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Kirk

Kirk

Kirk can mean "church" in general or "The Church of Scotland" in particular. Many place names and personal names are also derived from it.

Basic meaning

As a common noun, kirk is the Scots and Scottish English word for 'church', attested as a noun from the 14th century onwards, but as an element in placenames much earlier. Both words, kirk and church, derive from the Koine Greek κυριακον (δωμα) 'Lord's (house)', which was borrowed into the Germanic languages in late antiquity, possibly in the course of the Gothic missions. (Only a connection with the ideocyncracies of Gothic explains how a Greek neuter noun became a Germanic feminine.) Whereas church displays Old English palatalisation, kirk is likely to be a loanword from Old Norse and thus has the original mainland Germanic consonants. Compare cognates: Icelandic & Faroese kirkja; Swedish kyrka; Norwegian & Danish kirke; German Kirche; Dutch kerk.

The Church of Scotland

As a proper noun, The Kirk is an informal name for the Church of Scotland, the country's national church. The Kirk of Scotland was in official use as the name of the Church of Scotland until the 17th century, and still today the term is frequently used in the press and everyday speech, though seldom in the Church's own literature. Even more commonly, The Free Kirk is heard as an informal name for the Free Church of Scotland.

High Kirk

High kirk is the term used to describe a congregation of the Church of Scotland which uses a building which was a cathedral prior to the Reformation. As the Church of Scotland is not governed by bishops, it also has no cathedrals in the episcopal sense of the word. In more recent times, the traditional names have been revived, so that in many cases both forms can be heard: Glasgow Cathedral, as well as High Kirk of Glasgow, and St Giles' Cathedral, as well as the High Kirk of Edinburgh.

Place names

Kirk is found as an element in many place names in Scotland and northern England, and in countries with large Scottish expatriate communities, for example: Scotland
- Falkirk
- Halkirk, Caithness, Highland
- Kirkcaldy, Fife
- Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway
- Kirkliston, Edinburgh
- Kirkton of Skene, Aberdeenshire, and many other Kirktons, all tiny, and mostly matched with a Castleton or a Milton.
- Kirk, Highland
- Kirkwall, Orkney
- Prestonkirk, East Lothian England
- Kirkby, Merseyside
- Kirkstall, West Yorkshire North America
- Kirkland, Washington, United States
- Kirkpatrick, Oregon, United States
- Newkirk, Oklahoma, United States Also Dunkirk, France, though this is an anglicisation of an original Dutch form, Duinkerke. See: David Dorward, Scotland's Place-names, 1995, p.82f. ISBN 1873644507

Personal names

Kirk is in common use as a surname:
- Andy Kirk, a jazz musician.
- Jennifer Kirk, a figure skater
- Norman Kirk, a Prime Minister of New Zealand.
- Russell Kirk, the "father of modern conservatism".
- Rahsaan Roland Kirk, a jazz musician.
- James T. Kirk, a fictional starship captain in Star Trek. Kirk is also occasionally found as a forename:
- Kirk Douglas, actor.
- Kirk Cameron, actor; hence the name of Cameron's 1995 TV Series: Kirk
- Kirk Hammett, guitarist. Category:Scots language Category:Scottish English Category:Church of Scotland

Common noun

A noun, or noun substantive, is a part of speech (a word or phrase) which can co-occur with (in-)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. The word "noun" derives from the Latin nomen meaning "name", and a traditional definition of nouns is that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, or quality. That definition has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being quite uninformative. For example, it appears that verbs like kill or die refer to events, and so they fall under the definition. Similarly, adjectives like yellow or difficult might be thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like outside or upstairs seem to refer to places. But verbs, adjectives and adverbs are not nouns, so the definition is not particularly helpful in distinguishing nouns from other parts of speech. Word classes like nouns were first discovered by ancient Greek and Sanskrit grammarians like Dionysios Thrax and , and defined in terms of their morphological properties. For example, in Ancient Greek, nouns can be inflected for grammatical case, such as dative or accusative, while verbs cannot be so inflected. Verbs, on the other hand, can be inflected for tenses, such as past, present or future, while nouns cannot. Aristotle also had a notion of onomata (nouns) and rhemata (verbs) which, however, does not exactly correspond our notions of verbs and nouns.

Examples

Nouns in the example sentences below are italicised.
- Janet is the name of a girl.
- apple is a fruit and a computer company. In the above sentence, computer is an adjective because it is describing "company".
- Cleanliness is next to godliness.
- The World Wide Web has become the least expensive way to publish information.

Nouns and pronouns

Nouns can be replaced by pronouns, such as "he", "me", and "everybody", in order to avoid repetition or explicit identification, or for other reasons. For example, in the sentence "Janet thought he was weird", the word "he" is a pronoun standing in place of the name of the person in question.

Case, number, and gender

In sentences, noun phrases may function in a variety of different ways, the most obvious being as subjects (performers of action) or objects (recipients of action). For example, in the sentence "John wrote me a letter", "John" is the subject, and "me" and "letter" are objects (of which "letter" is a noun and "me" a pronoun). These different roles are known as noun cases. Variant forms of the same noun—such as "he" (subject) and "him" (object)—are called declensions. The number of a noun indicates how many objects the noun refers to. In the simplest case, number distinguishes between singular ("man") and plural ("men"). Some languages, like Saami, or Aleut also distinguish dual from plural. Many languages (though not English) have a concept of noun gender, also known as noun class, whereby every noun is designated as, for example, masculine or feminine.

Classification of nouns

Proper nouns and common nouns

Proper nouns (also called proper names) are the names of unique entities. For example, "Janet", "Jupiter" and "Germany" are proper nouns. Proper nouns are capitalized in English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, and this is one easy way to recognise them. This fails, however, in German, in which nouns of all types are capitalized. All other nouns are called common nouns. For example, "girl", "planet", and "country" are common nouns. Sometimes the same word can function as both a common noun and a proper noun, where one such entity is special. For example: "There can be many gods, but there is only one God." The common meaning of the word or words constituting a proper noun may be unrelated to the object to which the proper noun refers. For example, someone might be named "Tiger Smith" despite being neither a tiger nor a smith. For this reason, proper nouns are usually not translated between languages, although they may be transliterated. For example, the German surname Knödel becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English (not the literal Dumpling). However, the translation of placenames and the names of monarchs, popes, and non-contemporary authors is common and sometimes mandatory. For instance, the Portuguese word Lisboa becomes Lisbon in English; the English London becomes Londres in French; and Aristotle was, in Greek, Aristotelēs.

Count nouns and mass nouns

In everyday terms, count nouns (or countable nouns) refer to discrete, countable objects. Count nouns can take a plural, can combine with numerals or quantifiers (e.g. "one", "two", "several", "every", "most"), and can take an indefinite article ("a" or "an"). Examples of count nouns are "chair", "nose", and "occasion". Mass nouns (or non-countable nouns) refer to objects that cannot be individually enumerated. Examples from English include "laughter", "cutlery", "helium", and "furniture". For example, it is not possible to refer to "a furniture" or "three furnitures". Some words function in the singular as a count noun and, without a change in the spelling, as a mass noun in the plural: she caught a fish, we caught fish; he shot a deer, they shot deer; the craft was dilapidated, the pier was chockablock with craft.

Collective nouns

Concrete nouns and abstract nouns

Concrete nouns refer to definite objects—objects that "you can touch", such as "chair", "apple", or "Janet". Abstract nouns refer to ideas or concepts, such as "justice" or "liberty". While this distinction is sometimes useful, the boundary between the two is not always clear.

External links

- [http://www.kwiznet.com/p/takeQuiz.php?ChapterID=122&CurriculumID=13 Find the Nouns Quiz] Category:Parts of speech ko:명사 (품사) ja:名詞 simple:Noun

Scots language

Scots or Lallans (Eng: Lowlands), often called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from the Scottish Gaelic language of the highlands, is a West Germanic language used in Scotland, parts of Northern Ireland, and border areas of the Republic of Ireland, where it is known in official circles as Ulster Scots or Ullans but by speakers simply as Scotch or Scots. Native speakers refer to the language as Scots, Braid Scots (Eng: Broad Scots), or simply Oor ain leid (Eng: Our own language).

