Question Your help is needed

Is there anyone here who is a native of Scotland?
If so I would like to discuss some wording in a story I am thinking of writing.
Thanks for your help.

Scot here.

Whit sort help dae yu need?

Mister D wrote: Scot here.

Whit sort help dae yu need?

Scotty! I need warp speed in 3 minutes or we're all dead!

E. E. Nalley wrote:

Mister D wrote: Scot here.

Whit sort help dae yu need?

Scotty! I need warp speed in 3 minutes or we're all dead!

I can only get it done in 15 min...but I'll do it in 3 to keep my rep as a miracle worker sir!

Mister D wrote: Scot here.

Whit sort help dae yu need?

Well I was hoping to have phonetic spelling for certain conversations.
This will probably go in the micro-scene thread when it is done...

Dec1
Bart Isly, code name Bad Bart had been in a single room in Twain cottage for the first three months of the school year. As anyone who knew Bart could tell you, he tended to sprawl. He was also an amateur home brewer, as such he often 'acquired' fruit, either from the cafeteria (I need between meal snacks and can't take time to stop through here every time I need something) or the campus store. To be fair, Bart was correct about his dietary needs, he was an external energizer and tended to expend prodigious amounts of energy if he used his powers (and even if he didn't use his powers in calorie intake needed to be about double what a normal teen would eat) and could end up in a state of cellular starvation rather quickly. So a certain amount of the fruit he carried off actually went to the purpose it was supposed to, namely inside him for nutrition.
But being alone in his room he had acquired an empty 5 gallon bucket with a lid which he used to make 'home brew'. About three days ago he had toted off a five pound bag of apples and set up to make applejack. This evening he had tested out his creation and tied one on to say the least so he was sleeping the sleep of the dead (or dead drunk at least...) when his room mate arrived near midnight after a transatlantic flight.
The boy, though in body type he looked to be in his early twenties with a full beard and a barrel chest that bespoke being perhaps a dwarf or some other sort of fae of that sort, moved the mostly empty bucket from the mostly empty locker that contained it and placed his meager belongings in it. He frowned at the snoring form of his roommate and recognized someone who apparently had overindulged in alcohol. He caught a whiff of the remains of the batch in the bucket and looked around at the other items he had removed from the locker. He kicked himself for not taking pictures while it was in place, but did his best with his Gizmatic phone of taking pictures of all of the apparatus he found. That done he cleared the second bed that didn't have sheets, pillows, blankets or anything else (he wasn't sure there should have been any present) after all a very sleepy chickadee had come and rescued him from the Berlin airport about two hours ago and handed him a key to the room when he indicated that the single backpack he carried contained all of his luggage. He had not elaborated to tell her that for the most part it contained all of his worldly possessions, only his phone which wasn't in the pack constituted anything he owned that he wasn't carrying in the rather small bag.
Well he thought, there's nothing to be done for it now, the chickadee had told him to show up at eight the next morning to get signed into the school officially. He set his pack on the bed and carefully checked the time on his phone as matching local time then set an alarm for five the next morning, he wanted time to shower among other things before he showed up at the admin building. He did note before he closed his eyes that there was at least a superficial map of the school available. He didn't know if it could be zoomed in and he didn't know if it covered the extensive tunnel system his talent or nature was telling him lay below the ground here, that information would have to wait for another day, because although his stamina was much greater than it had been before his constitution had been sorely taxed by the flight which he hated with a passion. He didn't know how he would feel about boats, but he intended to find out, because if he ever intended to return to his native village (I'd like a backwater Scottish village for this, I could pick Kintire but meh maybe some place else would be better?) he had no intention of ever setting foot in an airplane in the next ten centuries that had been evaluated as his probable lifespan.
His basic needs cared for the boy laid his head on the bag and fell asleep.
Early the next morning the boy pulled a set of clean clothing from the bag. His mutation allowed him to make the inside of the bag slightly larger than the outside so it actually contained a small amount more stuff than a casual observer might think. He took a quick shower after straining the remains of his roommate's brewing project and having it for breakfast. He really would have preferred a heavy ale, but the fruit brew that was somewhere between wine and a lambic wasn't bad. It seemed like he had an actual requirement to drink a certain amount of alcohol every day, not that it caused him to become drunk, but rather it was as if drinking was an obligation of his mutation.
He checked the time and decided he could get a bit of practice in so he pulled a set of pipes (bagpipes) from the bag and started to warm them up.
Bart awoke at an ungodly hour to an ungodly racket in his room. He was certain someone was turning a cat inside out while the animal was still alive. Blearily he tried to focus his eyes on the source of the racket. Apparently overnight the school administration in its infinite wisdom had saddled him with a roommate, and whatever he was doing was creating the racket.
"Who are you and what are you doing!" Bart asked in a voice that was loud enough that he made himself wince, not that he wasn't wincing already from the racket his new roommate was making.
"Warmin' up me pipes,." the indistinct shape sounded like it was chewing rocks the voice was so deep and had almost a growling quality.
Bart finally got both of his eyes to work together as the noise had lowered, though not entirely abated, he could hear an unearthly sort of drone coming from the creature? whatever was under the other person's arm. More to the point though he realized that the person whom he was facing had a full beard of fiery red whiskers that looked like they might be useful for scrubbing burned on food off from pots.
"Y'r supposed to shave, don't you know?" Bart said still trying to sort out the picture before him. The other person was perhaps just a hair over five feet tall and looked (not fat mind) to be nearly as wide as he was tall. It he had muscles in his chest as it seemed then Bart was thinking the other boy?, he didn't look like a boy with that beard, could probably tie someone, maybe even someone like Slab, into a pretzel without breaking a sweat.
"I cannae, it comes back in a bit the same as before," the other person said, though Bart was guessing at that between the growl and an accent that garbled his words.
"Why'd they put you here?" Bart demanded to know.
"I dinnae ken, I dinnae ask as I came in around midnight," growled the shape.
"Well hell! You can't be making that racket at this time of the morning," Bart said though he tried to tell himself to be calm. The mostly recognized shape of the other person was raising alarms of someone who could probably take him apart without trying.
"They're me Da's pipes, he gae them tae me afore he passed when I wa nae more'n eight. I intend to practice every day t' d' me Da proud," the shape definitely growled more deeply on that statement.
Bart stared at the other person who had by now resolved further in his brain. He realized they were wearing a skirt! NO! He couldn't be roomed with a cross dresser! Though there was no way if the other person had a permanent beard that they would ever pass. Still before he could control his mouth he popped off with, "You never told my your name, and why the fuck are you wearing a skirt? Are you some sort of sissy?"
A rock crushing growl started to come from the other person who move far faster than Bart would have thought possible. "Me Name is Ian McLean and I wear a kilt 'cause it's traditional garb for me, If ye ever comment like that about my kilt again, well kilt is what ye'll be," grated from the mouth of Ian while a nastily sharp dagger poked a small hole in Bart's skin at the corner of his jaw.

