Talk:Book of the Dean of Lismore

Scots orthography vs English orthography
My edit: Scots is no more a variety of English than French is a variety of Italian. Also inserted missing comma "Scots, English" (no such thing as "Scots English).

Deacon of Pndapetzim's edit (scottish english, though scots functioning as an adjective should have been clear enough) It is generally accepted that Scots was considered an independent language until the Union of the Parliaments in 1707. Also, note that David Hume was one of the first Scottish academic critics of Scots as a degenerate language, and he was born in 1711!

I'm reverting this change unless and until you can provide evidence for your assertion. Prof Wrong (talk) 00:20, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * "Scots is no more a variety of English than French is a variety of Italian."


 * That is clearly and demonstrably absolute nonsense. Scots is derived from Middle English (not a controversial fact) and was referred to by its speakers for most of its history as English (not a controversial fact) who historically also identified themselves ethnically as English (not a controversial fact). French, on the other hand, is NOT derived from Medieval, or any other stage, of the Italian language and has NEVER been referred to by its speakers -  at any stage in history - as "Italian" and its speakers have not identified themselves at any stage in their history as "Italian". siarach (talk) 16:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You are correct in saying that Scots is "derived from" (early) Middle English. But "English" today does not mean "Middle English" -- English means "Modern English". It is convention to use the current names for historical languages in references, not the contemporary names. In fact, was the contemporary name not "Inglis", rather than "English"? There is a clear shared etymological history in the two words, but they are not the same.


 * Meanwhile, Shakespeare used the word "England" and "English" with the modern E, which to my knowledge has never appeared in Scots writing for Scots itself. Also, Ireland provides evidence that Scots and English were orthographically distinct: the Scots spelling of the Gaelic word "loch" is spelt "loch", but the English invaders of Ireland took the identical Irish word "loch" and rendered it to "lough". This is one of the main distinguishing factors between English and Scots in the middle period: bright->bricht, light->licht etc.


 * If you look at the book, you'll see plenty of examples of Gaelic CH being rendered as Scots CH. What you don't see is either Gaelic CH being rendered as English GH, or Gaelic slender T being rendered as English (T)CH. As far as I'm concerned, that makes the book's orthography a definitively Scots one.


 * Prof Wrong (talk) 17:13, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, Prof Wrong, you're under the impression that Scots' distinctiveness was taken for granted until the 18th century. Actually, that's when its historical distinctiveness from English was first manufactured. Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 16:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Not at all. Whether the distinctiveness was taken for granted contemporaneously is not relevant to this article -- what is important is the current linguistic thinking on the matter, and the current view is that Scots was identifiably distinct from English in its written form, even though many accept the existence of a dialect continuum between the two in the spoken form.
 * We now make a distinction, and the orthography of the book is clearly on the Scots side of the line, as I demonstrate in my response to An Siarach above.
 * Prof Wrong (talk) 17:13, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Deacon, Scots may be "an English", but you've linked to the article for English as a single language. Right now there is no article on Wikipedia that describes the English language family other than Anglic. In fact, the English language article even refers to English as an Anglic language. Wikipedia consistently uses the term Anglic, so even if you feel it's unsuitable for use in this article, it is misleading -- incorrect even -- to link to an article that uses it, because by implication we are then talking about the language English, not the family English. Prof Wrong (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

MacGregor quotation
Endless, tedious wiki-debates about the status of Scots aside, should we not go with what academic sources say about the orthography of BDL? Here, for instance is Marin MacGregor, 'Creation and Compilation: The Book of the Dean of Lismore and Literary Culture in Late Medieval Gaelic Scotland' in 'The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature - Volume One: From Columba to the Union (until 1707) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), pp. 209 - 218 (210)@

"Moreover, the Book's Gaelic poetry, famously and controversially, is without exception written down... according to a quasi-phonetic system based upon the orthography of Middle Scots., and in secretary hand rather than Gaelic script"

I'm sure I could dig out similar quotations from Donald E. Meek, who has written a few articles about the BDL. Could someone who knows how to use references on Wiki put that in? - Donnchadh mac Alasdair — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.74.83.38 (talk) 23:19, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Donnchadh, thank-you for your interest in improving the article. However, I am reluctant to add a reference here without being able to confirm its authenticity myself. If you want to do so yourself you could add:


 * MacGregor, Martin "Creation and Compilation: The Book of the Dean of Lismore and Literary Culture in Late Medieval Gaelic Scotland". The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature. Volume One: From Columba to the Union (until 1707). Edinburgh University Press. (Edinburgh: 2007) pp. 209 - 218.

to the "References" section and the quote at an appropriate point in the text, followed by:

This note should then appear in the relevant section. Happy to help if you need more assistance. Ben  Mac  Dui  12:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Henryson and Dunbar
Henryson and Dunbar were not English! If nobody objects I will change this. - Tulloch Gorum