Origin of the term Scots

Up to the 15th century (and beyond) Scottis (modern form: Scots) referred to the Scottish Gaelic language (a Celtic language and tongue of the ancient Scots, introduced from Ireland by the 4th century). (Scots are mentioned in reference to northern Britain by Ammianus Marcellinus (XX.1) and other 4th century Roman writers.) Speakers of the Anglic language now called Scots, previously known as Inglis, would later call Gaelic Erse (meaning Irish), and then adopt Scottis as a name for their own language. The Gaelic of modern Scotland is now usually referred to as Scottish Gaelic or, sometimes, Scots Gaelic. It is still spoken by some in the western Highlands and Islands (especially the Hebrides) and Erse is regarded, understandably, as a pejorative.

Origins

:Main article: History of the Scots language The Scots language descends from the northern form of the Northumbrian dialect of Middle English, which itself descended from the Northumbrian dialect of Anglo-Saxon. Besides Gaelic influence (see below), influential were Dutch and Middle Low German through trade with, and immigration from, the low countries; as well as Romance via ecclesiastical and legal Latin, Anglo-Norman and, later, Parisian French owing to the Auld Alliance. Anglic speakers were actually established in Lothian by the 7th century. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Norman landowners and their retainers, were invited to settle by the king. It is probable that many of their retainers spoke Middle English, although probably French was more common. Most of the evidence suggests that English spread into Scotland via the burgh, proto-urban institutions which were first established by King David I. Incoming burghers were mainly English (especially from Northumbria, and the Earldom of Huntingdon), Flemish and French. Although the military aristocracy employed French and Gaelic, these small urban communties appear to have been using English as something more than a lingua franca by the end of the 13th century. English appeared in Scotland for the first time in literary form in the mid-14th century, when its form unsurprisingly differed little from other English dialects. As a consequence of the outcome of the Wars of Independence though, the English of Lothian who lived under the King of Scots had to accept Scottish identity. The growth in prestige of English in the 14th century, and the complementary decline of French in Scotland, made English the prestige language of most of eastern Scotland. Moreover, by the late 15th century, perceptions of the difference with the language spoken further south arose; and English-speaking "Scots" started to call their language "Scottis." The first known instance of this was by an unknown man in 1494. It was thus that the language took its name. Scots has loan words resulting from contact with Gaelic. These loan words are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as clan and loch ('lake'). Many Scots words have become part of English: flit, 'to move home', greed, eerie, cuddle, clan, stob, 'a post'.

Status

1494]] Whether the varieties of Scots are dialects of English or constitute a separate language in their own right is often disputed. Before the Treaty of Union 1707, when Scotland and England joined to form the (United) Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be a language other than English [http://www.scots-online.org/airticles/eurlang.htm]. The British government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature, in independent—if somewhat fluid—orthographic conventions and in its former use as the official language of the original Scottish Parliament. Since Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after the Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. For instance, libel and slander, separate in English law, are bundled together as defamation in Scots law. Since the Union, perceptional and language change (see below) have resulted in Scots being regarded as a group of English dialects or at best a group of dialects closely related to English. There is no institutionalised standard literary form. During the second half of the 20th century, enthusiasts developed regularised cross-dialect forms following on some historical orthographic conventions, but these have had little impact. In the written Scots language, local loyalties usually prevail, and the written form is usually Standard English adapted to represent the local pronunciation. No education takes place through the medium of Scots, though English lessons may cover it superficially. This is often not much more than reading some Scots literature and observing local dialect. Much of the material used is often little more than Standard English disguised as Scots, which has upset both proponents of Standard English and [http://news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=150582004 proponents of Scots] alike. One example of the educational establishment's approach to Scots is "Write a poem in Scots. (It is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as you hear the sounds in your head.)" [http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/specialfocus/scots/ideas/index.asp] whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation." [http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/htmlunrevisedguidelines/Pages/englang/main/elng1003.htm]. On the one hand, this can be seen as revealing the institutionalised disregard for the idea of treating Scots as a language on par with English. On the other hand, it can be be seen as a teaching method to get around the fact that the pupils, the teachers, and the teachers parents alike have been taught in school that Scots is 'bad spelling' and thus, that pupils will self-censor any Scots that they do know. Scots can also be studied at university level. Nowhere in the education system is the objective to produce people able to read, write, and speak Scots as an autonomous alternative to English, thus confirming its de facto status as a series of local dialects of English. The use of Scots in the media is scant and is usually reserved for niches where local dialect is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy, Burns Night, or representations of traditions and times gone by. Serious use for news, encyclopaedias, documentaries, etc. rarely occurs in Scots, although the Scottish Parliament website offers some information in it. Official attitudes vary widely, as may be seen by contrasting the sober [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/learning/history/stateapart/agreement/culture/ulsterscots1.shtml BBC Ulster] and the patronising and anachronistic [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A139033 BBC Scotland] approaches. It is often held that had Scotland remained independent Scots would have remained and been regarded as a separate language from English. This has happened in Spain and Portugal where two independent countries developed standardised languages. Portuguese originating from a common Galician-Portuguese language, which itself originated from a common Ibero-Romance language shared with Castilian Spanish. On the other hand a situation similar to that of Swiss German and standard German might have occurred. Equally the present situation might have occurred where the social elites and the upwardly mobile adopted Standard English causing institutional language shift. A model of Language revival to which many enthusiasts aspire, is that of the Catalan language in areas spanning parts of Spain, France, Andorra and Italy, particularly as regards the situation of Catalan in Catalonia itself.

Language Change

After the Union of Scotland and England the issue of language became topical and foremost was the question of whether Scottish people should speak English or Scots. Gaelic was never considered an option; at the time it was mostly relegated to the Highlands and Islands. Scots became considered to have a substratal relationship to English as opposed to an adstratal relationship. On one hand well-off Scots took to learning English through such activities as those of the Irishman Thomas Sheridan (father of Richard Sheridan) who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution. Charging a guinea at a time (about £65 in today's money), they were attended by over 300 men and he was made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh. On the other hand the education system also became increasingly geared to teaching English though this was initially impaired by the teachers' and students' lack of knowledge of English pronunciation through lack of contact with English speakers. Aspects of English grammar and lexis could be accessed through printed texts. By the 1840s the Scottish Education Department's language policy was that Scots had no value "...it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as a suitable medium of education or culture". Students of course reverted back to Scots outside the classroom but the reversion was not complete. What occurred and has been occurring ever since is a process of language attrition whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from English, a process that has accelerated rapidly since wide-spread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after the Second World War. It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift . These processes are often erroneously referred to as language change, convergence or merger. A rather more positive take on this is that rather than reject English culture the Scots mastered and conquered it, becoming bilingual and writing some of the greatest works of the time such as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in what was still a foreign language. However, most younger Scots today see a Scottish accent, that is, Scottish English, as a sufficient marker of their Scottishness and are generally not interested in retaining bilingualism in a language they consider old-fashioned, parochial, or simply uncool. Residual features of Scots (often regarded as slang) in the speech of the young urban working class are often derogatorily referred to as Ned speak.

Literature

Among the earliest Scots literature is Barbour's Brus (fourteenth century). Whyntoun's Kronykil and Blind Harry's Wallace (fifteenth century) From the fifteenth century much literature based around the Royal Court in Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews was produced by writers such as Henryson, Dunbar, Douglas and David Lyndsay. The Complaynt of Scotland was an early printed work in Scots. After the seventeenth century, anglicisation increased, though Scots was still spoken by the vast majority of the population. At the time, many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East were written down. Writers of the period were Robert Sempill, Robert Sempill the younger, Francis Sempill, Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie. In the eighteenth century, writers such as Ramsay, Fergusson, Burns and Scott continued to use Scots. Scott introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels. Following their example, such well-known authors as Robert Louis Stevenson, William Alexander, George MacDonald and J.M. Barrie also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the early twentieth century, a renaissance in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young, Sidney Goodsir Smith, Robert Garioch and Robert McLellan. However, the revival was largely limited to verse and other literature. In 1983 W.L. Lorimer's magnificent translation of the New Testament from the original Greek was published. Highly anglicised Scots is often used in contemporary fiction, for example, the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (later made into a motion picture of the same name, though with language allegedly anglicised even more to make it suitable for an international audience). But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt is a cyberpunk novel written entirely in what [http://www.scots-online.org/grammar Wir Ain Leid] (Our Own Language) calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative neologisms.

