The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 14

I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not emulate this nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as well as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word, I used it without shame; and when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed, I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on English. For all that, I own to a friendly feeling for the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I confess that Burns has always sounded in my ear like something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the Lothians. And if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite forgotten; and Burns’s Ayrshire, and Dr. MacDonald’s Aberdeen-awa’, and Scott’s brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language; an ambition surely rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of endurance, so parochial in bounds of space.

TABLE OF COMMON SCOTTISH VOWEL SOUNDS

ea = open E as in mere, but this with exceptions, as heather = heather, wean = wain, lear = lair.

oa = open O as in more.

ou = doubled O as in poor.

ow = OW as in bower.

u = doubled O as in poor.

ui or ü before R = (say roughly) open A as in rare.

ui or ü before any other consonant = (say roughly) close I as in grin.

y = open I as in kite.

i = pretty nearly what you please, much as in English, Heaven guide the reader through that labyrinth! But in Scots it dodges usually from the short I, as in grin, to the open E as in mere. Find and blind, I may remark, are pronounced to rhyme with the preterite of grin.

I

THE MAKER TO POSTERITY

Far ’yont amang the years to be,
When a’ we think, an’ a’ we see,
An’ a’ we luve, ’s been dung ajee
By time’s rouch shouther,
An’ what was richt and wrang for me
Lies mangled throu’ther,

It’s possible – it’s hardly mair —
That some ane, ripin’ after lear —
Some auld professor or young heir,
If still there’s either —
May find an’ read me, an’ be sair
Perplexed, puir brither!

“What tongue does your auld bookie speak?”
He’ll speir; an’ I, his mou’ to steik:
“No’ bein’ fit to write in Greek,
I wrote in Lallan,
Dear to my heart as the peat-reek,
Auld as Tantallon.

“Few spak it than, an’ noo there’s nane.
My puir auld sangs lie a’ their lane,
Their sense, that aince was braw an’ plain,
Tint a’thegither,
Like runes upon a standin’ stane
Amang the heather.

“But think not you the brae to speel;
You, tae, maun chow the bitter peel;
For a’ your lear, for a’ your skeel,
Ye’re nane sae lucky;
An’ things are mebbe waur than weel
For you, my buckie.

“The hale concern (baith hens an’ eggs,
Baith books an’ writers, stars an’ clegs)
Noo stachers upon lowsent legs
An’ wears awa’;
The tack o’ mankind, near the dregs,
Rins unco law.

“Your book, that in some braw new tongue
Ye wrote or prentit, preached or sung,
Will still be just a bairn, an’ young
In fame an’ years,
Whan the hale planet’s guts are dung
About your ears;

“An’ you, sair gruppin’ to a spar
Or whammled wi’ some bleezin’ star,
Cryin’ to ken whaur deil ye are,
Hame, France, or Flanders —
Whang sindry like a railway car
An’ flie in danders.”

II

ILLE TERRARUM

Frae nirly, nippin’, Eas’lan’ breeze,
Frae Norlan’ snaw, an’ haar o’ seas,
Weel happit in your gairden trees,
A bonny bit,
Atween the muckle Pentland’s knees,
Secure ye sit.

Beeches an’ aiks entwine their theek,
An’ firs, a stench, auld-farrant clique.
A simmer day, your chimleys reek,
Couthy and bien;
An’ here an’ there your windies keek
Amang the green.