Showing posts with label lallans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lallans. Show all posts

Sunday, 28 February 2016

The Sunday Posts 2016/ Sleep Weel.



Sleep weel, my bairnie, sleep.
The lang, lang shadows creep,
The fairies play on the munelicht brae
An' the stars are on the deep.

The auld wife sits her lane
Ayont the cauld hearth-stane,
An' the win' comes doon wi' an eerie croon
To hush my bonny wean.

The bogie man's awa',
The dancers rise an fa'
An' the howlet's cry frae the bour-tree high
Comes through the mossy shaw.

Sleep weel, my bairnie, sleep.
The lang, lang shadows creep,
The fairies play on the munelicht brae
An' the stars are on the deep.

Murdoch McLean

Meaning of unusual words:
bairnie=child
munelicht brae=moonlit hillside
her lane=alone
Ayont=beyond
croon=wailing song
bogie man=ghost
howlet=owl
bour-tree=elder tree
shaw=flat ground at the foot of a hill

Sunday, 3 January 2016

The Sunday Posts 2016/ A Wee Cock Sparra'



This comic poem was an annual entertainment for New Year when I was growing up. The Scots dialect of the non-gaelic regions was always only heard on TV in a comic situation, not taken seriously, except in a work of Rabbie Burns. I always thought it was strange that the language I spoke everyday with friends and family and had grown up with was something to be laughed at in 'polite' society. At school you could earn a prize one day for reciting Burns and get belted the next for 'not speaking properly'.

Thankfully that situation has slowly changed but there's a long way to go in recognising and rescuing the diversity and heritage of a native tongue.

Sunday, 18 May 2014

The Sunday Posts 2014/ Prows O Reekie




O wad this braw hie-heapit toun
Sail aff like an enchanted ship,
Drift owre the warld's seas up and doun,
And kiss wi' Venice lip to lip,
Or anchor into Naples' Bay
A misty island far astray
Or set her rock to Athens' wa',
Pillar to pillar, stane to stane,
The cruikit spell o' her backbane,
Yon shadow-mile o' spire and vane,
Wad ding them a', wad ding them a'!
Cadiz wad tine the admiralty
O' yonder emerod fair sea,
Gibraltar frown for frown exchange
Wi' Nigel's crags at elbuck-range,
The rose-red banks o' Lisbon make
Mair room in Tagus for her sake.
A hoose is but a puppet-box
To keep life's images frae knocks,
But mannikins scrieve oot their sauls
Upon its craw-steps and its walls;
Whaur hae they writ them mair sublime
Than on yon gable-ends o' time?

Lewis Spence
Photo by Alistair.

Monday, 14 September 2009

A Glossary


good and evil.

Some people only see good while others only see evil............


Hullo there ma wee blog,

I posted a while back about a glossary for some of the words from my Mither tongue I might use. I'm still thinking about ways and means but in the meantime here is a wee taster of some stuff via one of my favourite writers, Christopher Brookmyre. Its a glossary which was attached to one of his hilarious novels "A Tale Etched In Blood and Hard Black Pencil."

Not quite the same but I think its quite funny. Chris is very irreverend and close to the bone at times........

Hope you enjoy all the same.

