Re: Live Radge. Die Young.


"Adam Whyte-Settlar" <grawillers@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:438043b6$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "allan connochie" <allan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:437ff46c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > I imagine no-one knows for sure when and where these words entered the
> > Scots dialects.
>
> That was more or less the point I was making - they *could* have
originated
> in Tinkwall.

Well what was being said, and what I replied to, was "I think it's from the
Doric". That is completely different from it 'could' be from the Doric!
Basically some of the Romany words which entered our own lanaguage could
have done so anywhere. There is however no real reason to suggest that the
Doric dialect is more likely than any other or that the crossover first
happened in Dingwall.


>
> > One thing is certain though and that is that these Romany
> > words are fairly common throughout much of the Scots speaking area. If
we
> > are going to make a daft bairnish case, which I'm the first to admit is
an
> > iffy case, then I'd imagine that Gypsies were in the Borders before they
> > were in Dingwall. Couldn't prove it but geography suggests it would be
so.
>
> If the main form of transport around Scotland in those days had been by
road
> maybe, but Tinkwall and especially Cromarty, where major ports and most
> things (and I imagine people) moved by boat.

Well firstly if the initial Gypsies entered Scotland by land then of course
the Borders would have been the first area they came into. Dingwall would
have been one of the last areas they'd have reached. We don't know if they
spread by land or not, but their appearance can be tracked over a period as
they spread westwards over the European land mass, so if they spread north
from England then it wouldn't have been particularly unusual. Secondly if
they came to this country by boat then there is again no reason to assume
that they would by-pass all the harbours up the east coast of Scotland or
even northern England, in a mad dash for Dingwall. We don't of course know
when or how the first Gypsies arrived but we do know that they were first
recorded in 1505 and that it was in the south of Scotland!



> The area (Tinkwall) has seen five native languages spoken there - more
than
> just about everywhere else in Scotland.

On the contrary it's not so unusuall for that to be the case. Take the
Southern Uplands for instance. Brittonic; Pictish; Gaelic, Norwegian, both
the initial Anglian and the later Anglo-Danish which later developed into
Scots; Flemish in the burghs and not to mention Romany and even of course
Roman Latin in much earlier days. Plus there would be the French of the
aristocracy and modern English.



> It's quite possible, and even likely that many words entered other
languages
> from that area first.

Why? As I point out the multitude of languages is not unusual. Besides we
are talking about one particular example. The thinking seems to be that the
Romany words in the Borders dialect entered that said dialect direct from
Romany and not from any northern dialect of Scots or whatever. For example
introduction to "The Concise Scots Dictionary" clearly states "As a result
of their special histories certain localities favour words of a particular
etymoloical source: Scandinavian in Shetland, Orkney and Caithness; Gaelic
in the northern dialect and in Kintyre; Romany is parts of the south-east
and the south"

After the definitions it states that 'radge' is in general use apart from
Shetland and Orkney. It gives 'gadgie' as chiefly southern. It gives
'barrie' as principly particular to Roxburghshire but now found throughout
the east.

In his book "The Mither Tongue" the author and Scots language enthusiast
Billy Kay goes even further stating "Another unique feature of southern
Scots is the large number of words which have entered the Scots of the area
from the Romany language of the Gypsies whose headquarters were always
associated with Yetholm in Roxburghshire. Words like barry, meaning good,
or radge, meaning raged or excited, spread into the mixed Scots/English
speech of Berwick nearby, and recently have become part of the colloquial
speak of urban teenagers."

Now I wouldn't suggest these sources are infallible, and heaven knows what
Kay means by 'recently', and I've no idea when exactly these words appeared
in other dialects. However the point stands that the Romany words are
thought to have entered Border Scots direct from Romany rather than from
another dialect of Scots, and there is no reason to suggest that they first
appeared in the Doric dialect or in the environs of Dingwall.

Allan






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