Another Burns supper

I was the after-dinner speaker at a Burns Night supper yesterday evening. A local Masonic Lodge based in Little Kimble invited me (though I do not follow the Craft). It was a very enjoyable evening with a live piper, Burns' address to the haggis, some excellent food and an entertaining performance of Scottish comic songs.

They even got in some Cornish Best for me (I promise I don't have a rider!).

My talk was about the Scots language and how it's not a corruption of English but, rather, evolved simultaneously. Both English and Scots are an amalgamation of many language - each constantly layered by new words arriving with invaders, immigrants and by exposure to other cultures. 

What we call English is anything but - it's 43% French, 15% Latin, 5% Old Norse, 33% ‘native’ British (mostly Anglo-Saxon with a smattering of the Celtic tongues) plus a hodge-podge of other languages including Arabic, Indian, Greek etc. 

Scots is much the same but with a slightly higher density of Gaelic and Norse words.

The result of this is that both languages have lots of words - all from different sources - that mean the same thing. In fact, we have so many of these synonyms that we need a Thesaurus. And I was delighted to share with the audience that the word synonym has 19 synonyms. 

We also have homonyms - words that sound the same and are often spelled the same but mean different things. Take the word 'scale'.

When we scale (climb) a wall we're using a word derived fom the Latin Scala (ladder).

When we use a scale to measure something we're using the Norse Skal (a drinking cup of a certain size).

And when  we see scales on a fish or a pangolin we're using a word that began as the French Escale, which means crust or shell.

I then demonstrated how British placenames have often evolved out of the doubling or trebling up of different language words for the same thing. Like the River Avon which gets its name from the Welsh word afon (river) so it's the River River. Or the Wookey Hole Caves that were first called Ogo by the Welsh which mutated into Ochie or Ochy. Then the Anglo-Saxons added their word for cave - Hole. Therefore, the name Wookey Hole Caves basically means Cave Cave Caves.

I gave a few more examples, including the epic Torpenhow Hill (Hill Hill Hill Hill), which I wrote about here. Then I ended by pointing out that whisky comes from the Scots Gaelic word uisce (or uisge) meaning 'water'. 

I then asked people to raise their glasses of water or water with a splash of water to toast the great man.

A fun night.

Slàinte Mhath!