A Tale Etched… – the Glossary

■ afore - Earlier than the time when.
■ auld - Advanced in years.
■ ay - Pertaining to.
■ baith - Affecting or involving one as well as the other.
■ bampot - A somewhat combustible individual.
■ baw{s} - spherical object{s}.
■ beamer - Ruddy-cheeked display of embarrassment. See also riddie.
■ birling - Motion inclined to induce disorientation.
■ blooter - A hearty and full-blooded strike. See also lamp, scud, skelp, stoat.
■ boat hoose - Evidence of upward mobility; a privately owned dwelling. Literally a bought house.
■ bogey, the game’s a - Declaration of despair; resignation that all is lost.
■ brammer - An impressive specimen. See also stoater.
■ brer - A male sibling.
■ bubbling - Prolonged and self-pitying bout of tearfulness.
■ bunnet - A fetching item of headgear.
■ cadge - To solicit charitable donations of money or more often confectionary.
■ cheenies - Treasured orbs in the possession of the male.
■ chook, is it - Expression of profound scepticism .
■ clamped - Rendered lost for words.
■ clap - To stroke affectionately. “Ken them? I’ve clapped their dug!”
■ coupon - One’s visage.
■ crabbit - Of foul humour. See certain Scottish broadsheet literary critics.
■ da - Patriarchal head of the household. also Dad, Paw and Faither.
■ dae - To effect, perform or carry out an activity.
■ deck - An incident considered sufficiently amusing as to imagine one rendered horizontal with laughter. See also gut, pish.
■ deid - Expired, no longer with us, snuffed out, passed on, ceased to be.Think that Monty Python sketch.
■ diddies - Protruberant milk-producing glandular organs situated on the chest of the human female and certain other mammals. See also Greeenock Morton FC.
■ dowt - The end of a cigarette, much coveted by impoverished but aspiring apprentice smokers.
■ dug - Four-legged domesticated flesh-eating and leg-humping mammal of the wolf-descended genus Canis familiaris.
■ dunt - A small, controlled blow.
■ dwam - A state of foggy befuddlement.
■ edgy, the - Look-out duty, usually in cover of nefarious deeds.
■ eejit - One not blessed with ample intelligence. See Old Firm supporters.
■ eppy - Paroxysms of uncontained anger.
■ erse - The posterior, buttocks or anus. Used by Old Firm supporters to accommodate the brain.
■ fae - Used to indicate a starting point.
■ fanny - The female pudenda. Term of abuse for particularly whiny and snivelling individuals. See also certain Scottish broadsheet literary critics.
■ feart - In a state of anxiety.
■ fitba - Popular team sport known in some quarters as “soccer”, invented and given to the world by the Scots. English claims to have invented it rest on their having the first Football Association, which proves only that they invented football bureaucracy. Thanks a pantload, guys. You form yet another bloody committee and a hundred years later, we had to put up with Jim Farry.
■ fly - Sharp-witted and elusive.
■ fud - See Fanny. And yet again, see certain Scottish broadsheet literary critics.
■ fullsy-roundsies - Challenging skipping-rope technique, not for dilettantes. Comparison: see shoe-shaggy.
■ gallus - Term of glowing approval. Derives from description of that which is cheerfully bursting with self-confidence. The word comes from “gallows”, coined at at the hanging of a Glasgow thief and murderer known as Gentleman Jim, who had remained his smiling, cocksure and witty self right up until the drop.
■ gaun yersel - Shout of encouragement, insinuating the recipient needs no assistance to perform his attempted feat. Literally “go on yourself”.
■ geezabrek - Invoked to wish for peace or better fortune.
■ gemme - A match or playful diversion. One might request to join by entreating: “Geezagemme”.
■ gemmie - Most enjoyable, highly approved.
■ gie - To transfer possession of something.
■ ginger - Generic term for carbonated minerals. Despite billions of dollars spent on brand recognition and advertising, in Glasgow, Coke, Pepsi, Seven Up and Sprite are all referred to as ginger.
■ greeting - Tearful outpouring of grief.
■ gub - The human mouth, usually referring to a large and loud one.
■ gubbed - Soundly beaten, inferring the resultant metaphorical closing of the aforementioned large and loud gub whose outpourings occasioned the gubbing.
■ guddle - A state of frantic uncoordination.
■ guddling - A subtle means of angling practised without a rod or net.
■ gut - An incident considered sufficiently amusing as to imagine one’s innards rent asunder by laughter. See also deck, pish.
■ hame - Where the heart is.
■ haun - The end of the forelimb on human beings, monkeys etc utilising opposable thumbs in order to grasp objects. Also the appendages dragged along the ground at the end of Old Firm supporters’ sleeves.
■ heid - Uppermost division of the human body, containing the brains, except in the case of Old Firm supporters. See erse.
■ heidie - The headmaster.
■ hing - An inanimate object as distinguished from a living being.
■ hingmy - All-purpose procrastinatory term for that which one cannot quite think of the name of yet. Equivalent of the French truc. Sometimes also thingummyjig
■ honking - Emitting a foul odour; poorly thought of. See St Mirren 2001-2004.
■ huckled - Arrested or apprehended by agents of authority. See also lifted.
■ humping - The act of coitus. Also a convincing and comprehensive victory. See Celtic 0 St Mirren 3, April 1991 or St Mirren 3 Rangers 0 October 1983.
■ jakey - Homeless indigent partial to Buckfast and superlager.
■ jakey sentence - An undaunting custodial term, like those commonly conferred on the above.
■ jammy - Enjoying extreme good fortune. See Rangers 1 St Mirren 0, Scottish Cup semi-final replay 1983.
