Asking about the Scottish language

[Pix]

Is Doric just a minor variation of Scots or are there major differences from the other Scottish dialects? That is, if someone who could only speak Doric were to meet someone who could only speak Teri/Southern Scots then could they easily communicate (as say Americans can with an Aussie), or would it be with some difficulty (as if one was a speaker of Portuguese and the other Spanish) or not that well at all (as if one was German and the other English)? :confused:

[EvenOlderButWiser]

Im Scottish and Ive never heard of Doric. Ive spoken English my whole life.

There are areas of Scotland where English is spoken with a local accent which can sometimes make it a little difficult to understand what's being said, but essentially they are still speaking English. They may also throw a few locally used words into a sentence, but as the sentence is 99% English its extremely easy to understand the context of the word and substitute its English equivalent anyway.

The only exception is Gaelic, which is a Scottish language in its own right, spoken by an extremely small number of people. Ive never met someone who considers their primary language to be Gaelic, so I would say you have already answered your own question. Its no different than someone from say the deep South of the USA talking to someone from New York having a conversation in English.

Oh and btw, Portuguese and Spanish are actually very similar in lots of ways, so communication between them would be relatively straight forward in just the same way as communication between a Brazilian and Portuguese person would not be an issue.

ObW

[Bowyn Aerrow]

It is sort of like asking if Tennessean Southern Speak is different from Texan Southern Speak. There are a lot of commonalities, yet enough differences to where a person with good hearing or an interest in dialects can tell the difference.

[Blue]

For that matter, here, in the ArkLaTex, we have a good mix of dialects form La, Tx, Ar, and Ok. Plus a few transplants form the northeast and visitors form all over. We all understand each other, but there are a few words we have to ask for clarification on.

Mud bug, crawfish, crawdad, crawdiddy, crayfish - all the same thing. Then we have Dominicker Chickens, anyone else would call them Silver laced Wyandottes but not here LOL.

I imagine Scottish dialects are about the same way, a few different words but not hard for one to understand the other.

[OrphanPip]

Oh and btw, Portuguese and Spanish are actually very similar in lots of ways, so communication between them would be relatively straight forward in just the same way as communication between a Brazilian and Portuguese person would not be an issue.

ObW

Portuguese and Spanish are distinct languages, it is not that easy for a speaker of one to understand the other without some effort to learn the language. The phonemes in Portuguese are different from those in Spanish, although the written languages are quite similar.

[Bookworm]

Is Doric just a minor variation of Scots or are there major differences from the other Scottish dialects? That is, if someone who could only speak Doric were to meet someone who could only speak Teri/Southern Scots then could they easily communicate (as say Americans can with an Aussie), or would it be with some difficulty (as if one was a speaker of Portuguese and the other Spanish) or not that well at all (as if one was German and the other English)? :confused:

I can speak Doric, it's actually my native dialect as I'm originally from Aberdeenshire in the North East of Scotland. I don't speak it here in Glasgow though as it would be difficult for people to understand. Here I just speak English (with a Scottish accent of course; I'm picking up some Glaswegian slang too). There are crossovers with many words that non Doric speakers in Scotland would understand but it's generally spoken faster and considered somewhat anachronistic by some; a country bumpkin dialect :biggrin:

It's changing over time too. My granny used to come out with words and phrases that I'd never heard before. You have regional variations too; Aberdeen Doric sounds slightly different to Doric spoken further inland, say up towards Elgin and Morayshire. It seems to be strongest in the local fishing towns north of Aberdeen.

I've never heard of the Teri dialect though. I must investigate!