Dialects

There are at least five Scots dialects:
- Northern Scots, spoken north of Dundee, often split into North Northern, Mid Northern—also known as North East Scots and affectionately referred to as "the Doric"—and South Northern.
- Central Scots, spoken from Fife and Perthshire to the Lothians and Wigtownshire, often split into North East and South East Central, West Central and South West Central Scots.
- South Scots, spoken in the border areas.
- Insular Scots, spoken in the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands
- Ulster Scots, spoken by the descendants of Scottish settlers as well as those of Irish descent in Northern Ireland and County Donegal in the Irish Republic, and sometimes described by the neologism "Ullans", a conflation of Ulster and Lallans. However, in a recent article, Caroline Macafee, editor of The Concise Ulster Dictionary, stated that Ulster Scots was "clearly a dialect of Central Scots". As well as the main dialects, Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow (see Glasgow patter) have local variations on an anglicised form of Central Scots. In Aberdeen, Mid Northern Scots is spoken.

Pronunciation

Many writers now strictly avoid apostrophes where they supposedly represent "missing" English letters. Such letters were never actually missing in Scots. For example, in the twelfth century, Barbour spelt the Scots cognate of 'taken' as tane. Since there has been no k in the word for over 700 years, representing its omission with an apostrophe seems pointless. The current spelling is usually taen. The following is more a guide for readers. How the spellings are applied in practice is beyond the scope of such a short description. Phonetics are in IPA.

Consonants

Most consonants are usually pronounced much as in English but:
- c: or , much as in English.
- ch: , also gh. Medial 'cht' may be in Northern dialects. loch (Lake), nicht (night), dochter (daughter), dreich (dreary), etc.
- ch: word initial or where it follows 'r' . airch (arch), mairch (march), etc.
- gn: . In Northern dialects may occur.
- kn: . In Northern dialects or may occur. knap (talk), knee, knowe (knoll), etc.
- ng: is always .
- nch: usually . brainch (branch), dunch (push), etc.
- r: or is always pronounced.
- s or se: or .
- t: may be a glottal stop between vowels or word final. In Ulster dentalised pronunciations may also occur, also for 'd'.
- th: or much as is English. Initial 'th' in thing, think and thank, etc. may be .
- wh: usually , older . Northern dialects also have .
- wr: more often but may be in Northern dialects. wrack (wreck), wrang (wrong), write, wrocht (worked), etc.
- z: or , may occur in some words as a substitute for the older yogh (). For example: brulzie (broil), gaberlunzie (a beggar) and the name Menzies, etc.

Silent letters

- The word final 'd' in nd and ld: but often pronounced in derived forms. Sometimes simply 'n' and 'l' or 'n'' and 'l''. auld (old), haund (hand), etc.
- 't' in medial cht: ('ch' = ) and st and before final en. fochten (fought), thristle (thistle) also 't' in aften (often), etc.
- 't' in word final ct and pt but often pronounced in derived forms. respect, accept, etc.

Vowels

In Scots, vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scots vowel length rule. Words which differ only slightly in pronunciation from Scots English are generally spelled as in English. Other words may be spelt the same but differ in pronunciation, for example: aunt, swap, want and wash with , bull, full v. and pull with , bind, find and wind v., etc. with .
- The unstressed vowel may be represented by any vowel letter.
- a: usually but in south west and Ulster dialects often . Note final a in awa (away), twa (two) and wha (who) may also be or or depending on dialect.
- au, aw and sometimes a, a' or aa: or in Southern, Central and Ulster dialects but in Northern dialects. The cluster 'auld' may also be in Ulster. aw (all), cauld (cold), braw (handsome), faw (fall), snaw (snow), etc.
- ae, ai, a(consonant)e: . Often before . In Northern dialects the vowel in the cluster -'ane' is often . brae (slope), saip (soap), hale (whole), ane (one), ance (once), bane (bone), etc.
- ea, ei, ie: or depending on dialect. may occur before . Root final this may be in Southern dialects. In the far north may occur. deid (dead), heid (head), meat (food), clear, speir (enquire), sea, etc.
- ee, e(Consonant)e: . Root final this may be in Southern dialects. ee (eye), een (eyes), steek (shut), here, etc.
- e: . bed, het (heated), yett (gate), etc.
- eu: or depending on dialect. Sometimes erroneously 'oo', 'u(consonant)e', 'u' or 'ui'. beuk (book), ceuk (cook), eneuch (enough), leuk (look), teuk (took), etc.
- ew: . In Northern dialects a root final 'ew' may be . few, new, etc.
- i: , but often varies between and especially after 'w' and 'wh'. also occurs in Ulster before voiceless consonants. big, fit (foot), wid (wood), etc.
- i(consonant)e, y(consonant)e, ey: or . 'ay' is usually but in ay (yes) and aye (always). In Dundee it is noticeably .
- o: but often .
- oa: .
- ow, owe (root final), seldom ou: . Before 'k' vocalisation to may occur especially in western and Ulster dialects. bowk (retch), bowe (bow), howe (hollow), knowe (knoll), cowp (overturn), yowe (ewe), etc.
- ou, oo, u(consonant)e: . Root final may occur in Southern dialects. cou (cow), broun (brown), hoose (house), moose (mouse) etc.
- u: . but, cut, etc.
- ui, also u(consonant)e, oo: in conservative dialects. In parts of Fife, Dundee and north Antrim . In Northern dialects usually but after and and also before in some areas eg. fuird (ford). Mid Down and Donegal dialects have . In central and north Down dialects when short and when long. buird (board), buit (boot), cuit (ankle), fluir (floor), guid (good), schuil (school), etc. In central dialects uise v. and uiss n. (use) are and .

Suffixes

- Negative na: or depending on dialect. Also 'nae' or 'y' eg. canna (can't), dinna (don't) and maunna (mustn't).
- fu (ful): or depending on dialect. Also 'fu'', 'fie', 'fy', 'fae' and 'fa'.
- The word ending ae: or depending on dialect. Also 'a', 'ow' or 'y', for example: arrae (arrow), barrae (barrow) and windae (window), etc.

Some grammar features

Not all of these are exclusive to Scots and may also occur in other Anglic varieties.

The definite article

The is used before the names of seasons, days of the week, many nouns, diseases, trades, occupations, sciences and academic subjects. It is also often used in place of the indefinite article and instead of a possessive pronoun: the hairst (autumn), the Wadensday (wednesday), awa til the kirk (off to church), the nou (at the moment), the day (today), the haingles (influenza), the Laitin (Latin), The deuk ett the bit breid (The duck ate a piece of bread), the wife (my wife) etc.

Nouns

Nouns usually form their plural in -(e)s but some irregular plurals occur: ee/een (eye/eyes), cauf/caur (calf/calves), horse/horse (horse/horses), cou/kye (cow/cows), shae/shuin (shoe/shoes). Nouns of measure and quantity unchanged in the plural fower fit (four feet), twa mile (two miles), five pund (five pounds), three hunderwecht (three hundredweight). Regular plurals include laifs (loaves), leafs (leaves), shelfs (shelves) and wifes (wives), etc.

Diminutives

Diminutives in -ie, burnie small burn (brook), feardie/feartie (frightened person, coward), gamie (gamekeeper), kiltie (kilted soldier), postie (postman), wifie (woman), rhodie (rhododendron), and also in -ock, bittock (little bit), playock (toy, plaything), sourock (sorrel) and Northern –ag, bairnag (little) bairn (child), Cheordag (Geordie), -ockie, hooseockie (small house), wifeockie (little woman), both influenced by the Scottish Gaelic diminutive -ag (-óg in Irish Gaelic).

Modal verbs

The modal verbs mey (may), ocht tae (ought to), and sall (shall), are no longer used much in Scots but occurred historically and are still found in anglicised literary Scots. Can, shoud (should), and will are the preferred Scots forms. Scots employs double modal constructions He'll no can come the day (He won't be able to come today), A micht coud come the morn (I may be able to come tomorrow), A uised tae coud dae it, but no nou (I could do it once, but not now).

Present tense of verbs

The present tense of verbs ends in -s in all persons and numbers except when a single personal pronoun is next to the verb, Thay say he's ower wee, Thaim that says he's ower wee, Thir lassies says he's ower wee (They say he's too small), etc. Thay're comin an aw but Five o thaim's comin, The lassies? Thay've went but Ma brakes haes went. Thaim that comes first is serred first (Those who come first are served first). The trees growes green in the simmer (The trees grow green in summer). Wis 'was' may replace war 'were', but not conversely: You war/wis thare.

