Happy Glasgow Fair Monday!
“…on one occasion the Highland Queen was berthed by the master and a boy, the rest of the crew being quite incapable…”
Steamships, “steaming”, drunkenness & “smùid” – Donald Meek on going doon the watter, & early Scottish booze-cruising
https://meekwrite.blogspot.com/2013/04/maritime-and-linguistic-studies.html
She’s goat her legs oot –
her foldin plastic chair
oan the gress at Glesga Green –
an her airms an enough
creamy dimpled bosom
tae please Renoir…
—Sheila Templeton, “Glesga Fair”
published in Songs of Other Places: New Writing Scotland 32 (ASL, 2014)
Happy Fair Weekend to all the Glasgow Fairies!
17 July 1537: Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis convicted of treason #otd for conspiring & imagining the death of James V of #Scots #otd
Burnt at #Edinburgh’s Castle Hill
Never thought I'd hear the word "bawheid" on Star Trek #bawheid #StarTrek #StarTrekSNW #StrangeNewWorlds #MontgomeryScot #Scotty #Scots #Albais #ABheurlaGhallda #Alba #Scotland
I'm #translating #Scots fiction about sailing. This is made easier by a) Scots being full of Scandy words that I know, b) me knowing how to sail and what the Scandy sailing terminology is like.
I'm glad this isn't Welsh fiction about coal mining.
Literary translation as a linguistic survival strategy | John Corbett
Technology can threaten minority languages such as Scots & Nuosu. Prof Corbett argues that literary translation can, among other things, support minority languages & sustain traditional cultures.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Using #Scots dictionaries I'm reminded of Swedish dialect dictionaries. A lot of the words are genuinely different from the vocab in the standard majority language. But others are just bloody-minded separatist spelling conventions for words that are actually shared with the majority. I mean, "stey" when you mean "stay"? Come on. Focus on what's actually distinct.
Rhoda Bulter’s “A Coorse Day” read by Jacqueline Clark
3/3
Da spindrift hings across da soond,
An da sea braks right up ower da Taen;
Da reek is flannin ta da flür,
An da ben laft’s runnin in again…
—Rhoda Bulter, “A Coorse Day”
2/3
I can see da rüfs aa taekit, an da hens aroond da door;
Fok kerryin twartree paets hame, an rigs delled every voar.
Aa da lums ir reekin, an I hear da happy soonds
O peerie bairns skirlin, as dey play dem ower da toons…
—“Da Clearance”, by Rhoda Bulter (1929–94), born #OTD, 15 July
A – 1/3
Listen to Rhoda Bulter reading “Da Clearance” here
I'm translating #Scots dialogue in R.L. Stevenson using https://dsl.ac.uk/, and when I look up rare words I find that they cite the story I'm translating.
13 July 1174: William I of #Scots captured at Alnwick #otd by the #English. Henry II regarded it as a miracle of Thomas Becket of #Canterbury.
Which is quite the retrospective spin by the man who had Becket killed...