■ jinky - Swift-footed and elusive
■ jobbie - Malodorous human waste product. See the performance of Brian McGinlay as referee, - Scottish Cup semi-final replay 1983.
■ jooks - Outer garment extending from the waist to the ankles.
■ kb-ed - Rejected. "Knocked back." pronounced 'Kibbied'
■ keech - See Jobbie.
■ keek - To glimpse briefly or surreptitiously.
■ keeker - A black eye, rendering one able only to keek.
■ kerry-oot - A cargo of alcoholic refreshments purchased from an off-licence to be transported elsewhere for consumption.
■ knock - To take without consent or permission and with no intention of returning it. To steal.
■ lamp - To strike out using one’s fist. See also blooter, scud, skelp and stoat.
■ lash - Leather tawse used for administering corporal punishment in Scottish schools. Outlawed in the 1980s less on humanitarian grounds than upon the belated realisation that the weans were having competitions to see who could get the most lashes.
■ lavvy - Water closet.
■ leather - To bring considerable force to bear upon an object or person. See also malky, panelling.
■ lifted - See huckled. That Lighthouse Family song never quite hit the same note north of the border.
■ lugs - Organs of hearing and equilibrium in humans, Old Firm supporters and other vertebrates.
■ ma - Female parent of a child or offspring.
■ maist - To the greatest degree or extent.
■ malky - An act or instrument of extreme violence. See also leather, panelling.
■ maw - see Ma.
■ mention - Succinct and economical graffito stating simply one’s name.
■ mibbae - Perhaps.
■ minging - See Honking.
■ mockit - In a state of very poor cleanliness. See also Greenock.
■ moolsy - Selfish, ungenerous, disinclined to share one’s sweeties with half a dozen cadgers who wouldn’t give you the steam off their shite if it was the other way around.
■ morra (the) - The day after today.
■ nae - Denoting the absence of something, such as the likelihood of an Old Firm supporter winning Mastermind: “Nae chance”.
■ neb - Nose.
■ noggin - See Heid. Also Napper.
■ numpty - See Eejit.
■ old firm - Ingenious idiot-identification scheme which tags halfwits, criminals, thugs and assorted neerdowells voluntarily in blue or green-and-white garments, making them easier for the rest of us to avoid. { Glasgow Rangers and celtic Footbal clubs}
■ paisley (get off at) - To practice coitus interruptus. {The railway station before main Glasgow station}
■ pan breid - A soft loaf made with refined white flour. Also rhyming slang for deceased.
■ panelling - A brutal and unrestrained violent assault. See also leather, malky.
■ pish - Urine; urinary function. Also an incident considered sufficiently amusing as to imagine one rendered incontinent by laughter. See also deck, gut, and Morton blowing promotion in 2004.
■ porteed, you’re a - Early playground declaration of intent to bring the authorities to bear upon a transgressor.
■ poke - A paper bag. Also to jab with one finger.
■ polis - Organisation employed to harrass and intimidate under-twelves.
■ proddy - Member of the Protestant or Presbyterian faiths, or one perceived to be so due to non-attendance of a Catholic school.
■ puddock - A frog (“Aye, it’s a braw bird, the puddock”)
■ riddie - See beamer.
■ sair - Painful.
■ sclaff - Poorly executed strike of a ball failing to make clean or well-directed contact. See Jose Quitongo.
■ scoobie - A clue, or inkling. Rhyming slang. 'Scooby Doo'. Many people think this form was invented in Londons East end when it was actually discovered in Glasgows west End.
■ scud - In a state of undress. Also, to strike something with dull force. See also blooter, lamp, skelp and stoat.
■ scud book - A magazine celebrating the female form.
■ self-reference - See self-reference.
■ shite - See keech, jobbie, and certain Scottish broadsheet literary critics.
■ shoe-shaggy - Undemanding novice level of skipping ropes, swinging back and forth without describing full circles. Comparison: see fullsy roundsies.
■ side - A proper match contested by two teams, as opposed to a kick-about or a game of crossy or three-and-in.
■ single fish - Serving of battered fish without chips which rather confusingly includes two fish. Also rhyming slang for urinary function.
■ skelp - To strike or slap. See also blooter, lamp, scud and stoat.
■ skitter - Diarrhoea; also anything watery, weak and poorly formed.
■ skoosh - A task or prospect one expects to be less than taxing. Also a soft drink, usually uncarbonated.
■ snotters - Mucous discharge.
■ sook - The act of, or one given to acts of sycophancy or ostentatious obedience.
■ square go - Pugilistic unarmed combat, with both parties ready and willing participants.
■ steamboats - An advanced state of refreshment. See stocious.
■ staun - To stand.
■ stauner - When one’s member chooses independently to stand.
■ stoat - See skelp, scud, lamp etc
■ stoater - See brammer.
■ stocious - See steamboats.
■ stowed - Crammed to capacity.
■ swatch - A brief glance.
■ tanned - Subject to an act of robbery.
■ thae - Those.
■ thon - That.
■ tight - Descriptive of a young lady of robust moral virtue, who probably has nae tits anyway.
■ toe - A strike at a football making up in brute power what it lacks in accuracy and panache.
■ wan - The singular; one.
■ weans - Children.
■ winching - The romantic pursuit of young ladies.
■ wrang - The opposite of right. See Brian McGinlay’s decision to award Sandy Clark a goal in the 1983 Scottish Cup semi-final replay when the ball failed to come within two feet of the goal line. See also Brian McGinlay’s failure to award St Mirren any one of three stonewall penalties during the same match.
■ yin - The, singular. See also Wan.
■ yins - Multiples of the singular.

