Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/233

Rh in the Taal. One might fancy a private of the Scottish Borderers becoming quite brotherly with a Boer, for the jou (you to rhyme with now) and the mij (me) of both are almost identical in sound. The Boer's inquiry, "Is jou hoofd zeer?"—is your head sore, would not sound strange. Similarly a Cameronian in the Scottish Rifles would find his strong r in "warm" quite equivalent to the Boer's warem(e), as also the long vowel in school-maistre (C. Du. meester). Both will agree in taking a wife or a wifie in a depreciatory sense. The respectful vrouw is applied to a woman. The Scot would understand the Boer's "Ga maar binne in die huis" (gae mair ben the hoose), a "sully kêrel" for a simple-minded sumph is his own phrase, and 'tweel I wat is almost his way of saying "I am well aware" ("Net weel Ik weet"—pronounced wait). "Who could miss "Ja, dat is het"—that's hit. When we read in Burns, "The gossip keekit in his loof," we almost hear the Boer's "Hij kijk in die leof." The obscure word iets, used in preference to the Hollander wat (what) for anything indefinite, and its negative niets are very common in the Taal. They are contractions for Scottish ocht and nocht (Eng. aught and naught). Both appear in the sentence, "Hé je een beitje brood voor mij?" "Né, ik hé ver jou niets, maar (but, mair, cf. Fr. mais, majus) die man daar het iets ver jou." "Neem een komme water en dicht die vloere op" (take a kimmin o' water an' clean up the floor) shows, in neem, an old English verb which Shakspere had in mind when he called a pickpocket Corporal Nym; while kimmin (komme) is a well-known East Coast word for what would in Lanarkshire be called a bine or bucket. "Die lum rijk zwaar" is the Kaapsch (C. Dutch) for "The chimney smokes badly," where zwaar is the Lowland Scottish sweer, unwilling, but used in a slightly different sense. The Boer says, "Die pad is zwaar Zand" (the road is very sandy). "Die tije (tide-time) is zwaar"—the times are hard, "Dat is veel waart"—that is worth a great deal, and "Gé die man een stuk brood"—gie the man a piece bread, these all sound homely enough.

The kijk of the Taal is felt by the Hollander to be not so dignified as his ziet, which the Transvaaler again avoids. Similarly the German thinks its cognate gucken nicht so fein as sehen, But C. Dutch is fond of kijk, as witness the homely