So what I need is to make sure that Ian's quotes are right, and that I've properly characterized warming up a set of pipes.

here is a good english to scot translator we use...

www.scotranslate.com/

Why doesn't Ian have a practice chanter?


I just remembered that his half-brother gave Metro a set of pipes. How long can a beginner go before their fellow inmates demand that they start taking lessons?

I'm sure if I ran the story long enough that the next scene would be Bart in the Admin office while Ian is getting squared away there. Bart would register a complaint about the noise of the pipes, the admin would see half his point and tell Ian that he needs to get a practice chanter... Not that a practice chanter is entirely silent, just that it isn't given to the racket I understand a set of pipes can create while being prepped for playing...

Okay...

You were very close.

Rough translations.

Original Dialogue: "Warmin' up me pipes,."

Written Translation: "Warmin' up ma pipes,."

Original Dialogue: "I cannae, it comes back in a bit the same as before,"

Written Translation: "I cannae, it comes back in a bit same as afore,"

Original Dialogue: "I dinnae ken, I dinnae ask as I came in around midnight,"

Written Translation: "I dinnae ken, I didnae ask as I came in around midnight,"

Original Dialogue: "They're me Da's pipes, he gae them tae me afore he passed when I wa nae more'n eight. I intend to practice every day t' d' me Da proud,"

Written Translation: "They're ma Da's pipes. He gae them tae me afore he passed when I wisnae mor'n eight. I intend to practice every day t' d' me Da proud,"

Original Dialogue: "Ma Name is Ian McLean and I wear a kilt 'cause it's traditional garb for me, If ye ever comment like that about my kilt again, well kilt is what ye'll be,"

Written Translation: "Ma Name is Ian McLean and I wear a kilt 'cause it's traditional garb for me, If ye ever comment like that about ma kilt again, well kilt is what ye'll be,"

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Without knowing where Ian is from, it becomes more difficult to give an accurate translation.

Different parts of Scotland have had linguistic influences from other countries, due to the successive waves of trade/raid, so there's a lot of crossover in terms of language flavours.

