FRAE Stranrawer tae Weik, tourists in Scotland need never again be
baffled by the dialect of the indigenous populace when seeking
directions, with the publication this week of a map that gives place
names in Scots.
The cairte in the Scots leid (language) is the work of broadcaster and
writer Billy Kay and publisher David McCrossan. It is the first of a
series that will include regional maps, excluding the Gaelic-language
areas of the Western Isles and the west Highlands.
The map, which covers the whole of Scotland, has been aimed at
tourists as much as Scots language enthusiasts, and includes a guide in
French and German and a gazetteer which converts the Scots place names
into their more familiar Scots spellings.
On the new map, Anstruther in Fife is spelled Ainster, as it is
pronounced locally; around Glesca, Milngavie is Mulguy, Rutherglen is
Ruglen; and Jedburgh in the Borders is Jethart.
Mr Kay said yesterday that he expected the map to be controversial but
it attempted to have both ''academic credibility and the demotic power
of local speech''.
He said: ''Ninety percent of the time, the local pronunciation was
close to the historical spelling.''
The research for the map involved more than 30 local contacts around
the country as well as the work of the Scottish place names survey
undertaken by the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University.
In some cases, the map restores names that were changed on the whim of
the landowner so, for example, the anglicisation of Todhaugh in West
Lothian to Foxhall is reversed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article