Hello my wee blog,
I was thinking about doing a blog post about maps and history the other day. I never studied history at school but became interested in it across the years after I'd left. Over time I became interested in maps too. To be honest, I've always been interested in maps. Even as a small child I remember creating fantasy maps of islands where X marked the spot for pirate treasure, naming the mountains, bays and inlets with terrifying and bloody names. Too much childhood time perhaps spent with Robert Louis Stevenson and his tales of 'Treasure Island', 'Robinson Crusoe' and even 'Kidnapped'. Even now I'll often spend time standing in front of one of the several old maps of Scotland I have on the walls of the 'library', lost in thought about this or that. I became interested in languages too and soon began connecting maps and language. It was this connection that set me off on the train of thought about what a post would look like I suppose.
I was thinking about how people throughout time have used their language and understanding, folklore and history, to help establish and understand their place on the landscape by naming what they saw around them, whether that was based on a desription of the shape of a mountain, naming the place after the prominent trees that grew along a particular part of a glen or river, or the name of a person or incident associated with a place. The first people would have used those terms to describe and communicate ways to navigate across and around the land from time immemorial and now, with our modern maps and all the information they contain, those names are printed on mountain, hill and moor, giving us a fix on place and many clues - albeit often obscure ones - about our history, culture and linguistic heritage. {And that's not even touching on religious, military or political influence through time!}
These thoughts have also spawned several ideas about postings on language and pre-history too as this area is full to the brim with opportunity on that score. But, I've been thinking about modern language and its story too, the difference between the Scots language of the lowlands and standard English. I just don't know if I could do any of it justice without making an epic out of it and that would be hard to read, which isn't the aim of blogging is it?
So I suppose I'm trying to prepare you for what's to come in a way. For those of you who have been looking out for tales of Jess and early morning musings, I'm sure those will come too but may need to wait until I get the thoughts above either organised or out of my head altogether. I just hope it happens soon.
See you later.
Listening to.
