Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/121

Rh Literature" follow Mr. Henderson's plan? His title would imply also that the Scot has no right to regard English as his mother-tongue. The authors on his list would certainly have resented any such limitation. Nor will anyone who has had the misfortune to be born north of Tweed be likely thus to disclaim his inheritance in English. Even the Englishman cannot disown kinship with the Northern speech or neglect to cultivate an intimate acquaintance with it. The native speech that characterises the provincial districts of England differs from the standard English quite as much as the Northern speech, but here an important distinction asserts itself. The various tongues in rural England have remained mere dialects, whereas Scotland developed and cultivated for centuries such a literature as entitles us to speak of a Scottish language, the sister tongue of English.

If dialect be regarded, then, as only localised vernacular, have we evidence that anything of the kind is found to prevail in Scotland? There is something to be said for a negative answer. We have not a case here on all-fours with the provincial dialects of England, which, for obvious reasons, have been much more thoroughly segregated. Almost nothing has been done for the general diffusion of these dialects, whereas Scotland has been remarkable for the unusual quantity and widespread popularity, not alone of national, but also of dialect, literature. Hence it happens that the great bulk of Scottish vocables are diffused more or less over all Scotland. Nay, the Northern genius in tale and song has successfully planted a mass of its vocables in English itself. Thus it would be almost an insult to an educated Englishman to gloss such words as ane, auld, bonnie, wee, canny, cosy, dour, blate, sweer, couthy, fashous, weel, ettle, thole, pree, coup, hirple, speer, to select a few at random out of hundreds. Another crowd of words represents but English disguised in form or meaning or both, such as weel, waur, sair, stoor, ca', dunt, brizz, cauld, cripple, wyce, scart, brunt, warsle. It is such adventitious dialect that the modern writers of song and novel draw upon to give local colour to their style. The results are not without a suspicion of trading on false pretences, as when a Thrums weaver is made to say, "Gang straight forrard," or a character in "Cleg Kelly" Rh