Scottish English (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM

[Caoimhin O Donnaile]

Here (below) is a further reply from Derrick McClure.

Like the other two experts, he is very firmly of the opinion that
Glasgow dialect is "sco" and not "en".

So apologies for misleading the list with my previous opinion that
it was more "en" than "sco" - even though it is barely intelligible
to many English speakers.

He suggests tagging the original version as sco-glasgow and the
dubbed version as either en-glasgow or en-scotland.  Actually for
Karen's purpose of distinguishing the films, tags "sco" and "en"
might now be enough.  However, "sco-glasgow" would be much more
informative because the Glasgow dialect is pretty unique, and when
most people think of Scots they think first, rightly or wrongly,
of something  like Buchan Scots.

It would be helpful as a reality check if we could somehow hear clips
of the two versions of the film.  The clips I found on Youtube all
seemed to me to be very mild stuff that would hardly need dubbing
for a non-Scottish audience.  Maybe they are in fact from the dubbed 
version?

Caoimhín (Kevin)

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Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:19:35 +0100
From: "McClure, J. Derrick" <j.d.mcclure at abdn.ac.uk>
To: Caoimhin O Donnaile <caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk>, ietf-languages at iana.org,
     Chris.Robinson at ed.ac.uk, lorna.pike at uhi.ac.uk
Cc: maggie.scott at scotsdictionaries.org.uk
Subject: RE: Scottish English (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM

Dear Kevin et al.,

I'm delighted that this has had such a full and prompt
response!  Just one further point: Kevin wrote:

   Derrick appeared to accept my suggestion of en-glasgow, but maybe 
   that was because he did not realise that sco-glasgow might be a 
   possibility.

That is exactly right.  Since the discussion was on possible uses of the
en- prefix, I overlooked the greatly-to-be-commended-fact that here is
also a sco- prefix!  sco-glasgow is what should be used for the Glasgow
dialect.  The question whether the urban basilect of Glasgow should be
classed as Scots has been argued for a long time, of course; but the old
notion that it's neither good Scots nor good English and therefore beyond
the pale was really demolished in principle by Jack Aitken, and the
scholarly work on it by Caroline Macafee, Ron MacAulay and others has put
that notion out of court.  It IS a form of Scots, and therefore should be
designated sgo-glasgow as contrasted with sco-buchan, sco-borders and the
like.  So as far as Gregory's Girl is concerned - I never saw the dubbed
version and the undubbed doesn't really stick in my mind, but I would
imagine that the best way to designate them would be sco-glasgow for the
original and either en-glasgow or en-scotland for the dubbed, depending
on how markedly Glaswegian the accents were.

            Best wishes to all,
            Derrick.