18.1 The range of Scots dialects in three poems
This section will focus on three poems representing different forms of the Scots language from their own geographical territories: Shetland, the North East, and Ayrshire. These poems draw on the idioms and speech forms their authors grew up with and became intimately familiar with as sound-patterns in their childhood.
The question they raise is one of authenticity. When a poet uses their own native language, is that more ‘authentic’ than when a poet uses Scots words and phrases taken from other writers or even straight out of the dictionary? There is also the question of authority and self-confidence. If a poem works, how confident we may feel about its authority will be endorsed. If it seems inauthentic, we inevitably feel more uncertain about the authority of its language.
Over centuries, Scots has been subject to these questions, often resulting in uncertainty and lack of confidence. To many English-language readers and writers, Scots still seems merely eccentric. Yet if we’ve seen (especially with ‘The Sauchs in the Reuch Heuch Hauch’) that the rebarbative aspect of the language can enhance the meaning of a poem, we should begin by giving the benefit of the doubt to the poets writing in Scots.
To investigate this, we’ll start with one of Shetland’s finest native writers, J.J. Haldane Burgess (1862–1927), blind poet, novelist, violinist, historian and linguist, who assisted Jakob Jakobsen’s research into the Norn language in Shetland.
Activity 4
You have come across the Shetland dialect of Scots a number of times already. In this activity, you will work with it again, this time focusing on how this dialect shapes this poem and its meaning.
Part 1
Listen to the poem and simply enjoy the sound of the words of the poem read by Bruce Eunson, who himself is from Shetland. Which feature of the dialect stands out to you in the way in which it makes the poem sound?
As always, once you have listened, read out the poem yourself and record your rendition - try to emulate the Shetland dialect, if you can, following Bruce Eunson’s example.
Transcript
Listen
Da Blyde-Maet
Whin Aedie¹ üt² da blyde-maet³ for himsell
An her, pür lass, ’at dan belanged ta him,
Whin nicht in Aeden wis a simmer dim
Afore he wis dreeld oot ta hok an dell,
Hed he a knolidge o da trüth o things,
Afore da knolidge koft wi what’s caa’d sin?
Afore da world raised dis deevil’s din,
Heard he da music ’at da starrins sings?
Some says ’at Time is craalin laek a wirm
Troo da tik glaar⁴ dey caa Eternity,
A treed o woe an pain it aye mann be
’At Fate reels aff frae ever fleein pirm⁵
Bit Joy an Hopp in aa dis life I see,
It’s plain anyoch ta see ta him ’at’s carin,
T’o Time is spraechin⁶, laeck a fraeksit⁷ bairn,
Ipo da bosim o Eternity.
We’se aet da blyde-maet yet, an it sall be
O mony anidder, deeper, graander life,
An Time sall learn troo aa dis weary strife
Ta sook da fu breests o Eternity.
Model
Da Blyde-Maet
Whin Aedie¹ üt² da blyde-maet³ for himsell
An her, pür lass, ’at dan belanged ta him,
Whin nicht in Aeden wis a simmer dim
Afore he wis dreeld oot ta hok an dell,
Hed he a knolidge o da trüth o things,
Afore da knolidge koft wi what’s caa’d sin?
Afore da world raised dis deevil’s din,
Heard he da music ’at da starrins sings?
Some says ’at Time is craalin laek a wirm
Troo da tik glaar⁴ dey caa Eternity,
A treed o woe an pain it aye mann be
’At Fate reels aff frae ever fleein pirm⁵
Bit Joy an Hopp in aa dis life I see,
It’s plain anyoch ta see ta him ’at’s carin,
T’o Time is spraechin⁶, laeck a fraeksit⁷ bairn,
Ipo da bosim o Eternity.
We’se aet da blyde-maet yet, an it sall be
O mony anidder, deeper, graander life,
An Time sall learn troo aa dis weary strife
Ta sook da fu breests o Eternity.
Answer
This is a model answer, your answer might be different.
To me, being a non-native speaker of neither Scots nor English, the poem has a strong resemblance with Scandinavian languages, especially through the way in which vowels are much more prominent than in Standard English, often pronounced as long vowels. This is reflected in the many long ‘a’-sounds (the ɑːin the phonetic alphabet) as in lass, dan, caa’d; the way in which the ‘o’ is pronounced as a long ɔ: in afore, o, mony; the long u: as in troo or sook.
