Anti English racist attack in Aberdeen

[DotCommunist]

Sasanach is Irish for an English person, as Scots Gaelic is almost identical to it then I'd say it's a reference to an English person.

There's twats everywhere. Probably a pissed dick who was in a bad mood.

I always wondered wether Gaelic could be considered as a dialect of Irish rather than a separate language. I don't know the languages well enough to make a firm judgement, but it occurred to me that a language that is understood and yet slightly different to it's counterpart must surely be a dialect.

 

[weepiper]

I always wondered wether Gaelic could be considered as a dialect of Irish rather than a separate language. I don't know the languages well enough to make a firm judgement, but it occurred to me that a language that is understood and yet slightly different to it's counterpart must surely be a dialect.

No. Modern Irish Gaelic and Scottish gaelic are both descendents of Old Irish. Scottish Gaelic is not a dialect of modern Irish, it shares a common ancestor. They are sort of mutually intelligible if you had someone from Galway talking to someone from South Uist say, but someone from Munster talking to someone from Lewis (opposite ends of the Gaeltacht) would find it harder going.

 

[weepiper]

Interesting, I'm not too clued up with Scots Gaelic and how they use it but Sasanach in Ireland definitely only refers to an English person.

It is used to mean an English speaker, i.e. not a Gael. So I guess that could apply to a lowlander too.

 

[weepiper]

Regarding the OP, that is ridiculous and hopefully not representative of most people's experience. My dad's English but has lived in Scotland for 40 years, and I've never heard him mention any anti-English stick. My ex mother-in-law got quite a lot but that was mostly because she was in the habit of writing inflammatory letters to The Scotsman...

 

[DotCommunist]

No. Modern Irish Gaelic and Scottish gaelic are both descendents of Old Irish. Scottish Gaelic is not a dialect of modern Irish, it shares a common ancestor. They are sort of mutually intelligible if you had someone from Galway talking to someone from South Uist say, but someone from Munster talking to someone from Lewis (opposite ends of the Gaeltacht) would find it harder going.

ah right, I had some semi-informed ideas in my head about the ancient incursions of the irish into scotland and some half-remembered shit about an Irish speaker patronisingly informing the gaelic speaker that Irish is 'the language of Kings'

interesting avenue of etymology, must research further.

 

[N_igma]

I always wondered wether Gaelic could be considered as a dialect of Irish rather than a separate language. I don't know the languages well enough to make a firm judgement, but it occurred to me that a language that is understood and yet slightly different to it's counterpart must surely be a dialect.

Well Weepiper is right, it all derives from Old Irish. The languages are similar enough, more like Portuguese and Spanish than dialects. Ulster Scots on the other hand is a dialect and a piece of shit one at that!

Weepiper-do you speak Scots Gaelic?

 

[DotCommunist]

Well Weepiper is right, it all derives from Old Irish. The languages are similar enough, more like Portuguese and Spanish than dialects. Ulster Scots on the other hand is a dialect and a piece of shit one at that!

Weepiper-do you speak Scots Gaelic?

ah, I see. Enough cognates to enable understanding but still different languages, essentially communication between an irish speaker and a gaelic speaker would rely on them using pidgin versions of the individual tongues.


you colonials have the most interesting linguistics *obvious troll line*

 

[TomPaine]

weepiper, I've never understood though why the Gaelic scots used a term dervided from Saxon, rather then Angle, do you know how it came about out of interest? Especially as the area south of Edinbrugh was Anglian until around 1014 and was part of the Earldom of Northumbria.
In Welsh and Cornish the word for an English person is derived from Saxon, which makes sense as Wessex being a powerful Kingdom came to border Cornwall and Wales. Yet Scotland was bordered by Angles in the form of Northumbria so you would think the term would be a derivative of Angle, like the French, German etc. word is.

 

[weepiper]

Weepiper-do you speak Scots Gaelic?

Uill, chan eil ach beagan agam. I learnt it for a couple of years at university, understand it fine, takes me too long to formulate a reply to keep up in a conversation though.

 

[DotCommunist]

Uill, chan eil ach beagan agam. I learnt it for a couple of years at university, understand it fine, takes me too long to formulate a reply to keep up in a conversation though.

