Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/372

 422 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9<- B. iv. NOV. is,-99. unable to wrestle with Gaelic as with Chinese. Many of us, like the late Principal Shairp and Prof. Blackie, would fain learn it if we could, for we are not without admiration of Ossian and Duncan Ban Macintyre, bat other tongues and other interests absorb all our time and energies, and the thing that we would re- mains undone. So we have even to take on trust what comes to us, through editors and translators, of the raptures and lamentations uttered by the gifted sons of the " Children of the Mist." It is different altogether with the language of Barbour, Dun bar, Burns, and Scott, which is still the expressive and musical speech of the Scottish peasantry. The speech of Lowland Scotland is a modern representative of the northern or North- umbrian English, which was at one time spoken from the Humber to the Forth. Its literary outcome begins practically with the independence of Scotland, secured and estab- lished by Bruce, tended to a separation of interests which produced divergences of speech on the respective sides of the Borders. The cleavage widened throughout the four- teenth century, after which various influences affected the Scottish tongue, grad ually develop- ing features of a distinctive and individual character. The most distinguished followers of Chaucer were the Scottish makers, James I., Henryson, Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, whose force and style—with a popularity greater than any of them had achieved—were carried for- ward into the sixteenth century by Sir David Lyndsay. The Scottish language employed by these writers was the northern English of the'Cursor Mundi'(c. 1320)and the'Prickeof Conscience ' (c. 1340), with certain divergences due to Celtic and French influences. After James VI. became King of Great Britain the Scottish tongue ceased to be the language of the Court, and this, no doubt, tended to dis- courage the production of Scottish literature. Gradually English became the vehicle of expression for scholars, and it was not till the eighteenth century that a fresh efflo- rescence of Scottish poetry showed that the language of the makers was still a living and virile instrument. From Allan Ramsay to Burns there is brilliant evidence, in pastoral, ballad, song, and dramatic narrative, of the energy and charm inherent in the vernacular speech of the country. No doubt fresh developments are manifest at every turn, but the difference between the language of, say, Dunbar and Burns is not much greater than the interval separating the modes of expression characteristic, respectively, of Chaucer and Cow per. In the one case Northumbrian English (lost, it may be noted, is a literary vehicle in North umbria proper) has gone its own way, steadily absorbing new iletnents, but with its ground work still there; vhile in the other case the amalgamation of midland and southern English has developed, with the aid of many accretions and appro- priations, into that complex product known as the English language. In the nineteenth century various Scottish writers have con- tinued, both in prose and verse, the record brought to such a brilliant culmination in the lyrics of Burns. Hogg, Tannahill, William Thorn, are outstanding names ; and abundant illustrations may be found in the Waverley novels of course, in Wilson's 'Noctes Ambro- sianre,' and in such works as David Robertson's ' Whistle-Binkie' and the ' Songs of Scotland Chronologically Arranged ' (Gardner). Sir Walter Scott's mastery of the Scottish tongue is perfect, but as he uses it mainly as illustrative of character, he stands forth as the leader in the employment of what is called dialectal Scotch. Had he chosen to write exclusively in the vernacular language with which he was so familiar, he might have made a sound and permanent contribution to literature, but he could never possibly have received the universal recognition that his genius so fully commands. He writes in what is known as Central Scotch—that, namely, which is prevalent in Fife and the Lothians, and in Clydesdale, Ayrshire, and Galloway— but his knowledge of the southern counties gave him a familiarity with what is known as Border Scotch, the speech characteristic of the dwellers in Ettrick Forest, Teviotdale, and Dumfriesshire. The peculiarities of north-eastern Scotch, which is spoken with local variations from Forfar through Aberdeen and Moray to Caithness, enter but little into his work. Subsequent writers on Scottish life and character nave slipped into the habit of presenting provincialisms—mere dialectal solecisms in many cases—and have thereby complicated issues considerably. Apart from local pronunciation and (to some extent) differences in vocabulary, the Scottish lan- guage as spoken in central and southern Scotland is practically uniform. It is only an occasional educated Scotsman that now uses his native tongue, but, so recently as a generation ago, it was not unfamiliar even within the dignified precincts of the Court of Session. The tendency at the present time is to ignore it altogether as something incon- sistent with the nigh culture that prevails. At a recent meeting of the School Board of Glasgow, for example, it was actually .sug- gested that Scottish teachers, after receiving
 * Brusr of John Barbour (ob. 1395). The