Another two vowels stand out for me, on the one hand, because these do not exist as such in English. When written, they are: ü in üt or pür, and ae in maet, spraechin, laeck or fraeksit. When spoken the ü is very much like the Danish ø sound, and the ae reminds me of the Danish æ or the way in which the German ä is pronounced. These sounds add a strong sense of musicality to the language in combination with the different intonation and rhythm from English or other Scots dialects, more like a slow sing-song where the vowels are allowed to stand out and linger.
Part 2
Now read the poem and the translation into English and consider again how the Shetland Scots of the poem contributes to the meaning of the poem.
Da Blyde-Maet
Whin Aedie¹ üt² da blyde-maet³ for himsell
An her, pür lass, ’at dan belanged ta him,
Whin nicht in Aeden wis a simmer dim
Afore he wis dreeld oot ta hok an dell,
Hed he a knolidge o da trüth o things,
Afore da knolidge koft wi what’s caa’d sin?
Afore da world raised dis deevil’s din,
Heard he da music ’at da starrins sings?
Some says ’at Time is craalin laek a wirm
Troo da tik glaar⁴ dey caa Eternity,
A treed o woe an pain it aye mann be
’At Fate reels aff frae ever fleein pirm⁵
Bit Joy an Hopp in aa dis life I see,
It’s plain anyoch ta see ta him ’at’s carin,
T’o Time is spraechin⁶, laeck a fraeksit⁷ bairn,
Ipo da bosim o Eternity.
We’se aet da blyde-maet yet, an it sall be
O mony anidder, deeper, graander life,
An Time sall learn troo aa dis weary strife
Ta sook da fu breests o Eternity.
Vocabulary help:
- Adam
- ate
- glad-food, eaten when a woman first rises from child-bed
- slime
- pirn
- screaming
- fractious
Answer
This is a model answer, your answer might be different.
If we translated this poem into English it might read as follows:
The Glad-Food (the meal eaten when a woman first rises from child-bed)
When Adam ate the glad-food for himself / And she, poor lass, who then belonged to him, / When night in Eden was a summer twilight / Before he was evicted, / Had he a knowledge of the truth of things, / Before the knowledge tainted with what’s called sin? / Before the world raised this devil’s noise, / Did he hear the music that the stars sing? / Some say that Time is crawling like a worm / Through the thick slime they call Eternity, / A thread of woe and pain it always must be / That Fate reels off from the ever turning pirn. // But Joy and Hope in all this life I see, / It’s plain enough to see by he who cares, / Though Time is screaming like a fractious child, / Upon the bosom of Eternity. / We shall eat the glad food yet, and it shall be / Of many another, deeper, grander life, /And Time shall learn through all this weary strife / To suck the full breasts of Eternity.
The language of the original is deeply connected to the Shetland location where Haldane Burgess lived, but the subject of the poem is universal. It begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, about to take on the burden of the Tree of Knowledge and set out from ‘Eternity’ into a world of Time and ‘weary strife’.
Despair and tragic loss is hauntingly present in the poem, but appetite and a defiant will to embrace the ‘graander life’ in the world at large is the poem’s final, optimistic assertion of value and hope. This balance of loss and hope provides a tension and dramatic structure to the poem. It begins with the word ‘Whin’ (‘When’) which always implies that more than one thing is going on at the same time. (‘When this happened, this was also happening…’)
So there’s a suspenseful element in the structural unfolding of the poem. There’s also a distinctively Shetland idiom in the language so that the universal – or specifically Christian – story it tells implies a local application. And that is emphasised by the oral, immediate aspect of the sounds and tones of the vocabulary used. This is not a vatic pronouncement but a colloquial utterance conveyed with great authority.
Activity 5
Now go to the North East and consider a very different poem, a song, in fact, The Wild Geese [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] by Violet Jacob, who was born in Montrose as the daughter of the 18th laird of Dun and who later married an officer. However, despite her social standing, “Jacob had great sympathy with the lives of others, especially those who were not blessed in their lot – the poor, the put-upon, the vagrants. She had a keen eye, too, for the age-old inequalities in the relationships between men and women, giving a voice…” (Scottish Poetry Library, 2012) to the unheard.
Part 2
As a second step, listen to Jacobs’ song being performed. There are two easily available versions, one by Jim Reid and the other by Jean Redpath. Listen to both versions, again paying attention to the sound of the Scots dialect reflected in the words of the poem, to the melody not just of the song but also of the language. Jim Reid’s version has a stronger East-Coast feel and you will again notice the strong long vowels, which you have come across in Haldane’s poem.
18. Introductory handsel