I heard that christians excised most of the vulgarities from welsh, resulting in some highly inventive blasphemies replacing proper swearing- Did this happen with the Irish and Gaelic tongues?

sorry to turn this thread into 'ask nigma and weepiper' but I am fascinated

 

[weepiper]

weepiper, I've never understood though why the Gaelic scots used a term dervided from Saxon, rather then Angle, do you know how it came about out of interest? Especially as the area south of Edinbrugh was Anglian until around 1014 and was part of the Earldom of Northumbria.
In Welsh and Cornish the word for an English person is derived from Saxon, which makes sense as Wessex being a powerful Kingdom came to border Cornwall and Wales. Yet Scotland was bordered by Angles in the form of Northumbria so you would think the term would be a derivative of Angle, like the French, German etc. word is.

I don't actually know, but I would hazard that the word has been around since the days before the Scots left Ireland and settled Scotland. I know there were plenty Irish raids/incursions into Wales so maybe the English speakers they were coming across in those days (7th centuryish?) would have been the Saxons nearby?

 

[N_igma]

Uill, chan eil ach beagan agam.

Let me guess. "Well, I only know a little"?

 

[TomPaine]

I don't actually know, but I would hazard that the word has been around since the days before the Scots left Ireland and settled Scotland. I know there were plenty Irish raids/incursions into Wales so maybe the English speakers they were coming across in those days (7th centuryish?) would have been the Saxons

I guess that could be one possible reason. The Irish where raiding earlier then that as well, Dal Riada was in its peak from what the 6th century through 7th Century, and the earliest Anglian evidence of the Old English language is from around 400AD.

Sorry to be boring I find things like this interesting

 

[weepiper]

Let me guess. "Well, I only know a little"?

 

[N_igma]

I heard that christians excised most of the vulgarities from welsh, resulting in some highly inventive blasphemies replacing proper swearing- Did this happen with the Irish and Gaelic tongues?

Well there are no swear words in Irish so maybe the same thing happened here but I am unaware of it.

 

[weepiper]

I guess that could be one possible reason. The Irish where raiding earlier then that as well, Dal Riada was in its peak from what the 6th century through 7th Century, and the earliest Anglian evidence of the Old English language is from around 400AD.

Sorry to be boring I find things like this interesting

really? anywhere near Scotland though? The earliest place-name evidence in the South-East (Lothians) is c600 AD

 

[weepiper]

I heard that christians excised most of the vulgarities from welsh, resulting in some highly inventive blasphemies replacing proper swearing- Did this happen with the Irish and Gaelic tongues?

sorry to turn this thread into 'ask nigma and weepiper' but I am fascinated

Not sure but I will consult my friend who's a native speaker and report back!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I never experienced any anti-English feeling in Edinburgh, but I was studying there, so my social circle was very mixed anyway. (I didn't _just_ hang around in the Teviot bar though.) Also I was living pretty centrally.

You did sometimes hear the odd rumour about a friend of a friend getting beaten up for being English but tbh if this happened at all it would more likely have been because they were students.

 

[TomPaine]

No not up as far as Scotland, this is in Norfolk.
With regards to (what became Scotland) Bernicia was a kingdom that was merged with Deira to form Northumbria is probably the earliest recorded Anglian settlement in Scotland. Ida was king of this area in the middle of the 6th Century, around the 540's. The Lothian area of Scotland down towards Durham area roughly corresponds to where the Kingdom was.
I'd hazard a guess though that the Angles started to settle in this area from the early 6th century onwards.

 

[DotCommunist]

Well there are no swear words in Irish so maybe the same thing happened here but I am unaware of it.

It would not suprise me, Celtic christianity iirc predates formal english christianity and was along the friarary-monk-abbey line rather than the later formalised church organisations.

 

[TomPaine]

It would not suprise me, Celtic christianity iirc predates formal english christianity and was along the friarary-monk-abbey line rather than the later formalised church organisations.

That is correct, the English where Wodenists before they where converted to Celtic Christianity by Irish monks (although there is a strain of though that suggests the Hwicce intermarried with the Britons of the area and where converted earlier then thought by them).
The Lindisfarne Gospel is a good example of this. The Synod of Whitby is where the Church in the various Kingdoms of Britain accepted the Roman church officially I believe.