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Southern Scotland, was where a lot of trade took place with the Dutch/Frisian Islanders, so there's a lot of language that has crossed over as well.

For example, in standard English the phrase "I'm going to church", would translate to the Lowland Scots "Ah'm gaun tae kirk",, which is similar to the Dutch "ik ga naar de kerk" or the Frisian "Ik gean nei tsjerke".

Where the "kerk" is more pronounced "Kerok"

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Someone with a thick rural accent from Southern Scotland, could be mistaken for someone with a thick rural accent from Southern Holland or from the Frisian Islands/

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On the west of Scotland, there was more influence from the Northern Irish dialects. In the Western Isles, there's a lot more Gaelic influence. On the east coast there's more of the Dutch/Frisian, and in the Orkney Islands, and Shetland Islands, there's more of the Norse and Viking elements.

Also in Orkney and Shetland can be found the phrasing of "Dee" and "Du", which is one of the few surviving European remnants of "Thee" and "Thou", allbeit influenced by the alteration of the aspiral "Th-" to the harder Norse/High-German "D-"

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Also note that the way it is written in textual form, is NOT the way that it is pronounced, if you were to write it out phonetically.

A really extreme example can be found in Ian Banks's book, "Feersum Ennjin", where one quarter of the chapters are written phonetically, and can only be understood if you imagine them being spoken with a very strong rural Central Scotland accent.

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I also forgot to mention the Glaswegian accent, where you have the mixture of the Scottish dialects, mixed with the Northern Irish, and a lot of Southern French/L'Angue D'Oc. This is because Glasgow was one of the largest Huguenot colonies outside of Southern France, and a modified versions of the words persist,

It's known as the Glasgei Patter ( from patois )

Almost no-one from outside of Glasgow understands it.

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Hope that this helps.

Not really important here but Dutch and Frisian are quite distinct languages too.
Dutch is a germanic language (its name actually derives from the root word for ancient low germanic: deutsch)
Frisian is a nordic language (Frisian and Danish people will understand each other, if barely if they speak their own language to each other). It also is closer related to old english than it is to german (though it bridges the two to a certain extent, but the same can be said from the relation of most european languages)

Of course dutch has since acquired a lot of loan words from french and is in the process of becoming another bastardisation of english (just like about every language in the world) and both the country of Frisia and its language have been almost completely assimilated by the Netherlands.

Not that it really matters for the subject at hand. It just means that in the Roman and (very) early medieval times it was mostly the Frisians who crossed the north sea to trade (and raid) with Scotland, created a few colonies or at least left some families along with an influence on the local language. Late medieval and all the way up to early reformation the Dutch would become dominant and the Frisians list their independence and their ships (along with most of their forests and no small amount of their lands), so the Dutch took over where the Frisians left off. Towards the end of that period the English would come to dominate the islands and relations with Holland became ... strained. Trading and cultural influence between the Netherlands and Scotland pretty much came to a halt (and admittedly it never was really all that huge compared to e.g. the Norwegians or the Normans conquering the country and imposing a Frankian style feudal nobility on what until that point was much less formalised semi autonomous regions and cities).

One of the difficulties I have is that I know nothing about Scotland that I haven't learned from popular media. Thus my idea of a Scots accent is strongly influenced by groups like the Corries and their ilk. I can't recall any others that really made an 'international' splash so let that be a baseline for what I might expect to hear a Scotsman say.
I'm trying to think of the possibility that Ian might be from a place like Kintyre where you can look over the straight at northern Ireland, which would probably make what I wrote closer to correct. But like I said, all I know is place names like Kintyre or Kilmarnock, or Paisly (all places my ancestors vacated long ago...) and nothing about the character of the places now. I'm considering how to continue this story... hey like all authors, writing for me is an addiction!

Listening to dialects is where YouTube can qualify as research!

Frankie Boyle's from Glasgow.

Eastern Borders vs. Upper South/Appalachian:

Borders:
The Scots Tongue. Episode 1, The Border Ground

I found this today.



Nice timeline.

I couldn't see the original above, but what she was tweeting could be found.

Warning: bad language, because Scottish.

null0trooper wrote: I couldn't see the original above, but what she was tweeting could be found.

It would be interesting to slow this down a bit more and look over place names. As I said, I know that some of my ancestors came from Kilmarnock, others from Kintyre, and others from Paisly. Yep, hit the ol' family tree very hard and the only other thing that falls out nearly as much is the Krauts!