A Brief Lesson in Scots

Due to my unfortunate registration crisis earlier in the semester, I am currently taking a class called "Exploring Scottish Culture." Exploring Scottish Culture is a class for international students only, it meets every fortnight, and it is worth about as many credits as a fitness class is at Chapman. There are two parts to this class, a literature part and a history part. It's basically to teach all of the international kids a very brief history of Scotland. Yesterday we had a literature class, and I learned a few very interesting things I think you will all enjoy.

One of the first things we learned in Exploring Scottish Culture is that people in Glasgow (and the rest of lowland Scotland) don't speak Gaelic when they're not speaking English, they are speaking Scots. Scots is not an official language, and according to the lecturer it's just "English spoken poorly." Whatever it is, it's extremely confusing, and our literature books for the course are written in Scots. Some people are trying to make Scots an official language by creating a dictionary. My literature lecturer likes to teach us some Scots as we translate famous Scottish poems from Scots to English. Here are a few highlights of what I've learned so far:

1. yow-trummle (noun): unreasonably cold and unpleasant weather that occurs after sheep-shearing season.
2. chittering (adj.): teeth-chattering coldness
3. on-ding (noun): rain.

We were reading poems about the weather, in case you couldn't tell. We also read this beauty, which happens to be an extremely famous Scottish poem, written by Edwin Morgan:

The Loch Ness Monster's Song
Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl -
gmgrawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok - doplodovok - plovodokot - doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl -
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp


If you want to listen to the audio, click here.


That's all for now. Enjoy!
Mel