Past tense of verbs

The regular past form of the verb is -(i)t or -(e)d, according to the preceding consonant or vowel hurtit, skelpit (smacked), Mendit, kent/kenned (knew/known), cleant/cleaned, scrieved (scribbled), telt/tauld (told), dee'd (died). Some verbs have distinctive forms: greet/grat/grutten (weep/wept), fesh/fuish/fuishen (fetch/fetched), lauch/leuch/lauchen~leuchen (laugh/laughed), thrash/thruish/thrashen~thruishen (thresh/threshed), wash/wuish/washen~wuishen (wash/washed), gae/gaed/gane (go/went/gone), gie/gied/gien (give/gave/given), pit/pat/pitten (put/put/put/), git/gat/gotten (get/got/got(ten)), ride/rade/ridden (ride/rode/ridden), drive/drave/driven~dreen (drive/drove/driven), write/wrat(e)/written (write/wrote/written), bind/band/bund (bind/bound/bound), find/fand/fund (find/found/found), fecht/focht/fochten (fight/fought), bake/bakit~beuk/baken (bake/baked), tak(e)/teuk/taen (take/took/taken), chuse/chusit/chusit (choose/chose/chosen).

Word order

Scots prefers the word order He turnt oot the licht to 'He turned the light out' and Gie me it to 'Give it to me'. Certain verbs are often used progressively He wis thinkin he wad tell her, He wis wantin tae tell her. Verbs of motion may be dropped before an adverb or adverbial phrase of motion A'm awa tae ma bed, That's me awa hame, A'll intae the hoose an see him.

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers ending in -t seicont, fowert, fift, saxt—(second, fourth, fifth, sixth) etc. first, Thrid/third—(first, third).

Adverbs

Adverbs are usually of the same form as the verb root or adjective especially after verbs. Haein a real guid day (Having a really good day). She's awfu fauchelt (She's awfully tired).
Adverbs are also formed with -s, -lies, lins, gate(s)and wey(s) -wey, whiles (at times), mebbes (perhaps), brawlies (splendidly), geylies (pretty well), aiblins (perhaps), airselins (backwards), hauflins (partly), hidlins (secretly), maistlins (almost), awgates (always, everywhere), ilkagate (everywhere), onygate (anyhow), ilkawey (everywhere), onywey(s) (anyhow, anywhere), endweys (straight ahead), whit wey (how, why).

Subordinate clauses

Verbless subordinate clauses introduced by an and expressing surprise or indignation She haed tae walk the hale lenth o the road an her sieven month pregnant, He telt me tae rin an me wi ma sair leg (and me with my sore leg).

Negation

Negation occurs by using the adverb no, in the North East nae, as in A'm no comin (I'm not coming), or by using the suffix -na (pronunciation depending on dialect), as in A dinna ken (I don't know), Thay canna come (They can't come), We coudna hae telt him (We couldn't have told him), and A hivna seen her (I haven't seen her). The usage with no is preferred to that with -na with contractable auxiliary verbs like -ll for will, or in yes no questions with any auxiliary He'll no come and Did he no come?

Relative pronoun

The relative pronoun is that ('at is an alternative form borrowed from Norse but can also be arrived at by contraction) for all persons and numbers, but may be left out Thare's no mony fowk (that) leeves in that glen (There aren't many people who live in that glen). The anglicised forms wha, wham, whase 'who, whom, whose', and the older whilk 'which' are literary affectations; whilk is only used after a statement He said he'd tint it, whilk wis no whit we wantit tae hear. The possessive is formed by adding s or by using an appropriate pronoun The wifie that's hoose gat burnt, the wumman that her dochter gat mairit; the men that thair boat wis tint. A third adjective/adverb yon/yonder, thon/thonder indicating something at some distance D'ye see yon/thon hoose ower yonder/thonder? Also thae (those) and thir (these), the plurals of this and that. In Northern Scots this and that are also used where "these" and "those" would be in Standard English.
References

- Aitken, A.J. (1977) How to Pronounce Older Scots in Bards and Makars. Glasgow, Glasgow University Press.
- Aitken, A. J. (1987) The Nuttis Schell: Essays on the Scots Language. Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press. ISBN 0080345301
- Caldwell, S.J.G. (1974) The Pronoun in Early Scots. Helsinki, Société Néophilique.
- Corbett, John; McClure, Derrick; Stuart-Smith, Jane (Editors)(2003) The Edinburgh Companion to Scots. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0748615962
- Eagle, Andy (2005) Wir Ain Leid. Scots-Online. Available in full at http://www.scots-online.org/airticles/WirAinLeid.pdf
- Jones, Charles (1997) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language. Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh Press. ISBN 0748607544
- Jones, Charles (1995) A Language Suppressed: The pronunciation of the Scots language in the 18th century. Edinburgh, John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-427-3
- Kingsmore, Rona K. (1995) Ulster Scots Speech: A Sociolinguistic Study. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817307117
- McClure, J. Derrick (1997) Why Scots Matters. Edinburgh, Saltire Society. ISBN 0854110712
- Niven, Liz; Jackson, Robin (Eds.) (1998) The Scots Language: its place in education. Watergaw Publications. ISBN 0952997851
- Robertson, T.A.; Graham, J.J. (1991) Grammar and Use of the Shetland Dialect. Lerwick, The Shetland Times Ltd.
- Ross, David; Smith, Gavin D. (Editors)(1999) Scots-English, English-Scots Practical Dictionary. New York, Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0781807794
- Scottish National Dictionary Association (1999) Concise Scots Dictionary . Edinburgh, Polygon. ISBN 1902930010
- Scottish National Dictionary Association (1999) Scots Thesaurus. Edinburgh, Polygon. ISBN 1902930037
- Warrack, Alexander (Editor)(1911) Chambers Scots Dictionary. Chambers.
- Yound, C.P.L. (2004) Scots Grammar. Scotsgate. Available in full at http://www.scotsgate.com/scotsgate01.pdf
See also

- Scottish literature
- Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
- Languages in the United Kingdom
External links

- [http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ The Scots Language Dictionary]
- [http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/pronunci.htm#cairt Dialect Map]
- [http://www.scots-online.org/grammar Scots-online]
- [http://www.lallans.co.uk/ The Scots Language Society]
- [http://www.sldl.org.uk/ Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd.]
- [http://www.scotstext.org/ ScotsteXt]—books, poems and texts in Scots
- [http://rasteri.sytes.net/~jmtait/but/wan/index.htm A Tait Wanchancie.]
- [http://www.scots-online.org/airticles/phonetics.htm SAMPA for Scots]
- [http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/5to14/specialfocus/scots/index.asp Scots in Schools]
- [http://www.englang.ed.ac.uk/scots.html Scots at University]
- [http://www.stooryduster.co.uk/ Scottish words - illustrated]
- [http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/ Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech] - Multimedia corpus of Scots and Scottish English nb:Skotsk språk

Scottish English

Scottish English is taken by some to include Scots and by others to exclude it. Here Scots is excluded and only what is known as Scottish Standard English (SSE) considered. There is a separate article on Scottish Highland English. SSE is the form of the English language used in Scotland. It is normally used in formal, non-fictional written texts in Scotland. Phonetics are in IPA.

Background

The standard spelling, grammar, and punctuation of Scottish English tend to follow the style of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). However, there are some unique characteristics, many of which originate in the country's two autochthonous languages, the Scottish Gaelic language and Lowland Scots. The speech of the middle classes in Scotland often conforms to the grammatical norms of the written standard, particularly in situations that are regarded as formal. Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by a Gaelic substratum.

Lexis

General items are outwith, meaning outside of; pinkie for little finger; doubt meaning to think or suspect; and wee, the Scots word for small. Correct is often preferred to right meaning morally right or just, as opposed to just factually accurate. Culturally specific items like caber, haggis, and landward for rural. There is a wide range of (often anglicised) legal and administrative vocabulary inherited from Scots. depute for deputy. proven for proved, and sheriff substitute for acting sheriff.

