Playin tae the strinths o the leid

Ah was interestit tae read Bruce Eunson’s thochts on yaisin Inglis alangside Shetlandic in his translation o a Chekhov story (the story itsel is comin oot in pairts on his blog, an a braw piece it is). He whammles the tradeetion o yaisin Inglis for narration an Scots for dialogue, pyntin oot that: “In modern day Shetland the majority of people speak a mixture of dialect and English, switching between the two over and over again throughout the day. A proper illustration of this is yet to be portrayed by a Shetland dialect writer.” 

Sae his narration is in Shetlandic, bit the characters spicks maistly Inglis, faain intae Shetlandic whiles. Ye get yaised wi the switchin, an it seems naitral eneuch. Some o the switches glegly merks a subtle chynge, e.g. in attention (awa fae the lassie an towart her dug), or in her view o hersel:

“… I don’t know myself what I am doing,” shö said, “Shetland fokk spaek aboot gittin tangled up wi an evil spirit. …”

Bruce says tae, in his spick on owersettin Rimbaud, that he enjoys the saur o a challenge that “pushes dialect down a road it hasn’t been down before, but certainly has the capacity for”.

His thochts, an whit he’s duin wi the twa leids in his owersettin o the Chekhov, certes rung a bell wi me, because Ah’ve duin somethin the likes o that in ma ain suin-tae-kythe novel, Braken Fences.

Be the time o the novel, China an India cairries the wecht o ceevilisation at least as muckle as the Anglosphere. The ongauns taks place in Central Asia, wi a clanjamfrie o characters wi wull deiferent backgruns, spickin deiferent leids. The narrative is in Scots, bit whan fowk is spickin Inglis (or Hindi) Ah gie thair wirds in Inglis. Thir fowk comes fae urban backgruns an haes a modren sensibeelity – they’re yaised wi objecks an ideas that wisna yit inventit or named whan Scots wis a fu-haundit leid boun for aa purposes. Thair wirds wad come oot wersh or thrapplet in Scots.

Bit yince the main characters is plankit doon ahint a Parteetiont Border on the wrang side o modernity, they faa amang fowk that leeves simpler lives, maistly concernt wi meetin thair immediate needcessities, in a mair haun-made warld, wi a short supply line fae the fiel or the hunt tae the buird. Thon is a settin that Scots can cantily express. Ah’m ettlin tae publish the beuk in Inglis as weill, bit Ah div think the Scots wirks better – because Ah’ve got that contrast atween the hi-tech, bureaucratic, corporate warld o Inglis an the haurder, tyaavin, organic warld o Scots. Sin that’s the emotional hert o the story, the narrative gings wi Scots an aa.

Forbye there are Neanderthals, an Ah’ve got the maist byordinar cheek – Ah’ve made thaim spick a kin o Shetlandic.

Heimat

As somebody sayed earlier this year, “The right has won the economic battle, the left has won the cultural battle and the centre has won the political battle.” An the left (Marxism, existentialism) rejecks the norie of identity cleekit tae place. The indwaller o twinty generations’ staunin haes nae mair claim on the hainit walth o a place nor the new-come ferrylouper, an nae mair richt tae decide whit bude tae be hained an haundit doon in the future. The left sees national, regional an ethnic tradeetions as reactionary. It haes an insteenctive mislippenin o sicna ongauns whan it funs thaim hingin on in wastern society (though it cuiters e’en the maist barbaric aspecks o fremit cultures, bit lat that flee stick tae the waa).

Sicna wey o thinkin pits local dialecks an e’en a national leid lik Scots in the caufie’s stall. A EU report twa-three year syne concludit that there wis nae guid reason for the dwinin o leids sic as Breton an Sardinian – naither in-migration nor inter-mairriage:

the decline derives from a rejection of the language associated with a negative identity that links with the relegation of the language and the language group into a world which is conceived of as ‘traditional’(‘Euromosaic: The production and reproduction of the minority language groups in the European Union’, ISBN 92-827-5512-6).

Modernity haes a horror o bein auld-farrant, mired in the glaur, afflicktit wi nostalgie de la boue. Economically tae – aathing that is free or hame-made, aareadies staunin an no needin for to be dung doon an biggit up again, is nae wey profitable.

There a German wird Heimat, meanin ‘hame, yer native place’, wi un-set-owerable connotations o the kintraside, village life, bairntime an community. The norie is fylit for us acause it was haused be the Nazis (Blut und Boden, bluid an muild). Nanetheless the romantic norie o Heimat spicks tae a profund feeling o the human hert – the tendency tae grund emotions an powerfu memories in a place. Paul Devereux screives, in The Sacred Place:

place becomes an agent that provokes our sensibilities, that can stir the seeds of spirituality within us. … Despite its widespread occurrence, it is a sense for which there is little cultural currency in our modern world … and such experiences tend to remain private (p.20).

Or as a poet pits it:

An is this chaumer really a chaumer, or a bosie,
An fit is aneth the windae: a street or years?
(Sheena Blackhall, ‘An Owresett in Scots o a poem by Ivan V Lalie, frae an Inglis translation by Charles Simic: Places We Love’, The Barley Queen)

We spick aboot ‘ruits’ acause oor childhood memories is that strangly yokit tae places, the places whaur we first entert intae consciousness o wirsels. The soon o local vyces is pairt o the sense o place. Nae wunner that Scots is that evocative for fowk that grew up wi’t.

The faimily’s sleepin sae Ah winna gang rakin amo ma beuks. Ah tak doon whit comes nearest tae haun tae mak ma pynt better nor Ah can screive, an shair eneuch fun this:

Ower the slow blak watter o the sheugh, an awa
Ower the sookin fog an gruppin ling,
The boag streetchin oot aheid, far
An far
(from James Fenton, ‘Dinnis’, On Slaimish)

an this:

Ma kin around me, leevin yet, or ghaists,
ma mither’s roses, yella, rid an cream;
a thousand simmer waddins in their scent.
(Rab Wilson, ‘A Sonnet Oan Ma Birthday’, A Map for the Blind)

Bairntime, cauf grun, hame, poetry, dialeck – thon’s Heimat.