Plé úsáideora:Robocop

Albainis/Béarla Gallda

Haigh a Robocop. Chonaic mé go bhfuil tú tar éis "Béarla Gallda" a úsáid in áit an fhocail "Albainis", cé nach n-úsáidtear an nath "Béarla Gallda" as Gaeilge na hÉireann ar chor ar bith. Cén fath gur rinne tú é sin? --Gabriel Beecham 12:31, 18 Márta 2007 (UTC)

Béarla Gallda is safe, and is the established term in Scottish Gaelic for the language/dialect. Albainis used in this way is a neologism and is potentially offensive to speakers of Scottish Gaelic (who after all gave their name, scoti, to the country), and historically "Albainis" is used in Irish to refer to the Scottish variety of their language, not to a dialect of English. Very reasonable to keep the page a dab, even if Ulster-Scots is referred to as Albainis Uladh. Albainis is usable for both languages. Almost all interwikis disambiguate "Scottish" or "Scottish language". Naming Albainis solely for Lowland Scots would thus not only cause offense and be historically inaccurate, but consolidate such a designation. I'm not sure how many sensitive wikipedians on any language version would support such a step. Robocop 19:56, 18 Márta 2007 (UTC)

Could you quote some examples of "Albainis" being used in Irish to refer to Scottish Gaelic, please? I'd be interested to see such usage, since I have never noticed it used _anywhere_ to refer to Scots. At any rate, it would be inappropriate to put the Scots article at Béarla Gallda, since this name is totally unused by Irish speakers. This is the Irish Wikipedia. --Gabriel Beecham 01:25, 19 Márta 2007 (UTC)

If one is going to separate Scottish and Irish Gaelic like that, then yeah, maybe Béarla Gallda ain't that good. But Béarla na hAlban is well established in Irish usage. The only difference between Scots and Scottish English is that one is more "archaic" and one less so. They fade into each other going from country to city in modern Lowland Scotland. Dont have it with me, but Wilson MacLeod's Divided Gaels: Gaelic Cultural Identities in Scotland and Ireland C.1200-C.1650 shows (and gives examples) that the Irish started to use the word "Albainis" when they began to see divergence between the two languages (Scottish and Irish Gaelic) in the later middle ages, and can be found earlier than that in one case. The idea of Lowland Scots and English as separate languages dates no earlier than the late 15th century and was never widespread until the 1920s; so you'll have to forgive the late medieval Irish for not knowing anything about a language/dialect that would later call itself "Scots". Robocop 02:02, 19 Márta 2007 (UTC)

Argh. Ive said enough. Youre going to do what youre going to do and im sure youll treat me like a vandal and block me if i actively disagree. if you want to strengthen the position of an offensive and inaccurate neologism in irish by calling lowland scots Albainis, be it on your own conscience. Robocop 02:09, 19 Márta 2007 (UTC)

Robocop: Your attempted compromise was quite OK otherwise, but I am afraid we will not be able to do without "Albainis". You see, "Béarla na hAlban" is not unambiguous - it could also mean the Scots variant of Standard English. On the other hand, it is misleading to suggest in the Irish language Wikipedia that Albainis is in any way ambiguous in Irish - Irish never uses it in any other meaning than Scots. My idea is: Make "Béarla na hAlban" an idirdhealán, which leads to the two pages "Béarla Caighdeánach na hAlban" (Scottish Standard English) and "Albainis" (Lowland Scots when perceived as a different language). But remove entirely any suggestion that "Albainis" could refer to Scots Gaelic, because this is simply not how it works in Irish - Scots Gaelic is never, ever, ever called Albainis in Irish. - I admit that Albainis is not a very beautiful word, nor it is even very established. But we need an unambiguous three-way distinction between standard English as used in Scotland (Béarla Caighdeánach na hAlban), Lowland Scots when treated as a different language (Albainis), and Scots Gaelic (Gaeilge na hAlban). I admit that "Béarla Gallda" could come in handy, but regrettably enough, it is not an established term in Irish and would not be understood. Besides "a' Bhéarla Gallda" is not grammatically correct in Irish - you don't write "a'", but "an", "Béarla" is not femininine but masculine (it would be "an Béarla", not "an Bhéarla"), and it is not even consistent with itself (if Béarla were feminine, then the adjective should be lenited, "an Bhéarla Ghallda). The form "a' Bhéarla Gallda" must go - it is so wrong that it cannot be tolerated.Panu Petteri Höglund 08:40, 20 Márta 2007 (UTC)

Quite correct that the term 'Albainis' is totally unknown in Scotland and was never used by the bardic poets! My work is cited above to suggest otherwise. So far as I am aware no distinction was ever drawn by Gaelic writers between Lowland Scots and the English of England - at least until very recent times. 'Albais' is sometimes used nowadays in Scottish Gaelic, but this is a neologism, and quite unpopular with some. Note that Scottish Gaelic still uses the traditional nominative form Alba (not the dative-for-nominative Albain as in Irish) so that the adjectival form becomes simply Albais. Beurla Ghallda (or a' Bheurla Ghallda) is preferred by many; Dr John MacInnes has written on this. Note that Beurla is feminine in Scottish Gaelic so that the lenition of Gallda is correct in Scottish Gaelic, as is writing the definite article here as a' and not an.