Phonology

Pronunciation features vary among speakers, and there are social and regional differences (Wells 1982):
- It is a rhotic accent, with r still pronounced before consonants or silence. It may be (an alveolar trill), though more commonly a alveolar tap and especially post-alveolar approximant , depending on the phonological context.
- The differentiation between "w" in witch and "wh" in which, and respectively survives.
- The phoneme is also still common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and Scots borrowings, so much so that it is often taught to incomers, particularly for "ch" in loch.
- L is usually dark, though in areas where Gaelic was recently spoken — including Dumfries and Galloway a clear l may be found.
- The following may occur in colloquial speech, usually among the young, especially males. They are not usually regarded as part of SSE, their origin being in Scots:
- The use of glottal stops for between vowels or word final after a vowel, for example butter and cat .
- The realisation of the nasal velar in the suffix "-ing" as a nasal alveolar "in'" for example talking .
- Vowel length is usually regarded as being non-phonemic, but is a crucial aspect of the accent. It most clearly affects , and . Predictable short vowel duration gives many Scottish accents a distinctive "clipped" pronunciation before two classes of consonants, namely nasals, for example spoon and voiced stops, especially , e.g. brood . This is generally the same as in the Scots language, but the latter includes minimal pairs for e.g. gey, "very" vs. e.g. guy. Vowel length is nearly phonemic in SSE because when open syllable verbs are suffixed they remain long, thus vowel length clearly distinguishes e.g. crude vs. crewed, need vs. kneed, and side vs. sighed.
Some speakers, it is sometimes claimed, may distinguish some pairs by vowel length, for example leek vs. leak , vane vs. vain , creek vs. creak , etc.
- SSE usually distinguishes between before in herd-bird-curd, in Received Pronunciation these have merged into .
- Many varieties contrast and before as in hoarse and horse.
- SSE contrasts and , as in shore and pour vs. sure and poor.
- Fool and full have or or in SSE where RP differentiates.
- Many varieties have the cot-caught merger, so that cot and caught are both pronounced with (Wells 1982, p400).
- Cat and cart are differentiated as allophones, but are not phonemes, so that Sam and psalm are homophonous.

Syntax

Syntactical differences are few though in colloquial speech shall and ought are wanting, must is marginal for obligation and may is rare. Many syntactical features of SSE are found in North American English:
- Can I come too? for "May I come too?"
- Have you got any? for "Do you have any?"
- I've got one of those already. for "I have one of those already."
- It's your shot. for "It's your turn."
- My hair is needing washed. for "My hair needs washing."
- Amn't I invited? for "Aren't I invited?" Note also I amn't invited. Other examples are distinctively Scots:
- She's a bonnie lass. for "She's a pretty girl."
- Dae ye no/nae ken? for "Don't you know." Other influences from Scots may occur depending on the speaker.

References

External links

- [http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/sse.htm Scottish Standard English]
- [http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/ Dictionary of the Scots Language]
- [http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/ Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech] - Multimedia corpus of Scots and Scottish English

Koine Greek

Koine Greek () is an ancient Greek dialect which marks the 2nd stage in the history of the Greek language. Other names are Alexandrian, Hellenistic or New Testament Greek. Koine Greek is not only important to the history of the Greeks for being their first common dialect and main ancestor of Demotic Greek, but is also significant for its impact on Western Civilization for being the first "international" language (or lingua franca), and for being the original language of the New Testament of the Christian Bible and the medium for the teaching and spreading of Christianity. Koine Greek was unofficially a first or second language in the Roman Empire.

History

Koine Greek started taking shape as a common Greek dialect within the armies of Alexander the Great. As the allied Greek states under the leadership of Macedon conquered and colonised the known world, their newly formed common dialect was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. Even though Koine Greek was shaped during the late Classic Era, the symbolic starting point of the 2nd period of the Greek language that is known as Post-Classic begins at the death of Alexander the Great and the beginning of the Hellenistic era in 323 BC. The closing of Post-Classic Greek and the passage into the 3rd period of the Greek language, which is known as Medieval Greek, is symbolically assigned at the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 330 AD. In that respect, the Post-Classic period of Greek refers to the creation and evolution of Koine Greek throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman eras of Greek history until the start of the Middle Ages.

The term Koine

Koine (Κοινή), which is Greek for "Common", is a term that had been previously applied by ancient scholars to several forms of Greek speech. A school of scholars such as Apollonius Dyscolus and Aelius Herodianus maintained the term Koine to refer to the Proto-Greek language, while others would use it to refer to any vernacular form of Greek speech which deferred to the literary language. When Koine gradually became a language of literature, some people distinguished it in two forms: Hellenic (Greek), as the literary Post-Classic form, and Koine (common), as the spoken popular form. Others chose to refer to Koine as the Alexandrian dialect (""), meaning the dialect spread by Alexander the Great (a term often used by modern Classicists).

Roots

The linguistic roots of the Common Greek dialect had been unclear since ancient times. During the Hellenistic age, most scholars thought of Koine as the result of the mixture of the four main Ancient Greek dialects, "" (the composition of the Four). This view was supported in the early 19th century by Austrian linguist P. Kretschmer in his book "Die Entstehung der Koine" (1901), while the German scholar Wilamowitz and the French linguist Antoine Meillet, based on the intense Attic-Ionic elements of Koine - such as σσ instead of ττ and ρσ instead of ρρ () - considered Koine to be a simplified form of Ionic. The final answer that is academically accepted today was given by the Greek linguist G. N. Hatzidakis, who proved that, despite the "composition of the Four", the "stable nucleus" of Koine Greek is Attic. In other words, Koine Greek can be regarded as the result of the admixture of the three Ancient Greek dialects and Attic. The degree of importance of the non-Attic linguistic elements on Koine can vary depending on the region of the Hellenistic World. In that respect, the idioms of Koine spoken in the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor and Cyprus would have more intense Ionic characteristics than others.

Sources of Koine

The first scholars who studied Koine, both in Alexandrian and contemporary times, were classicists whose prototype had been the literary Attic language of the Classic period, and would frown upon on any other kind of Hellenic speech. Koine Greek was therefore considered a decayed form of Greek that was not worthy of attention. The reconsideration on the historical and linguistic importance of Koine Greek began only in the early 19th century, where renowned scholars conducted series of studies on the evolution of Koine throughout the entire Hellenistic and Roman period that it covered. The sources used on the studies of Koine have been numerous and of unequal reliability. The most significant ones, are the inscriptions of the Post-Classic periods and the papyri, for being two kinds of texts that have authentic content and can be studied directly. Other significant sources are the biblical texts of the Old and the New Testaments, the former being translated and the latter being written directly in Greek. The teaching of the Testaments was aimed at the most common people, and for that reason they're using the most popular language of the era. Information can also be drained from some Atticist scholars of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, who, in order to fight the evolution of the language, published works which compared the supposedly "correct" Attic against the "wrong" Koine by citing examples. For example Phrynichus Arabius during the 2nd century AD wrote:
- .
- "Basilissa (Queen), none of the Ancients said, but Basileia or Basilis".
- .
- "Dioria (deadline), badly illiteral, instead use Prothesmia".
- .
- "Pantote (always) do not say, but Ekastote and Dia pantos". Other sources can be based on random findings such as inscriptions on vases written by popular painters, mistakes made by Atticists due to their imperfect knowledge of pure Attic, or even some surviving Greco-Latin glossaries of the Roman period, e.g:
- " - Bono die, venisti?" (Good day, you came?).
- " - Si vis, veni mecum." (If you want, come with me).
- " - Ubi?" (Where?).
- " - Ad amicum nostrum Lucium." (To our friend Lucius).
- " - Quid enim habet?" (What does he have?—What is it with him?).
- " - Aegrotat." (He's sick). Finally, a very important source of information on the ancient Koine Greek is the Modern Greek language with all its dialects and its Koine form and idioms, which have preserved most of the ancient language's oral linguistic details that the written tradition has lost. For example the Pontic and Kappadocian dialects preserved the ancient pronunciation of η as ε (νύφε, συνέλικος, τίμεσον, πεγάδι etc), while the Tsakonic preserved the long α instead of η ( etc) and the other local characteristics of Laconic. Idioms from the Southern part of the Greek-speaking regions (Dodecanese, Cyprus etc), preserve the pronunciation of the double similar consonants (), while others pronounce in many words υ as ου or preserve ancient double forms (κρόμμυον - κρεμ-μυον, ράξ - ρώξ etc). Linguistic phenomena like the above imply that those characteristics survived within Koine, which in turn had countless idiomatic variations in the Greek-speaking world.

