Appendix talk:Glossary of Scottish slang and jargon

Terminology:

The title of this page should be changed. These words are not 'slang' or 'jargon' but 'dialect' or 'language'. The Scots dialects/ language cannot be described in such pejorative terms and are not deviations from a 'standard'.

They are not innately pejorative terms. Slang and jargon do not have to be automatically bad. But I think you've got a point, because this page seems to be treating Scots as a dialect of English, which is debatable at best. Equinox ◑ 21:58, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello. Agree with last sentiment. My point is that the page doesn't even afford Scots speech the dignity of 'dialect', far less 'language'. Slang and jargon it definitely is not; agreed these are not necessarily pejorative terms, but their use to describe Scots speech is inappropriate and seems to debase its status.

Wiktionary is quite a small project and not many people follow the talk pages, so you might want to raise this on WT:BP ("beer parlour", for general discussions). Our appendices are pretty chaotic so there is a fair chance we would tweak this one. Equinox ◑ 22:15, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, will look into it.

Actually I've just done it. See [1] and feel free to comment there. Equinox ◑ 22:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I've added a comment too. Thanks again. Some of these words have been commonly used in formal conversation for a long time such as "outwith" that they are used in legal documents and laws passed by the Scottish Parliament.

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I agree with the first commenter. Scots is indeed a dialect of English. This is not debatable; it's fact. If you research the history of English and of Scotland (fascinating subjects, really) you'll find that Scotland was the only country that achieved recognition as a legitimate sovereign nation (and therefore off limits to colonial conquest) without having been conquered first. English was not forced upon them by an English invasion but rather adopted by them to ease trade and international acceptance. (Latin was still the official language of the law and the church, but English made the most sense as a common language at the time.) So the switch from Gaelic to English was encouraged by their own monarch rather than enforced by the law of a conqueror, so it happened more "organically" and a lot of Gaelic influence remained. Even today in parts of Fife (especially the towns along the Firth - Leven, Methil, Buckhaven, Wemyss, Kirkaldy, etc.) seniors still use words that haven't been in print for 300 years. Even common words are still pronounced more like their Old Scots versions: "home" used to be spelled "hame" and it's still pronounced "hem"; "go" used to be "gang" and still pronounced "gon"; a "hill" is still sometimes called a "brae"; "light" is still pronounced "lecht", "where're you from" is "whaur ye fae" (sounds like "hor yeh feh") etc. And it goes beyond just the substitution of words & expressions; the language is used differently. That's why just learning an accent is not enough to enable one to understand what's being said. For example "are you all set?" in Scottish (in Fife at least) would be "is that you?" (pronounced "es tha' yeh?" or "za' yeh?"). It is indeed a distinct language version with a unique evolutionary path - i.e. a dialect.

Yer Ma wiz an immigrant Ya Bam

Directed towards POTUS Donald Trump, might one assume that "Ya Bam" may be impolite ? The image was posted in Twitter related to Trump's visit to Scotland to play around on 'his' golf course(s) : via @libby_brooks Jul 13, 2018 "Youth worker Dorothy Thomson : #trumpprotests".

Words that are just pronounced differently in a Scottish accent?

I've just removed a few words which are common English words, which also have a definition in Wiktionary already, so don't need to be duplicated here.

I've only done so for words with the identical spelling here as in wiktionary, but many words in this list are standard English words spelt phonetically to match a Scottish accent (Aboot, Broon, Calm Doon, eejit, hame, etc.) does anyone have an opinion on whether they should stay or go?

• I don't know, but all of those pronunciations are used in north east England too.

JeffUK (talk) 14:35, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Crossover with England

A lot of these words (and I mean a lot) are also in use in England. There's not even a difference in spelling. What specifically makes them Scots? It's common for shared English dialect, particularly Northumbrian and North Eastern, to be claimed by Scots as exclusively theirs, but a lot of words here are in common use all across England. 92.40.192.0 07:08, 15 January 2021 (UTC)