriptions dating from 7th Century. The earliest printed books in Englishdate from the 15th Century, and from the 16th Century onwards scholars began toconsider that English itself was worth studying and books were written detailing howthe language was pronounced. At the end of the 19th Century, technology wasdeveloped and used to record peoples speech on cylinders. The Scots language isvery 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 ofEnglish. A language akin to Scots has been documented since the 14th Century.Materials and resources from the past are known as witnesses and scholars todayspend much of their time interrogating these witnesses. Professor Smith commentedthat a major resource for the study of the history of language, other than inscriptionsand text, is the present-day language. Its current format is the result of history andthe things people say and write and their accents are receptacles of history. J ust asplace names are markers of historical development, so is the speech and writingused by everyone, everyday. The present can explain the past just as the past canexplain 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 ofperiods: Old English up to 1100AD, a particular version of Anglo-Saxon known asOld Northumbrian; Older Scots to about 1375, of which only fragments of informationremain; Early Scots from 1375 to 1450; Middle Scots from 1450 to 1700; and ModernScots, 1700 to present day. Professor Smith explained that from around the period ofModern Scots, it is also possible to distinguish a form of the language known asScottish Standard English. People started to write about this in the 18th Century andreferred to it as Scottish purged of vulgarity. Languages and their developmentcannot be formatted in to a rigid family tree-style diagram with set boundaries andspecific dates when changes occurred. Language development is a more fluidprocess with ongoing subtle changes; for example to vocabulary, altering it over timeand place. Professor Smith likens language to a river picking up and depositingmaterial as it moves along.

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Scots vocabulary is formed from various different sources. Words originating fromCeltic often relate to cultural objects, animals and topographical features. Othersources include Low German, with words such as golf and scone and, aspreviously mentioned, Norse words, for example, dreich. There are also wordsderiving from French, such as fash, from the verb facher (to be irritated) and wordsrelating 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 fromold English are often mono-syllabic nouns which form the core vocabulary, such ashand, 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 theNorman Conquest when people wanted to use French-derived words to indicate theirstatus and intelligence. It is interesting that many of these posh words are notspecial in French, they are simply the basic word that everyone would use. They donot have any connotations of grandeur; for example, regard from the verbregarder (to look at) and commence from commencer (to begin). There are alsomany words from Latin and increasingly from other languages, such Urdu and Hindi,

for example, pyjamas, bungalow and shampoo. These words are often describedas loan words, but Professor Smith commented that this is not technically correct asit suggests they will be given back at some point. However, sometimes words dodrop out of favour and are no longer used in a language.

Evidence of the sources of words, can be found in documents, ancient poetry andwriting and in inscriptions on material culture. Old English looked very different to thelanguage we read today; it included different letters such as one similar to theIcelandic thorn, (, ), standing for f. There were also letters known as Ash, ( )and Eth (, ). Professor Smith read a piece of the poemBeowulfin Old Englishpronunciation, commenting that some academics differ on how they believe it waspronounced, 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 OldEnglish had more than one word for the and special endings for the depending onthe role it was playing in the sentence. This is common in an inflected language; theyhave special endings to denote the relationships between words. Old Englishsurvives in manuscripts; for example, the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century.This manuscript draws on the Celtic traditions of book illumination and uses thediminuendo whereby the first word of the section starts with a big letter andsubsequent letters decrease in size within that word. In this manuscript there are alsoscribbles that have been added at a later date. Professor Smith explained that thesewere added around 1050 byAldred, who felt the need to gloss the manuscript andadded 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 wordsare not very exciting or revealing but their existence is of utmost importance to thehistory of language. Over time the English language developed and changed; forexample, the Ellesmere manuscript ofChaucers Canterbury Tales is written inMiddle English and looks and sounds more recognisable than the Old English ofBeowulf. One of the earliest Scots texts to have continually been in print is BarboursBruce. Originally composed in the 1370s, it was first compiled in a printed edition in1616, the cover of which makes a claim for authenticity in that it was created from theoldest manuscripts.

Professor Smith also showed examples from other early texts, including the firstShakespeare folio, dating from 1623, and written in Early Modern English. In the linefromMacbeth, 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

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fancy word borrowed from another language, in this case Latin, which is deemed tobe unnecessary or overly pretentious. Shakespeare uses it here to show an elementof class. In some of his other plays, for example, Loves Labours Lost, Shakespearemocks the use of these words but uses it here as a character trait; Macbeth and hiswife often try to hide things using fancy words, for example the great kwell, an oldword for killing. Shakespeare was the first person to use the word incarnadine inEnglish. 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 DunbarsGolden Targe, in which Dunbar uses something similar to an inkhorn term in thephrase golden candle matutine, (golden morning candle), referring to the sun.Matutine is an aureate term. These date a little earlier than inkhorn terms and arederived from the Roman Catholic liturgy, which is then transferred across to thevernacular. Aureate means gilded or gold; fancy in some way. A final text, BurnsTam OShanter, includes elements of Scottish Standard English. The words hameand dame rhyme in Scots but storm rhyming with warm is Scottish StandardEnglish, they do not rhyme in Scots pronunciation. This is the beginning of thephenomenon of language and class; 18th Century Scotland was beginning to

associate some words and pronunciations with particular class groups, somethingthat had been common in English since the 16th Century.

During the latter part of the talk, Professor Smith encouraged the audience toparticipate in some interactive exercises used to show the differences inpronunciation. There are many examples in Scots where the Old Englishpronunciation has been kept where it has changed in English; for example How nowbrown cow is Hoo noo broon coo in Scots. Some sounds have mostly disappearedeven in Scots. The gh in the word sight would originally have had a guttural soundsimilar to that at the end of lochl; this can still be seen in some pronunciations ofbright (bricht) and might (micht). Scots pronunciations can still be found in manyparts of the world with Scottish connections, for example, Ulster and the

Appalachians in the United States. The words good, food and flood are largelypronounced in different ways in England and Scotland; in Scotland good and foodrhyme but do not in England, the vowel is longer in many parts of England andmakes an oo sound. However, speakers of English from both countries pronounceflood the same. Why do these words sound different despite the end letters beingexactly the same? There have often been suggestions that spelling should change toreflect the differences; however, this ignores the basic function of spelling. Languagein its written mode is designed for long distance communication through both timeand space. Spelling is a fossil history and contains evidence of how words werepronounced in the past. It can be convenient to have an agreed spelling system thatis not dependent upon the pronunciation; otherwise fish could be spelled ghoti!

A Vote of Thanks was offered by Professor J an McDonald FRSE

Opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the RSE, nor of its Fellows

The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotlands National Academy, is Scottish Charity No. SC000470