Talk:Apologetic apostrophe

Unreferenced
We don't have any specific sources for this article, and some of the statements seem either POV or misguided. Who's to say whether the apostrophe in some words is "apologetic" or simply used for diaresis-type reasons? Gien might be pronounced Gyne or Geen, when it should be Gee-en (please forgive my perception of Scots vowel, if I am misunderstood). At this moment, we simply don't know. Please add proper citations. -- Boothman   Talk  19:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's "POV"! It's describing a point of view within a linguistic tradition that is current in Scots language circles, so the POV is perfectly legitimate. "Gien" would not be pronounced "gee-en" in Scots, as the vowels would be artificially lengthened to sound more English. All grammatical rules are at some point or another a "POV" (or maybe a "P'O'V'") as they are decided for state education purposes. The denial of "apologetic grammar" is in fact no less POV and could be described as "apologetic contention". ممتاز 21:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * So how would "gien" be pronounced Mr. Arabic Name? I am on about diaresis, an apostrophe to signify that "ie" is pronounced as two vowels rather than one dipthong. -- Boothman   /tɔːk/  19:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

Salaam alaykum sayyid ism injeleezee (Peace be upon you Mr English name:}) it would be pronounced with a dipthongless vowel consisting of two letters, a Scots concept, that renders apostrophying an unnecesary burden to the typer.ممتاز 19:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Which diphthongless vowel? By the way, I have an English name because this is the English Wikipedia. -- Boothman   /tɔːk/  19:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

Thats great to hear, but I never realised you needed an English name to contribute in English:}. The vowel is one sound "ie" would be pronounced undipthongised. thus no need to add a marker for an "absent" letter. (since there is nothing missing in the Scots word, merely in the English slang version of "given"ممتاز 19:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Which dipthongless vowel? Short "i", rhyming gien with "bin" or long "ee" rhyming gien with "seen"? Or another? I am simply hypothesising that the apostrophe was placed there to make it "gee-en" (with a schwa for the e). -- Boothman   /tɔːk/  19:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

That starting from a falce premise. Scots ortography is not the same as English, and its regarded as apologetic since "gien" is the complete word (pronounced as in "teen") It's not short for given (thats a given in Scots, unlike English):}ممتاز 19:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That's all I needed, "gien" rhymes with "teen". I never said "Scots ortography [sic] is not the same as English" (whatever that means), and I never said owt about it being short for "given", although the pronunciation may have been similar seen as the two words "given" and "gien" are from the same root. -- Boothman   /tɔːk/  19:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

Take a look at the roots of other words in dutch, High German, frissian, Middle English, Sanskrit...There all "slang versions " of Hittite forms at some point. The point is that having established their own orthographic variants, its rather starnge to note the "missing" letters with an apostrophe:}ممتاز 19:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC) In fact "twa" is found in Frisian for "two" as in Scotsممتاز 20:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Süsterspraak is Plattdüütsch for schwestersprache (sister-language). Maybe they should use some sort of marker on Low german words with Ks instead of CHs to indicate the "slang usage" of this alternative to the "correct High German form"?:}ممتاز 20:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I would carry on arguing with you, but it is like talking to a brick wall. -- Boothman   /tɔːk/  20:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