Evolution from Ancient Greek

The study of all sources from the six centuries that are symbolically covered by Koine reveals linguistic changes from Ancient Greek on phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and other elements of the spoken language. Most new forms start off as rare and gradually become more frequent until they are established. From the linguistic changes that took place in Koine, Greek gained such a resemblance with its Medieval and Modern successors that almost all characteristics of Modern Greek can be traced in the surviving texts of Koine. As most of the changes between Modern and Ancient Greek were introducted with Koine, today Modern and Koine Greek are almost mutually intelligible. Evolution in phonology:
- The ancient distinction between long and short vowels was gradually lost, and from the 2nd century BC all vowels were isochronic.
- Since the 2nd century BC, the means of accenting words changed from pitch to stress, meaning that the accented syllable is not pronounced in a musical tone but louder and/or stronger.
- The aspirate breathing (aspiration), which was already lost in the Ionic idioms of Asia Minor and the Aeolic of Lesbos, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.
- Long diphthongs, which in older times were written with a subscript of ι after a long vowel, stopped being pronounced and written in popular texts.
- The diphthongs αι, ει, οι, and υι became single vowels. In his manner 'αι', which had already been converted by the Boetians into a long ε since the 4th century BC and written η (e.g. πής, χήρε, μέμφομη), became in Koine, too, first a long ε and then short. The diphthong 'ει' had already merged with ι in the 5th century BC in regions such as Argos or in the 4th c. BC in Corinth (e.g. ΛΕΓΙΣ), and it acquired this pronunciation also in Koine. The diphthongs 'οι' and 'υι' acquired the pronunciation of the modern French 'U' ([y] in IPA), which lasted until the 10th century AD. The diphthong 'ου' had already acquired the pronunciation of Latin 'U' since the 6th century BC and preserved it in modern times.
- The diphthongs αυ and ευ came to be pronounced "av" and "ev", but are "af" and "ef" before the voiceless consonants θ, κ, ξ, π, σ, τ, φ, χ, and ψ.
- Simple vowels have preserved their ancient pronunciations, except η which is pronounced as ι, and υ, which retained the pronunciation of modern French U only until the 10th c. AD, and was later also pronounced as ι. With those changes in phonology there were common spelling mistakes between υ and οι, while the sound of ι was multiplied (Iotacism).
- The consonants also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except β, γ, δ, φ, θ, χ and ζ. Β, Γ, Δ (Beta, Gamma, Delta), which were initially pronounced as b, g, d, acquired the sound of v, gh, and dh ([v], [], [ð] in IPA) that they still have today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient sounds (e.g. γαμβρός - γαmbρός, άνδρας - άndρας, άγγελος - άŋgελος). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates (ph, th and kh respectively), acquired the sound of f, th, h ([f], [θ], and [x]) that they also preserve until today. Finally the letter Ζ, which is still categorised as a double consonant with ξ and ψ, because it was initially pronounced as σδ (sd), later acquired the sound of Z as it appears in Modern English and Greek.

Koine Greek in the Old Testament

The Deuterocanonical books is a series of texts that was not part of the Jewish Tanakh (scripture) and was later included in the Old Testament by the Eastern Christianity, and also recognized by Catholics. It cannot be said for certain whether the surviving Greek text is a translation, as no Hebrew text was ever found. The First Book of the Maccabees, which starts the Deutrocanon, was written in the 1st or 2nd century BC by an unknown Jewish author. It is a very informative source on Greek Koine as most writers and scholars at the time used Attic for their literary work. This is a sample text from its first ten verses: 1 (Ke egeneto meta to patakse Alexandron ton Philippou Makedona, os eksilthen ek ghis Chetiim, ke epataksen ton Darion Vasilea Person kai Midon ke evasilefsen ant'aftou, proteron epi tin Ellada). En. And so it happened, after Alexander (son) of Philip the Macedonian, he came out of the land of Cethim, and smote Darius ruler of Persians and Medes, and reigned in his stead as the ruler of Greece. 2 (Ke sunestisato polemous pollous ke ekratisen ohuromaton ke esfaksen vasilis tis ghis) En. And he waged many wars, conquered strongholds and slew Kings of the Earth. 3 (Ke diilthen eos akron tis ghis ke elaven skula plithous ethnon, ke isuhasen i ghi enopion aftou, ke upsothi, ke epirthi i kardia aftou). En. And he went to the edges of the Earth and received the spoils of many nations, and the Earth went quiet before him, and his heart was risen and lifted up. 4 (Ke suniksen dunamin ishuran sfodra ke irksen xoron ethnon kai turannon, ke egenonto auto is foron) En. And he gathered strength and power, and he conquered countries of nations and tyrants, and they all became his subjects. 5 (ke meta tafta epesen epi tin kutin ke eghno oti apothniskei) En. And after all of these, he fell down upon his bed, and he knew that he was meant to die. 6 (Ke ekalesen tous pedas aftou tous endoksous tous sunektrophous aftou ek neotitos ke diilen aftis tin vasilian aftou eti aftou zontos). En. And he summoned his noble servants that were brought up with him in youth, and he divided his Kingdom between them while he was still alive. 7 (ke evasilefsen Aleksandros eti dodeka ke apethanen). En. And Alexander ruled for twelve years, and he died. 8 (ke epekratisan oi pedes aftou, eksastos en to topo aftou) En. And his servants ruled in his stead, each in his own place. 9 (ke apethento pantes diadimata meta to apothanin afton kai i uii afton opiso afton eti polla kai aplithinan kaka en ti ghi). En. And they all took crowned themselves after his death, and so did their sons after them for many years, and evils were increased on the earth. 10 (ke eksilthen eks afton riza amartolos Antiohos Epifanis uios Antiohou tou vasileos, os in omira en Romi ke evasilefsen en eti ekatosto ke triakosto ke evdomo vasilias Ellinon). En. And out of them came an evil offspring, Antiochus the Illustrious, son of King Antiochus, who had been a hostage in Rome, and ruled in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.

References

- Nikolaos P. Andriotis, History of the Greek language.
- Abel E., Grammaire du grec biblique. Category:Hellenic languages and dialects Greek, Koine

Gothic language

:Note, this article contains special characters. You may need to install a Gothic Unicode Font. The Gothic language (
- gutiska razda,
-

Palatalisation

Palatalization generally refers to two phenomena:
- As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;
- As a phonetic description, the secondary articulation of consonants by which the body of the tongue is raised toward the hard palate during the articulation of the consonant. Such consonants are phonetically palatalized, and in the International Phonetic Alphabet they are indicated by a superscript 'j', as for a palatalized [t]. The second may be the result of the first, but they often differ. That is, a vowel may "palatalize" a consonant (sense 1), but the result might not be a palatalized consonant in the phonetic sense (sense 2). Conversely, the word palatalization may also be used for the effect a palatal or palatalized consonant exerts on nearby sounds, as in , where the front vowel [æ] only occurs as an allophone of [a] after a palatalized consonant, as seen in the pronunciation of the name of the language itself, . However, while the process may be called palatalization, the resulting vowel [æ] is not called a palatalized vowel in the phonetic sense. Terminology such as "palatal vowel" is found, however, but this is primary and not secondary articulation.

Phonetic (synchronic) palatalization

Palatalization may be a synchronic phonological process, by which some phonemes are palatalized in certain contexts, typically before front vowels or especially high front vowels, and remain non-palatalized elsewhere. This involves raising the body of the tongue toward the palate in addition to the original articulation, which may produce a laminal articulation of otherwise apical consonants such as /t/ and /s/. This process often does not produce separate phonemes, but allophonic variation that may even go unnoticed by native speakers. As an example, compare the /k/ of English key with the /k/ of coo, or the /t/ of tea with the /t/ of took. The first word of each pair is palatalized, but few English speakers would perceive them as distinct. The variation might be seen as allophonic variation as long as the "palatal" sound causing the palatalization is there. However, syncope or elision might delete this sound, and thus only the palatalization remains as a distinct feature. For a minimal pair, consider kass from
- kassi "cat" vs. kas (interrogative). It is also possible for palatalization to occur as an independent feature, independently of the following vowel. Sometimes palatalization is part of a synchronic grammatical process, such as palatalizing the first consonant of a verb root to signal the past tense. This type of palatalization is phonemic, and is recognized by the speakers as a contrasting feature. However, what may have started off as phonetic palatalization can quickly evolve into something else, so not all of the resulting consonants are necessarily palatalized phonetically. Phonetically palatalized consonants may also vary in their exact realization. In , for example, palatalization is continued as a long, noticeable palatal offglide. That is, will be realized as . Furthermore, alveolar stops have a fricative release; is actually more like . In , on the other hand, the palatalization permeates the consonant, and is heard as both an onglide and an offglide: . Palatalization is not the same as primary palatal articulation. These contrast in Skolt Sami; e.g. plain (or velarized) alveolar nasal , palatalized alveolar nasal <'n> and palatal nasal .

