Re: Grammar

[Neil Maclay <nmaclay@psi.prc.com>]

Poster: Neil Maclay <nmaclay@psi.prc.com>

>One clarification I would add, Scots Gaelic is not a dialect of English --
>it is a member of the Goidelic family of languages (Scots and Irish Gaelic,
>Manx) and has entirely different roots.  I assume you were referring to
>those dialects of English that were spoken in the north, not the native
>Gaelic.

When one refers to the Scots language, usually what is meant
is the language of Edinborough and the Mid-Lothian lowlands. This
is the language of Bobby Burns and it is an English dialect or
language. The language of the westen highland is called Gailic,
or by hostile lowlanders, Irish. 

One language is no more "native" than the other. When the Irish
Scotti were creating the Kingdom of Dial Riadha (sp?) in the
west of what is now Scotland, Angle settlers were creating the
Kingdom of Bernicia in the south east. By the late 9th century
Scotland was united under Kennith MacAlpine under one king who 
happened to be decended in the male line from the Scotti kings
of the west and from his maternal line from the kings of Pictland.
There were four differnt peoples and languages inside this
union: The Irish Gailic speakers of the Western Isles and
highlands, the British of Strathclyde in th south west who spoke
a P-Gailic related to Welsh, The Picts whose common language
is unkown to us but their aristocracy seem to have been strongly
influenced by the British Celts and likely spoke a British dialect,
and fourth, the English speakers of the south-east lowlands.

We can add to the linguistic soup Norse as at this time the Vikings
were colonising the far north of Scotland and the Isles. Probably
the impact of the vikings helped create the condtions for this
union. They distroyed the Kingdom of Nothumbria which kingdom
had been a union of Bernicia and of Deiria based on York.
The establishment of the viking Kingdom of York tended to
drive the Britons of Strathclyde and the English of Bernicia
into the protection of the Kings of Scotland.

This means that that someone who wants to develop a persona
of a scotish warrior of the time, of say, MacBeth, would have
a variety of ancesters and languages he could choose from.

	I hope I have not put everyone to sleep,
		Malcolm MacMalcolm
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