George's Mingin Medicine as theclassreader - why, exactly??

[SirChenjin]

Apart from the SNP'S obsession with all things Scoa'ish obviously . We don't speak like that, none of our friends or family do, I don't understand the majority of the words and have no idea how to pronounce them - so when I listen to him reading I haver no idea of what he's saying is correct and then have to sign his readi g record. They would have been better giving him a book written in Mandarin - far more relevant and about as understandable to 99% of his class.

Mumma - I completely agree that learning about the different ways to name things is good for language development. However my son's heritage is British - a mix of Welsh, English, Scottish and N Ireland - and rather than giving him a contrived translated text I would rather he was exposed to inspiring original texts from all 4 parts of the UK (and indeed beyond).

This is a really fascinating thread.
I am English born, lived in England all my life (well aside from year in france) but I could read the original Dahl quote perfectly well, as long as I had a Scottish accent in my head. (My school friends mum was from Glasgow, and so strong most people could not tell a word she was saying, took me a few years to ba able to do anything other than smile and nod!)
But may I ask about 'minging' because we use it (in England) to mean something horrible, disgusting, vile. Now I know the story, and obviously that medicine turned out to be utterly 'minging', but does it have another meaning in Scots?

Also, lived the Lochhead lines, and how true and apt they are, and equally applicable across other parts if the British Isles, and indeed many countries of the British Empire, where small children had the poetry, rhythm, and cadence taken out of their mother tongues.

*loved Lochhead, not lived!

Geordie’s Grannie wis a grabbie crabbit auld wumman wi peeliewally broon teeth and a wee snirkit-up mooth like a dug’s bahookie. She wis aye compleenin, girnin, greetin, grummlin and mulligrumphin aboot somethin or ither. She wis a meeserable auld grumpy.

I am English to the core and thus ignorant of the Scottish language, but is this actually Scottish or just a phoenetic representation of the accent? Or a mix - some words are clearly dialect words.

Does "mingin" mean the same as "marvellous"? I read it as mingling which means the opposite!

'Minging' doesnt mean the same as marvellous.

For more about the Scots language this is a good start www.scotslanguage.com

rather than giving him a contrived translated text I would rather he was exposed to inspiring original texts from all 4 parts of the UK (and indeed beyond).

This makes far more sense to me but original Welsh texts would be incomprehensible to non Welsh speakers and thus need to be translated into English. Which surely then means they are not original.

No Phil - it means the same thing here and a pp raised the inappropriateness of minging in this context.

Your point about the mother tongue is interesting. Scots is not traditionally one language (or mother tongue) - it's a mix of several dialects thrown together and given a generic name and doesn't include gaelic. It's not spoken widely to this extent across Scotland - and well written, engaging and accessible texts are as capable of being poetic and rythmic as this twee translation.

I imagine there are various Welsh words which are more dialect based than from the actual Welsh language soup? I don't know, I am not from Wales, that's DHs side (who came over from N Ireland). To me it's a bit like Gaelic in that respect - local vernacular v an actual language.

Minging for marvellous is silly. Georges Minted Medicine? Minted isn't Scots though. Braw Medicine. Ach this book hing is glakit.

That's my station - cheerio the noo!

Thank you, sirchenjin. So, Scots is a bit like verlan in France? There are many languages/dialects spoken across France. One is the official language (courtly French as it were) and then this is a 'people slang' version, sort of?

Are there many Gaelic medium schools in Scotland, nowadays?
Or is it regional like Welsh medium schools in Wales?

Philodox there is a list here:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_or_Minority_Languages

In the UK the recognised languages are

Cornish
Irish
Manx (ratified on behalf of Government of the Isle of Man)
Scots in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Ulster Scots)
Scottish Gaelic
Welsh (official in Wales)

There are only about 4000 pupils in Gaelic medium education, though I think numbers are growing.

4000? That's barely any, really, is it?

How can teeth be both peeliewallie and broon?

I'm Scottish, and as middle class as they come. Also living in quintessential middle class area of Glasgow where the kids' school is full of people from all over the world, many of whom have moved here to teach at the Uni or work in the hospitals.

I have no objection to Burns. Some of his poetry is fab and it's like Shakespeare - words we don't always use any more and the language is rich and expressive. I loathe crap poetry by the likes of JK Anand which the school is obsessed with - "My Wee Doggie" a particular low point. And trying to explain how to pronounce the words to my daughter's friend whose parents were both from Kolkata was fun. They just looked at me as if I were sniffing glue.

