J. Derrick McClure

Iseabail Macleod

From medieval times to the major electronic projects of the 21st century, this book offers a unique account of Scottish and Gaelic dictionaries and glossaries while also spotlighting the Scottish contribution to English lexicography. Demonstrating the ways in which poets and scholars throughout the ages have approached the task of describing their languages, this fascinating history also discusses the influence their work had on popular notions regarding language.

A History of Scottish Dictionaries

Scotland in Definition

Among the topics treated in this collection are the status of Scots as a national language; the orthography of Scots; the actual and potential degree of standardisation of Scots; the debt of the vocabulary of Scots to Gaelic; the use of Scots in fictional dialogue; and the development of Scots as a poetic medium in the modern period. All fourteen articles, written and published between 1979 and 1988, have been extensively revised and updated. J. Derrick McClure is a senior lecturer in the English Department at Aberdeen University and a well-known authority on the history of Scots.

Scots and its Literature

John Corbett

Jane Stuart-Smith

This is a comprehensive introduction to the study of older and present-day Scots language.

The Edinburgh Companion to Scots

Scots and Its Literature

The dialect of North-East Scotland, one of the most distinctive and best preserved in the country, survives as both a proudly maintained mark of local identity and the vehicle for a remarkable regional literature. The present study, after placing the dialect in its historical, geographical and social context, discusses in some detail a selection of previous accounts of its distinctive characteristics of phonology and grammar, showing that its shibboleths have been well recognised, and have remained consistent, over a long period. Passages of recorded speech are then examined, with extensive use of phonetic transcription. Finally, a representative selection of written texts, dating from the eighteenth century to the present and illustrating a wide variety of styles and genres, are presented with detailed annotations. A full glossary is also included. This study clearly demonstrates both the individuality of the dialect and the richness of the local culture of which it is an integral part.

The dialect of North-East Scotland

Doric

The Dialect of North-East Scotland

Janet Hadley Williams

Fresche fontanis contains twenty-five studies presenting major new research by leading scholars in Scottish culture of the late fourteenth and fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The three-part collection includes essays on the prominent writers of the period: James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, John Bellenden, David Lyndsay, John Stewart of Baldynneis, William Fowler, Alexander Montgomerie, Andrew Melville and Alexander Craig. There are also essays on the Scottish romances Lancelot of the Laik, Gilbert Hay’s Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour, The Buik of Alexander, Golagros and Gawain, and the comedic Rauf Coilyear, and the Scottish fabliau The Freiris of Berwick. Chronicles of Fordun, Bower, Wyntoun and Bellenden receive fresh attention in essays concerning Margaret of Scotland, and imperial ideas during the reign of James V. Essays on anthologies, family books, and collaborative compilations make another notable group, providing in-depth analysis, with findings not previously reported, of The Book of the Dean of Lismore, the Maitland Quarto manuscript and The Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum. These studies are enlarged by others on key contextualizing topics, including noble and royal literary patronage, early Scottish printing, performance, spectatorship, and translation. Together they make a significant contribution to a full understanding of the continuities and shifts in cultural emphases during this most imaginatively productive period.

J. Derrick McClure

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