Historical (diachronic) palatalization

Palatalization may be a diachronic phonemic split, that is, a historical change by which a phoneme becomes two new phonemes over time through phonetic palatalization. Old historical splits have frequently drifted since the time they occurred, and may be independent of current phonetic palatalization. For example, has undergone such a change historically, in for example keeli → tšeeli "language", but there is currently an additional distinction between palatalized laminal and non-palatalized apical consonants. Palatalization has played a major role in the history of the Uralic, Romance, Slavic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Indic languages, among many others throughout the world. In Japanese, for example, allophonic palatalization affected the alveolar stops /t/ and /d/, turning them into alveolo-palatal affricates and before /i/. Japanese has only recently regained phonetic [ti] and [di] through borrowed words, and thus this originally allophonic palatalization has become lexical. Such phonemic splits due to historic palatalization are common in many other languages. Some English examples of cognate words distinguished by historical palatalization are church vs. kirk, witch vs. wicca, ditch vs. dike, and shirt vs. skirt, although only in witch/wicca did the change occur in historical times; in the other cases the words come from related dialects, only one of which experienced palatalization. More recently, the original /t/ of question and nature have come to be pronounced as ch in some English dialects, and similarly the original /d/ of soldier and procedure have come to be pronounced as j. This effect can be also be seen in casual speech in some dialects, where do you want to go? comes out like jew wanna go?, and did you eat yet? as didja eat yet?.

Local uses of the word

There are various other local or historical uses of the word. In Slavic linguistics, the "palatal" fricatives marked by a hacek are really postalveolar consonants that arose from palatalization historically. There are also phonetically palatalized consonants that contrast with this; thus the distinction is made between "palatal" (postalveolar) and "palatalized". It should be noted that even if it is called "palatalized", this does not guarantee it is phonetically palatalized; e.g. in Russian, when 'т' is so-called "palatalized", a palatalized sibilant offglide is actually added, as in тема . In Uralic linguistics, "palatalization" has the standard phonetic meaning. , , and , , are distinct phonemes, as they are in the Slavic languages, but and are not considered either palatal or palatalized sounds. In particular, the Uralic palatalized is purely a stop, unlike the Russian "palatalized т", where audible frication is permitted. In using the Latin alphabet for Uralic languages, palatalization is typically denoted with an acute accent, as in Võro <ś>; an apostrophe, as in ; or digraphs in j, as in the Savo dialect of , . Postalveolars, in contrast, take a caron, <š>, or are digraphs in h, .

References

Bynon, Theodora. Historical Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-521-21582-X (hardback) or ISBN 0-521-291188-7 (paperback).
Erkki Savolainen, Internetix 1998. Suomen murteet - Koprinan murretta. [http://www.internetix.ofw.fi/opinnot/opintojaksot/8kieletkirjallisuus/aidinkieli/murteet/koprina.html] (with a sound sample with palatalized t') Category:Assimilation Category:Historical linguistics ko:구개음화 ja:口蓋化

Old Norse

and the green area is the extent of the other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility]] Old Norse is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300. It evolved from the older Proto-Norse, in the 8th century. Due to the fact that most of the surviving texts are from Medieval Icelandic, the de facto standard version of the language is its dialect Old West Norse, that is Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. Sometimes, Old Norse is even defined as Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. However, there was also an Old East Norse dialect which was very similar and was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and their settlements. Moreover, there was no clear geographical separation between the two dialects. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden. In addition, there was also an Old Gutnish dialect, sometimes included in Old East Norse due to it being the least known dialect. Until the 13th century these three dialects were considered by their speakers to be one and the same language, and they called it dansk tunga (in the eastern dialect) or dönsk tunga (in the western dialect). This autonym translates as "Danish tongue". Old Norse was mutually intelligible with Old English and Old Saxon and other Low Germanic languages spoken in northern Germany. It gradually evolved into the modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. Modern Icelandic is the descendant which has diverged the least from Old Norse. Faroese also retains many similarities but is influenced from Danish, Norwgeian, and Gaelic (Scots and/or Irish). Although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain mutual intelligibility. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having a similar development due to impact from Low German.

Geographical distribution

Old Icelandic was essentially identical to Old Norwegian and they formed together the Old West Norse dialect of Old Norse. The Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark and Sweden and settlements in Russia, England and Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, it was the most widely spoken European language ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga in the East. In Russia it survived longest in Novgorod and died out in the 13th century.

Modern descendants

Its modern descendants are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian and the extinct Norn language of the Orkney and the Shetland Islands as well as the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish. Norwegian has decended from West Norse (West Scandinavian), but over the centuries it has been heavily influenced by East Norse (East Scandinavian). Among these, Icelandic and the closely related Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, although with Danish rule of the Faroe Islands Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and particularly Lowland Scots which contains many Old Norse loanwords. It also influenced the development of the Norman language. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects and Scottish Gaelic. Russian and Finnish also have a number of Norse loanwords; "Russian" itself is derived from "Rus", a Norse term.

Sounds

Vowels

The vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The orthography marks the long vowels with an acute accent. The short counterpart of is not a phoneme but an allophone of . The long counterpart of has merged with in the classical (13th century) language. All phonemes have, more or less, the expected phonetic realization.

Consonants

Old Norse has six stop phonemes. Of these is rare word-initially and and do not occur between vowels. The phoneme is realized as a voiced fricative between vowels.

Orthography

The standardized Old Norse spelling is for the most part phonemic. The most notable deviation is that the non-phonemic difference between the voiced and the unvoiced dental fricatives is marked. As mentioned above, long vowels are denoted with acutes. Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below.

Dialects and texts

The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century (although there are 200 inscriptions in Proto-Norse going as far back as the 2nd century), and runes continued to be used for a thousand years. The main literary texts are in the Latin alphabet, the great sagas and eddas of medieval Iceland. As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts varied geographically. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from
- fullian) were stronger in the West whereas those resulting in diaeresis (for example hiarta from herto) were more influential in the East. This difference was the main reason behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden. A second difference was that the old diphthongs generally became monophthongs in East Norse. For instance in East Norse stain became sten, whereas it became steinn in West Norse. In Old Gutnish, this diphthong remained. Old West Norse and Old Gutnish kept the diphthong au as in auga, whereas it in East Norse became øgha. Likewise, West Norse had the ey diphthong, as in heyra, while it in East Norse became ø, as in høra, and in Old Gutnish was oy as in hoyra. A third difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse. However, these differences were an exception. The dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they called the Danish tongue, for example Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu (Snorri Sturluson, the Ynglinga saga). Translation: Dyggve's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg's son, who was the first one to be called king in the Danish tongue. Here is a comparison between the two dialects. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones (U990) meaning : Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursa, their father. God help his soul: :Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr reistu stein þenna at Haursa, föður sinn. Guð hjalpi önd hans. (OWN) :Veðr ok Þegn ok Gunnarr ræistu stæin þenna at Haursa, faður sinn. Guð hialpi and hans (OEN)

Old West Norse

Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area, but some were geographically limited and created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. One difference was that Old West Norse did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi/ei into e, øy/ey into ø and au into ø. An early difference was that Old West Norse had the forms bu (dwelling), ku (cow) and tru (faith) whereas Old East Norse had bo, ko and tro. Old West Norse was also characterized by u-umlaut, which meant that for example Proto-Norse
- tanþu was pronounced tönn and not tand as in Old East Norse. Moreoever, there were nasal assimilations as in bekkr from Proto-Norse
- bankiaz. The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed ca 900 by Tjodolf of Hvin. The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150-1200 and concern both legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Vestlandet were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. As the body of text has come down to us until ca 1300, Old West Norse was a uniform dialect and it is difficult to see whether a text was written in Old Icelandic or in Old Norwegian. It was called norrœn tunga (the Northern tongue). Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r. This meant that whereas Old Icelandic had the form hnefi (fist), Old Norwegian had the forms næve and neve. About 1300, the court moved to south-eastern Norway, and the old written standard was felt to be old-fashioned. After the union with Sweden ca 1319, Old Swedish began to influence Norwegian, and the plague, about 1350, meant more or less the end of the old literary tradition. The influence from East Norse had only begun and was continued after the union with Denmark in 1380.