You must have rather informative bricks where you live:}ممتاز 20:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure whether I should comment on this old argument since it has stopped, but to clear things up... It is indeed pronounced "gee-en" in my dialect at least. But the apostrophe is still inappropriate because the basic word is gie ("gee") so - as is my understanding - if the apostrophe was going to be anywhere, without being apologetic, it would surely be after the e (perhaps gie'en) compare to the Scots word e'en (even) as opposed to een (eye), which is pronounced differently. However, this is purely from a non-expert point of view, and is entirely irrelevant since the fact remains that traditionally the Past participle of gie is spelt gien (which can be sourced). Scroggie (talk) 05:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Have to say, I enjoyed the argument! I also wanted to learn more about how Mr Arabic Name came to know so much aboot Scots pronunciation... However, it goes both ways; this Scotsman happens to know that his name translates as em-taz which means excellent. You are certainly witty, Sir :-) --Oscar Bravo (talk) 10:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Northern Ireland?
I know a dialect of Scots is spoken in Northern Ireland (Ulster Scots), but this article seems to be about Scots in general, with all the references being to Scots in Scotland, as far as I can see. Surely either both WikiProjects Scotland and Northern Ireland, or just WikiProject Scotland, would be more appropriate? I haven't edited anything because I'm not sure how the whole project thing works, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes! Thirda 14:13, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Apologetic apostrophe in Scottish Gaelic
I've deleted this section, partly because no reference was given for the claims it made, and partly because it got some aspects of Gaelic spelling wrong. "'S e" is still usually written "'S e", not "Se". The apostrophes in "'S e" and "a' Ghàidhlig" aren't there in order to pretend Gaelic is a bastardised form of Irish, they're there as genuine abbreviations for words which do occur in full elsewhere in Scottish Gaelic. "'S e" is short for "is e": the full word "is" is almost always used when, say, stating one's name ("Is mise Iain", for example); the singular definite article "an" occurs all over the place, and is only abbreviated to "a'" in some contexts, where the sounds don't flow very well. Some apostrophes have been eliminated in the proposed changes to Gaelic orthography, e.g., "do an" ("to the") which has historically been written "do'n", is now recommended to be spelled "don". As I understand it, however, this was proposed because Gaelic's very heavy use of abbreviations was leading to an unwieldy number of apostrophes, NOT because they aren't genuine abbreviations of Scottish Gaelic (as opposed to Irish) words/phrases. Thirda 14:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I've once again deleted this section which reappeared in abbreviated form a while ago, still without any references. The example given in the restored section - the definite article "an" being abbreviated to "a' " - isn't "apologetic"; "an" IS a Scottish Gaelic word, abbreviated (and hence apostrophised non-apologetically) before lenited forms for prosodic reasons. If the original author has any references to discussion of these uses of the apostrophe in Gaelic as being seen as a bastardised form of Irish, I'd love to read them. Without such references, this section counts as Original Research, and against Wikipedia policy. Thirda (talk) 15:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Editors still ignoring this issue, I see... What is the difference other than some supporters of Lallans thinking that they are the only Scots language? --MacRusgail (talk) 15:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The issue seemed to be that the provided examples of the "apologetic apostrophe" in Gaelic were not "apologetic" but examples of Gaelic contractions. Not having enough knowledge of Gaelic I can't verify that one way or the other.
 * Your comment seems somewhat confusing. 84.134.162.147 (talk) 22:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Why is it called apologetic?
What does this apostrophe have to do with apologies or apologizing? I don't understand why it's named this way.--Sonjaaa (talk) 01:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)


 * By using an apostrophe one apologises for not writing 'proper' English. 84.134.174.244 (talk) 01:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Could be clearer
In the lead section, when it says "The use of the apologetic apostrophe became less widespread" and "it is now considered unacceptable", it is not totally clear whether this means, for example, that "gi'e" changed to "gie" or to "give". I assume it means the former, but, as I say, it is not absolutely clear for people who know nothing about the subject.

The pointed dig about "unfortunately gave the effect of Scots being a divergent or inferior form of English rather than a separate language system" is rather silly since words like "gi'e", "wi'" etc. very obviously are forms of English — or, if you prefer, both English and Scots word forms are divergent forms of some language that has no politically neutral name. To claim that "gi'e" and "wi'" are words from a different language just because they are pronounced slightly differently in Scotland is completely ridiculous. Perhaps the author realised this and added the weasly word "system" to try to obfuscate the error. 86.160.209.85 (talk) 03:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The source cited used the term language system. Perhaps linguistic system? 84.134.173.129 (talk) 19:52, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

First sentence
Uses "a" as an example (without an apostrophe). Surely the intended example was "a'"? I'm not fluent, so I'm reluctant to change it, lest I miss some subtlety.--Wcoole (talk) 01:11, 7 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Right you are. I've added the apostrophe. Thanks for pointing that out! —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:15, 7 November 2015 (UTC)