I thought this article might end up just being a somewhat tired regurgitation of the well known habit English speakers have of borrowing words from other languages (and enriching English). But it does bear reading - the delegitimisation of a language, Scots in this case.
![From the linked article. A man reads part of the Oxford Dictionary of English with the text
How the English dictionary took Scots words and branded them 'slang
THE Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has delegitimised the Scots language by adding several new “Scottish” words.
While English and Scots are sister languages characterised by mutual intelligibility, they are still very much separate languages with their own grammar, syntax and words. But decades of cultural oppression persist and Scots remains reduced to either slang, or, in this case, an offshoot of English.
One of the recently added Scots words is “scaffie”, meaning “raggedy”. But writing as a Scots language author who spent nine years living in England, I never once heard an English-only speaker say scaffie (also spelled as scaffy). The other recent additions to the English dictionary – including “loup” and “gowp” – are even worse.
READ MORE: Bòrd na Gàidhlig invites Reform for talks after attack on Gaelic language
Fiona McPherson, the Scottish executive editor at the OED, said: “It’s always special when I get to work on Scottish words, and those included in this update of the OED are evocative and familiar.
“While new to the OED, [others] have long established histories. Loup and gowp are found as early as the 16th and 18th centuries respectively, meaning ‘of the heart, blood: to beat or pulse rapidly or strongly’. The later sense of ‘to throb or ache with a pulsating pain’ has also been included.”
There are many things wrong with this statement. The most glaring being that the dictionary’s Scottish executive editor chose to describe these words as Scottish and not examples of the Scots language – a year on from Scots receiving legal recognition and protection for the first time in history with the Scottish Languages Act.
This emphasises how far we still have to go when it comes to having Scots recognised as a leid. Especially as it has legal recognition by Unesco since 2009 and the European Charter for Minority Languages since 2001.
According to the OED, for a word to be included, its development needs to be researched using sources including “newspaper archives, online forums, academic studies, magazines, law tracts, recipe books, or social media for published evidence of the word”. But if the new additions are anything to go by, the Scots origins of these words have been ignored and/or reduced.
While languages mix and evolve over time and a lot of words are “loaned” from one leid to another, their origins need to be acknowledged and respected, especially by an institution with as much linguistic respect as the OED.](/proxy/post_attachment/1127229/ca422a553e.png "From the linked article. A man reads part of the Oxford Dictionary of English with the text
How the English dictionary took Scots words and branded them 'slang
THE Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has delegitimised the Scots language by adding several new “Scottish” words.
While English and Scots are sister languages characterised by mutual intelligibility, they are still very much separate languages with their own grammar, syntax and words. But decades of cultural oppression persist and Scots remains reduced to either slang, or, in this case, an offshoot of English.
One of the recently added Scots words is “scaffie”, meaning “raggedy”. But writing as a Scots language author who spent nine years living in England, I never once heard an English-only speaker say scaffie (also spelled as scaffy). The other recent additions to the English dictionary – including “loup” and “gowp” – are even worse.
READ MORE: Bòrd na Gàidhlig invites Reform for talks after attack on Gaelic language
Fiona McPherson, the Scottish executive editor at the OED, said: “It’s always special when I get to work on Scottish words, and those included in this update of the OED are evocative and familiar.
“While new to the OED, [others] have long established histories. Loup and gowp are found as early as the 16th and 18th centuries respectively, meaning ‘of the heart, blood: to beat or pulse rapidly or strongly’. The later sense of ‘to throb or ache with a pulsating pain’ has also been included.”
There are many things wrong with this statement. The most glaring being that the dictionary’s Scottish executive editor chose to describe these words as Scottish and not examples of the Scots language – a year on from Scots receiving legal recognition and protection for the first time in history with the Scottish Languages Act.
This emphasises how far we still have to go when it comes to having Scots recognised as a leid. Especially as it has legal recognition by Unesco since 2009 and the European Charter for Minority Languages since 2001.
According to the OED, for a word to be included, its development needs to be researched using sources including “newspaper archives, online forums, academic studies, magazines, law tracts, recipe books, or social media for published evidence of the word”. But if the new additions are anything to go by, the Scots origins of these words have been ignored and/or reduced.
While languages mix and evolve over time and a lot of words are “loaned” from one leid to another, their origins need to be acknowledged and respected, especially by an institution with as much linguistic respect as the OED.")
Edited 56d ago