 

[Gavin Bl]

I heard that christians excised most of the vulgarities from welsh, resulting in some highly inventive blasphemies replacing proper swearing-

there's certainly mild curses like 'jiw jiw' (replacing 'duw' - god) and 'jiawch' (replacing 'diawr' - devil), less common now as the chapels disappear, but still to be heard. Bit like 'darn' and other words among American settlers

 

[weepiper]

No not up as far as Scotland, this is in Norfolk.
With regards to (what became Scotland) Bernicia was a kingdom that was merged with Deira to form Northumbria is probably the earliest recorded Anglian settlement in Scotland. Ida was king of this area in the middle of the 6th Century, around the 540's. The Lothian area of Scotland down towards Durham area roughly corresponds to where the Kingdom was.
I'd hazard a guess though that the Angles started to settle in this area from the early 6th century onwards.

Hmm somewhere in the recesses of my memory is the first Bernician king sitting in Bamburgh Castle in 558 and Edinburgh being captured at the beginning of the 7th century.

 

[TomPaine]

Yeah I think Ida was 547 or there abouts and Edwin of Northumbria I believe built a fort (at what is now Edinburgh) in the early 7th Century. The Scots finally captured it in 10th Century I think. You can see the OE names in parts of the area such as Holyrood which literally in OE means "The Holy Cross that Christ was nailed upon".

 

[weepiper]

Yeah I think Ida was 547 or there abouts and Edwin of Northumbria I believe built a fort (at what is now Edinburgh) in the early 7th Century. The Scots finally captured it in 10th Century I think. You can see the OE names in parts of the area such as Hollrood which literally in OE means "The Holy Cross that Christ was nailed upon".

But there was already a Brythonic/Welsh fort at Edinburgh, the capital of the Gododdin, that's what I meant about it being captured by the Angles. I had a point here but lack of sleep has made me lose it

 

[pogofish]

Sadly there are a few arseholes around who would be quite willing to have a go at you for being English. It is by no means representitive of most of the folk you will meet here.

This is also very pertinent IMO:

The attack happened at about 2am after she and a friend, Kelly Ogston, had left the Espionage nightclub and were walking up Union Street, near the Trinity Centre, to catch a bus.

So she is in the epicentre of pissed-up arsehole land & had just left a club notorious for fights, violence against women etc. For many of the characters who hang around outside/across from it, any excuse will do. I'm always very careful when passing down there at night. Where a woman is concerned, there is the added fun of those guys who hang around looking for a last-chance pull.

In fact, if I wanted to show you Aberdeen's very worst face, that block, at that time of night would be one of the three places I would choose.

One thing, that bit of Union St is very well CCTVd, so they ought to have footage of the attacker

 

[TomPaine]

But there was already a Brythonic/Welsh fort at Edinburgh, the capital of the Gododdin, that's what I meant about it being captured by the Angles. I had a point here but lack of sleep has made me lose it

Yeah the Brythonic tribes of the area certainly controlled what became Edinburgh. What is interesting though is the etymology of the name Edinburgh. Burgh is OE for a fortified town. It is presumed that the mordern Edin part comes from either Edwin or Aeden (from the Brythonic Eidyn). This is still open to debate I believe so nobody is really 100% sure where the Edin part came from I believe (although people have obviously taken sides on this).

Interestingly enough as a side note the OE word for a hill was Dune (pronounced doon-eh) where we get the word Down from e.g. South Downs. The Brythonic word for a hill fort was Din .

 

[weepiper]

Yeah the Brythonic tribes of the area certainly controlled what became Edinburgh. What is interesting though is the etymology of the name Edinburgh. Burgh is OE for a fortified town. It is presumed that the mordern Edin part comes from either Edwin or Aeden (from the Brythonic Eidyn). This is still open to debate I believe so nobody is really 100% sure where the Edin part came from I believe (although people have obviously taken sides on this).

Interestingly enough as a side note the OE word for a hill was Dune (pronounced doon-eh) where we get the word Down from e.g. South Downs. The Brythonic word for a hill fort was Din .

Indeed, and the Gaelic is Dun (Dunbar, Dunadd, Dumbarton and Dun Eideann for Edinburgh)

 

[TomPaine]

Dumbarton

Which I think means Fort of the Britons?

 

[weepiper]

yes it does.