Got to go.

Training night for Childrens Panel....... Yahoo! not....

see you later

Listening to......... time running out, MOVE YERSEL MAN!!!

Saturday, 22 August 2009

In a manner of speaking


I'm a Scot and like many of my kind, fiercely proud of that.

Being brought up where I was, when I was, and especially by whom I was, I have always had a keen sense of who I am based on family, family values and heritage. Its a fact that most of us share regardless of where we live in the world and part of that unique and diverse cultural identity that makes us, well..........us, no matter if that is German, Italian, French, French Canadian, Catalan, Schweizer Deutch or Occitan.

One of the most important aspects of that heritage was the language I was brought up with, which is deeply rooted in rural Ayrshire and its past. My father was a great natural speaker of Lallans - Lowland Scots - which unlike the Gaelic, is rooted in English but IS different and IS still the everyday speech of the ordinary man in the street.

Like any mother tongue, any living language, it constantly changes and evolves with new words, and developing dual or even new applications for words or phrases. This change is happening faster than ever before thanks to modern communication and constant exposure to influence from film, TV and music that previous generations couldn't have experienced, { at least until the second world war. }
Change is no bad thing though, in fact it can be really positive. After all the whole point of language is to allow us to communicate, share and touch other lives. It also lets us share our heritage, culture, identity, character or whatever you want to call it. But we seem to be in danger of losing just a bit of our identity, our uniqueness, by becoming homogenised to the constant onslaught of American TV shows and gansta rap among others. Being what most kids seem to hear most its only natural that some is incorporated into daily use. As a kid was I any different.? After all we deliberately create a language partly to be different to our parents generation, to help define us in our time and place. { What would Aberdonian rapping sound like I wonder?}
{ Despite signs of resurgence in modern writing and poetry, to many, especially to institutions and even shamefully it would seem our own parliament, Scots is regarded as a non language, only a dialect or even, with a complete lack of tolerance and an active policy of educational reduction, as a bastard aberration that should be actively discouraged, regarded somehow as degraded, common, or showing a lack of culture or intelligence.
Much like the Gaelic was culturally ignored 50 years ago and the language was dying on its feet, so Lallans in all its dialects and its own cultural diversity is ignored and underfunded, never to be heard in civilised circles or so it seems. Strangely, and thankfully, the Gaelic has undergone a real change in perception and with funding and encouragement is growing in popularity and influence. }
I wouldn't propose that it should be even the norm for communication. After all English is possibly THE most common international language today.

BUT.

What I love about Scots is the timbre, the tempo and the connection it gives to a tradition of communication. It has its place. Its OF its place. All language is important and the loss of language is a loss to the world.

So, I have decided to introduce some of my 'mither tongue' to you. I'm not a scholar but I love the language and as Dads not hear to talk to me any more I'm probably a bit scared that I will lose much of my grasp on the older use, Dads kind of speech which was pretty auld fashioned, even when he learned it. The Ayrshire tongue of a hundred years ago maybe. But, from now on you can expect to see some wee bits of it creep in. When there is a need, then of course I should explain what a particular word or phrase means. In fact perhaps my next post should be a glossary of some of the more common - in the true sense of the word - expressions and words that I will use. As Scots is much more common as a spoken tradition than written and as far as I know there is no written standard thanks to educational neglect then I'll write it phonetically.
Don't worry either that its going to take over the blog. Its about communication and after all its just a bit of the real me. It'll be fun !

Aye that micht jist be a guid place tae stert efter aw.

But now I've got to go. Its an all day training session for the Childrens Panel to keep us on our toes and up to speed with legislation.

Oh Joy!

see you later...........

The Sunday Posts 2017/Mince and Tatties.

Mince and Tatties I dinna like hail tatties Pit on my plate o mince For when I tak my denner I eat them baith at yince. Sae mash ...