Text example

The following text is from Egils saga. The manuscript is the oldest known for that saga, the so called θ-fragment from the 13th century. The text clearly shows how little Icelandic has changed structurally. The last version is legitimate Modern Icelandic, although nothing has been altered but the spelling. The text also demonstrates, however, that a modern reader might have difficulties with the unaltered manuscript text, to say nothing of the lettering.

Old East Norse

Old East Norse, between 800 and 1100, is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but the use of Swedish and Danish is not for linguistic reasons. They are called runic due to the fact that the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, the rune for the vowel u was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i was used for e. A change that occurrered in Old East Norse was the change of æi (Old West Norse ei) to e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island". Until the early 12th century, Old East Norse was a uniform dialect. It was in Denmark that the first innovations appeared that would differentiate Old Danish from Old Swedish and these innovations spread north unevenly creating a series of isoglosses going from Zealand to Svealand. The word final vowels -a, -o and -e started to merge into -e. At the same time, the voiceless stop consonants p, t and k became voiced stops and even fricatives. These innovations resulted in that Danish has kage, bide and gabe whereas Swedish has retained older forms, kaka, bita and gapa. Moreover, Danish lost the tonal word accent present in modern Swedish and Norwegian, replacing the grave accent with a glottal stop.

Text example

This is an extract from the Westrogothic law (Västgötalagen). It is the oldest text written as a manuscript found in Sweden and from the 13th century. It is contemporaneous with most of the Icelandic literature. The text marks the beginning of Old Swedish. :Dræpær maþar svænskan man eller smalenskæn, innan konongsrikis man, eigh væstgøskan, bøte firi atta ørtogher ok þrettan markær ok ænga ætar bot. [...] Dræpar maþær danskan man allæ noræn man, bøte niv markum. Dræpær maþær vtlænskan man, eigh ma frid flyia or landi sinu oc j æth hans. Dræpær maþær vtlænskæn prest, bøte sva mykit firi sum hærlænskan man. Præstær skal i bondalaghum væræ. Varþær suþærman dræpin ællær ænskær maþær, ta skal bøta firi marchum fiurum þem sakinæ søkir, ok tvar marchar konongi. Translation: :If someone slays a Swede or a Smålander, a man from the kingdom, but not a West Geat, he will pay eight örtugar and thirteen marks, but no wergild. The king owns nine marks from manslaughter and the killing of any man. If someone slays a Dane or a Norwegian, he will pay nine marks. If someone slays a foreigner, he shall not be banished and have to flee to his clan. If someone slays a foreign priest, he will pay as much as for a foreigner. A priest counts as a freeman. If a Southerner is slain or an Englishman, he shall pay four marks to the plaintif and two marks to the king.

Old Gutnish

The Gutasaga is the longest text surviving from Old Gutnish. It was written in the 13th century and dealt with the early history of the Gotlanders. This part relates of the agreement that the Gotlanders had with the Swedish king sometime before the 9th century: :So gingu gutar sielfs wiliandi vndir suia kunung þy at þair mattin frir Oc frelsir sykia suiariki j huerium staþ. vtan tull oc allar utgiftir. So aigu oc suiar sykia gutland firir vtan cornband ellar annur forbuþ. hegnan oc hielp sculdi kunungur gutum at waita. En þair wiþr þorftin. oc kallaþin. sendimen al oc kunungr oc ierl samulaiþ a gutnal þing senda. Oc latta þar taka scatt sinn. þair sendibuþar aighu friþ lysa gutum alla steþi til sykia yfir haf sum upsala kunungi til hoyrir. Oc so þair sum þan wegin aigu hinget sykia. Translation: :So, by their own volition, the Gotlanders became the subjects of the Swedish king, so that they could travel freely and without risk to any location in the Swedish kingdom without toll and other fees. Likewise, the Swedes had the right to go to Gotland without corn restrictions or other prohibitions. The king was to provide protection and aid, when they needed it and asked for it. The king and the jarl shall send emissaries to the Gutnish althing to receive the taxes. These emissaries shall declare free passage for the Gotlanders to all locations in the sea of the king at Uppsala (that is the Baltic Sea was under Swedish control) and likewise for everyone who wanted to travel to Gotland. Some important characteristics of old Gutnish are seen in this text. First, unlike contemporary East Norse all diphthongs are preserved. Second, the diphtong ai in aigu, þair and waita (and probably other words) is not umlauted to ei as in West Norse eigu, þeir and veita.

References

- Gordon, Eric V. and A.R. Taylor. Introduction to Old Norse. Second. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.

External links

- [http://www.heimskringla.no «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad»]
- [http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/language_resources.html Indo-European Language Resources] The resources in question are mostly Germanic, including two dictionaries of Old Icelandic (in English), two grammars of Old Icelandic (one in English, one in German) and a grammar of Old Swedish (in German).
- [http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/sounds/ragn1_2b.mp3 soundsample]
- [http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/ Old Norse for Beginners]
- [http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/eieol/norol-TC-X.html Old Norse Online], by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum from the Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. Category:Nordic folklore Norse language, Old Category:North Germanic languages ko:고대 노르드어 ja:古ノルド語

Cognate

Cognates are words that have a common origin. Examples of cognates are the words night (English), Nacht (German), nicht (Scots), noc (Czech), nox (Latin), nakti- (Sanskrit), noche (Spanish) and naktis (Lithuanian), all meaning night and all deriving from PIE
- nekwt-, "night". Another Indo-European example is star (English), str (Sanskrit), star (Sinhala), aster (Greek), stella (Latin, Italian), stairno (Gothic), Stern (German), starn (Scots), stjärna (Swedish), setare (Persian), steren (Cornish), ster (Afrikaans), estel (Catalan), estrella (Spanish) and estêre (Kurdish), from PIE
- ster-, "star". Hebrew shalom and Arabic salaam are also cognates deriving from a common Semitic root. Cognates can exist within the same language. For example, English ward and guard (
- wer-, "to perceive, watch out for") are cognate as are shirt and skirt (
- sker-, "to cut"). In some cases, one of the cognate pairs has an ultimate source in another language related to English, while the other one is native; in others both come from other languages, often the same one but at different times. Cognates may often be less easily recognised than the above examples and authorities sometimes differ in their interpretations of the evidence. The English word milk is clearly a cognate of German Milch and of Russian moloko (
- melg-, "to milk"). On the other hand, French lait and Spanish leche (both meaning "milk") are less obviously cognates of Greek galaktos (genitive form of gala, milk) (<
- g(a)lag-, galakt-). Cognates may not have the same meaning: dish (English) and Tisch ("table", German), or starve (English) and sterben ("die", German), or head (English) and chef ("chief, head", French), serve as examples as to how cognate terms may diverge in meaning as languages develop separately. In addition to having separate meanings, cognates through processes of linguistic change may no longer resemble each other phonetically: cow and beef both derive from the same Indo-European root, cow having developed through the Germanic language family while beef has arrived in English from the Italo-Romance family descent. Cognates may thus also arise through borrowings into languages. So the resemblance between English to pay and French payer originates through English borrowing to pay from Norman which, like French, had derived its word from Gallo-Romance.

False cognates

False cognates are words that are commonly thought to be related (have a common origin) whereas linguistic examination reveals they are unrelated. Thus, for example, on the basis of superficial similarities one might suppose that the Latin verb habere and German haben, both meaning 'to have', are cognates. However, an understanding of the way words in the two languages evolve from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots shows that they cannot be cognate. German haben (like English have) in fact comes from PIE
- kap, 'to grasp', and its real cognate in Latin is capere, 'to seize, grasp, capture'. Latin habere, on the other hand, is from PIE
- ghabh, 'to give, to receive', and hence cognate with English give and German geben. The similarity of words between languages is not enough to demonstrate that the words are related to each other, in much the same way that facial resemblance does not determine whether two people are genetically related. Over the course of hundreds and thousands of years, words may change their sound completely. Thus, for example, English five and Sanskrit pança are cognates, while English over and Hebrew a'var are not, and neither are English dog and Mbabaram dog. Contrast this with false friends, which frequently are cognate.

Faroese language

Faroese is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by about 80,000 people in two main groups, about 48,000 in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 in Denmark. There are also around 5,000 speakers in Iceland. It is one of three insular Scandinavian languages descended from the Old Norse language spoken in Scandinavia in the Viking Age, the others being Icelandic and the extinct Norn, which is thought to have been mutually intelligible with Faroese.

History

Norn. The red area is the distribution of the dialect Old West Norse; the orange area is the spread of the dialect Old