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.

I know lots of people who speak Scots and I think it's valuable to have one text that validates, recognises and celebrates their language. It is part of their heritage and it provides an access point for discussions about how languages develop, etc.

I have a problem with crap being taught in schools just because it is "scots language", even though it is crap. A case in point is pretty much anything by JK Anand like this classic "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 and mix the tatties
Wi mince into the mashin,
And sic a tasty denner
Will aye be voted ‘Smashin!’

It's just AWFUL poetry, irrespective of which dialect it's written in. The P7 children get to try proper Burns - usually To A Mouse (surprised the Scot Gov haven't demanded that's retitled as "Tae A Moose") or My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose.

So is Scots just an accent with a bit of different vocabulary and sentence structure thrown in then?

Tinkly, that's the crux of it. Come to wide swathes of Scotland and you won't find anyone speaking that way. There are lots of different words for things, some of which are great and which many of us use, without speaking that way the whole time. Other people will argue that no, Scots is just as valid a language as Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, French or German and that calling it a dialect is just insulting and class-ist.

APlace - but Ronald Dahl wrote in English. Isn't it more valuable to study it as he wrote it?

Choose a Scots text to study Scots?

There is nothing wrong with the book and there is nothing wrong with scottish children being taught how to read it doesn't mean they will go on to speak like that . Yes I know you hate Nicola with a passion sorchenjin but come on it's hardly corrupting the wee ears of scottish school children is it. Scots is a part of our culture speak it or not it's not going to vanish. You will get people using Scottish words

Where to start with this. My father spoke exactly like the text in the George's Marvellous Medicine translation. He died last year at 92. He was a farmer who lived in South Lanarkshire. So actually this thread is making me a bit tearful. My brother and I grew up "bilingual". We had two spoken linguistic codes: one for home and one for school. We had one written code Standard written English. It was no problem whatsoever in terms of reading and spelling. I was up till recently a teacher but I trained in England and taught in the SE. The impact of a SE English accent/dialect makes it far more difficult to learn phonics reading and spelling. In English English words like are/our are homophones.
I am privileged to have grown up in a Scots speaking house. I have a wider richer vocabulary. I think it's good for Scottish children to see texts written in Scots dialect. It helps to break down the sense of otherness.

Come to wide swathes of Scotland and you won't find anyone speaking that way Well not in the towns anyway.

So is Scots just an accent with a bit of different vocabulary and sentence structure thrown in then?

Could say exactly the same thing about French eg

Not a big Dahl fan, but that is my only objection. My Grandparents and half my cousins talk exactly like the extract. Their FB feeds are an education in themselves.

Agree with dexra

My family speak like that I nip in and out of it depending who I'm talking too

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
Terrible prejudice. Do you think French spoken with an English RP accent is better? The uvular /r/ was very easy for me.

And what derxa said I think it's a real shame that our own dialects and words are being slagged off

Terrible prejudice. Do you think French spoken with an English RP accent is better?

Er. No. I think French spoken with a French accent is better, non?

ilearnnorwegian.tumblr.com/post/65886338238/norsk-scots-and-language-history
Lots of crossover between Norwegian and Scots.
Roald Dahl's first language was Norwegian, which he spoke at home with his parents and his sisters Astri, Alfhild and Else. I'm sure he would have approved of a Scots translation of his book.

I think it's a real shame that our own dialects and words are being slagged off

There's no "slagging off" - lots of debate about whether Scots is valid and relevant. Saying that you don't hear people speak that way, or use those words, or hate some of the set texts isn't "slagging off".

And besides who is "our" - I'm Scottish, born in Scotland, Scottish parents, live in Scotland. I don't think of this as my language or our language. Some parts of it yes as I said upthread - minging is a word I regularly use to describe my teenager's shirts. But not the broad Scots in the Marvellous Medicine translation. So does that make me not properly Scottish then?

I probably speak French with a Glaswegian accent, I've found native French speakers can understand me

There's a lot of poorly -written English poetry in school books for children. We've struggled through lots of poems worse than Mince and Tatties. And, tbf, it's not that it's poorly written. It's being used to teach DCs a particular aspect of language and sometimes that sounds unsophisticated to our more adult ears.

And part of the problem of teaching books that are written in Scots rather than translations is that there simply isn't the library of children's or YA stories in traditional Scots - not because there wasn't a wealth of stories or poetry produced in Scots but because it was marginalised and hence has an oral tradition rather than a written one.

I'm finding this thread rather odd tbh. Works in Scots are only a teeny, tiny fraction of any of our DCs' curriculum.

And I disagree that you won't find people speaking that way in towns. There are lots of deprived areas where people use Scots. They have a right to have their language validated for one session, or one project, or one reading book out of their entire school career.

I see it as a way of exploring and enriching children's language. English is a rich language because so many different people invaded this country. Why take such a narrow viewpoint?

Well I would certainly say it's not a language. I mean I can understand it and I'm an English speaking Welsh person. It is a variant of English, like the Wenglish I mentioned up thread.

What is the Scottish equivalent of Welsh? Is it Gaelic? Why not teach kids bit of Gaelic if you want to preserve the language?

It's a rare day I agree with ItsAll but I have to say I agree that French spoken with a French accent is sliiiightly more authentic Well the French are the people who speak with a French accent. They can tell a foreigner at 50 paces. Do you mean a Parisian French accent or one from the South of France?

Very few people spoke Welsh but it is looking quite healthy these days due to compulsory teaching in schools.

Yes the equivalent would be Gaelic, but Gaelic was always a Highland language and was never ever spoken in the southern bit of Scotland or in Glasgow/Edinburgh or the the eastern Aberdeen/Dundee part. There is an effort to promote Gaelic more, and there is now a very successful Gaelic school in Glasgow with long waiting lists as people want their kids to go there.

I think - and correct me if i'm wrong - Welsh was more widely spoken across the whole of Wales, not just bits. Or at least in more than just the northwest third of the country.

There's a massive gap between 'authenticity' and saying that people won't be understood. But I think you knew that
As linguistic anthropologists have pointed out - both phonetically and linguistically, it's easy to spot a native speaker from someone attempting the 'local' accent (although as Derxa pointed out which native French accent are you replicating?)

Lovely post from Derxa this afternoon.