I do have objections to the "translation" of perfectly good books into a "Scots language" which I am not hearing people speak. Yes we use words like minging, fankle and dreich. I do not say (and do not hear people say) "I ken whit I'll dae" or "she wis aye compleenin". That to my kids is as foreign as German or Mandarin.

It's all part of the SNP grand plan to convince Scottish people are so completely different to the rest of the UK - we have our own language and everything! Therefore it makes perfect sense to be independent, us being so different and all.

Don't be fooled by thinking this is anything to do with preserving the "Scots language" or being inclusive. It's all the independence long game.

Ds is currently studying "The Cone Gatherers" as his Scottish text for his Higher and hating it

Christ, things haven't moved on since 1989 when I did that awful book for Higher English too. Nobody in the class liked it. The teacher didn't like it. It was something we suffered through, answered the question in the exam and promptly forgot about it.

Fascinating thread.

I'm more familiar with the much derided Ulster Scots.

I can read Scots easily and mostly understand it when people are speaking it to me.

To me it is reasonable to consider it a dialect of English, but what makes a language separate is quite a political decision.

I love Scots, both regular and Ulster.

I don't love the idea of translating books from one dialect of English into another.

I do not say (and do not hear people say) "I ken whit I'll dae" or "she wis aye compleenin".

I hear people from Antrim say those things. :)

Agree with you about the translation.

It seems weird to replace the English words Dahl wrote with other English words.

Although there are lots of lovely English dialects being lost, and I feel that's a shame.

Maybe putting popular children's books like Dahl's into those dialects would help to keep them alive?

There again, I think George's Marvellous Medicine is a poor book.

Come to West Lothian and you'll hear tons of people saying things like, "I ken whit I'll dae." DH used to speak like this and I swear when I first met him I only understood about a third of what he said! It was quite embarrassing because he'd be speaking to me and I'd get completely lost and just nod my head and he'd say, "You didn't understand a word of that, did you?".

He works as an IT consultant and has greatly modified his language since I met him nearly 20 years ago but when he's around his family and friends he switches right back to it.

So I have a translator and reader-out-louder for DC when they bring home Scots texts!

Having said that, DH has been adament that he doesn't want DC growing up speaking Scots, or rather he wants them growing speaking standard English by default and if they want to throw in the odd Scots word, recognising what they are doing, that's fine by him. They go to an Edinburgh day school and DS now speaks with a Morningside accent. DH has found that speaking too much Scots has been a drawback in his profession.

Oh god, Luna not the dreaded J K Anand! Our primary has Scots Night, scheduled roughly with Burns Night. Do they give the children Burns? Do they give the children modern Scottish poetry? No, endless bloody J K Anand.

I don't like the Matthew Fitt translations, I don't think they work well (we've read a lot of Roald Dahl) and like others have said, they're a bit contrived. I agree about the mix of words - I'm from Perthshire, DH's family are all Edinburgh, and there are words in there that neither of us use, some that I know that he doesn't etc. It just feels like trying too hard.

To whoever mentioned Yorkshire dialect - I remember reading The Secret Garden out loud to DD and struggling a bit when it went all Yorkshire.

I had a modern languages teacher from Aberdeen and she had some brilliant phrases she used when she got worked up - it would be a shame for them to be lost, but at the same time they're not 'my' heritage, they're hers.

I had a modern languages teacher from Aberdeen

That reminds me. We had a French teacher who had a very very Glaswegian accent, and her French was heavily Glaswegian accented too - I suspect a French person would hbe found out speech atrocious

I owe books like this a great deal.

I was moved to NE Scotland at the age of 12 and couldn't have understood a word if I hadn't read Burns and seen Scots Wha Hae.

Scots language books provided a vital bridge to understanding Doric, I couldn't even understand the school teachers and without some exposure to Scots I wouldn't have been able to be schooled entirely in Doric.

So I'm sorry you don't like it, but it really is of value to many other folk.

Requirements to support regional dialects are set to local government directly from Westminster, and includes education despite it being devolved, as it is a general requirement to support them everywhere. The only thing the SNP are responsible for is the format it's delivered in, so not quite sure why you've decided it's all their fault.

I enjoyed the extract, it was fun.

So is Scots just an accent with a bit of different vocabulary and sentence structure thrown in then? Similar to South Wales Wenglish?