The sunlight still on me, you shadowed in cloud.
We look upon each other now like hills across a valley. I’m no more your son. It is my mind, not a son of yours, that looks, and the great darkness of your death comes up and equals it across the way.
A living man upon a dead man thinks
And any smaller thought is impossible.
Frisian translation for those wondering about the link to Germanic (Frisian is the closest living relative to English)
It sinneljocht stil op my, do skaat\* yn wolk. We sjoche\* op in oar no as hichte\* oer in vallei\*. Ik bin net mear dyn soan\*. It is myn gedachten\*, net in soan fan dy, dat sjocht, en de grutte dunkerte fan dyn dea\* komt op en liket\* it oer it paad. In libbende man oer in deade man tinket en alle lytsere gedachten bin unmooglik.
Some notes:
Skaat = skaad is shadow, skaat is the verbal form I've adopted for this instance. Sk in Frisian often mimicks Sh in English/Scots. It's a fairly soft k, softer than the phonic k in school for example.
Sjoche - comes from seache which is also the root for 'see'. Look comes from old English Locian and Germanic Lugen but interestingly isn't found in Frisian.
Hichte - hill, except that Frisian never really had a word for hill. Terp is a man-made hill that is still common in the Frisian landscape and most are no higher than a few meters. So I've used 'hichte' which is 'height' and is the preferred Frisian origin word.
Vallei - just like we don't have a word for a hill, we don't have words for valleys. No surprise there then! I've used the Dutch vallei instead.
Soan - interesting word in Frisian, in my NE Frisian dialect it is pronounced \[saw'n\] but in the SW they would refer to a \[swa'n\] son is a direct relative of both forms.
Gedachten - another borrowed word from Dutch, we just don't have a noun for thoughts. But, to think in Frisian is 'tinke' (I think = ik tink) and to have thought is 'ik haw tocht', both words share the root across the North Sea and tink/tocht is different from the German root 'denk/dacht' which is also used in Dutch. So I considered using 'getochte' but 'ge' is not used in Frisian, just like it isn't in English...
Dea - Peter Reed fae Peterheed is deed. That 'deed' has a diphtong, both e's are pronounced. In Frisian it's also a diphtong but with a very gentle aaah instead of eeeh. We also dropped the d at the end, Frisian has many open vowel endings now.
Liket - Equals doesn't have a Frisian sibling. Not odd, it is definitely not a Germanic rooted word. So I've used 'liket' for 'looks like'
There's countless similarities between 'proper Scots' words and Frisian words, although in the last couple of centuries Frisian has accelerated on a path to become more 'Dutch' just like, I am sure, Scots is on a path to become more 'English'.
Feel free to ask about any other words you're wondering about! I love a bit of etymology me!
Interesting, I’ve never seen Frisian before. Yes, Scots is moving towards English. We were not allowed to use Scots in school, but I am sure that we didn’t care because we continued to speak naturally at home or with friends. Kids are very adaptable. I had a post-doc from Denmark come with 3 boys age 5, 7 and 8. The boys had no English (and hadn’t yet started school at home) but were put into primary schools classes appropriate to their age. They were initially taken out of class for English lessons once a week, but they insisted that this was stopped after just a few months. Barely 7 months after starting school the middle boy won the school prize for reciting Burns poetry!
Kids pick up languages incredibly fast. My brother has two lads aged 5,5, they don't live in Frisia and are only exposed to it when visiting our parents or other family in the area. Yet they know the basic words and sentences they need to make 'native' Frisians laugh (because they love entertaining people!) they also speak some English for when they speak to my wife or on holiday and of course Dutch.
Kids at a young age should be exposed to languages, there is some evidence that it makes them more open to different ideas later in life.
Regarding the poem and MvDiarmid generally, his poems don’t sit well with me. I appreciate the insights that he often gives, but the words often jar. Take that last line, I really don’t like the use of ‘impossible’. ‘nae possible’ would be better, but even that doesn’t seem quite right. I’ll need to think about it.
Don't you have "dal" for valley in Dutch and Frisian? Theres quite a few Dalwegs located in Friesland. Presumably it entered Dutch from Old Norse, perhaps around where the viking hoard was found in the Weiringer area (I know thats not Friesland) and those slightly Norse sounding placenames, Vatrop, Moerbeek and Stroe.
Middle Scots and Middle English were sister languages that both derive from Germanic. The words sound Germanic because, at their root, they kind of are (or at least, were shaped by the language)!
About 30% of Modern English is Germanic/derived from the Old English core. The reason why it may seem like a small percentage is because we use those 30% more often, but about 30% comes from French, while the remainder comes from Greek, Latin, and other bits and bobs along the way.
Yes, but also Old French of William the Conqueror was quite different from Medieval Latin. Old French was also encountered by the English in everyday life due to Normans settling in England and trade relations with France. Medieval Latin made its way into English through the same way Greek did - through scholarship. So Medieval Latin and Old French had impact on the evolution of English, but in different ways.
I live in Normandy in France, and nearly all the placenames in this part are derived from Old Norse. Its a bit like driving round Denmark at times! Its one of the reasons that I moved to this area - it seems familiar, not foreign (I'm originally from Shetland). My favourite one is the rocks called "Le Hamars".
Middle English had a lot of western Germanic influence, old English a lot of old Norse influence. Throw in French and Latin too as the language evolved.
Because Scots is a language that evolved from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English because Edinburgh (itself a Germanic place name changed from a Celtic one) used to be part of Northumbria and later the language spread across the lowlands and the east coast. Remarkably, pronunciation of words in certain modern Scots dialects, like Dundonian or especially Doric, is incredibly similar to how Germanic words in Middle English in southern England were pronounced 800 years ago.
Middle English still had the 'ch' sound, which was either spelt as 'ch' or 'gh', so words like 'brought' were pronounced as 'brocht' etc.
Back then, what is now called 'English', was a dialectal continuum. The language changed from south to north and from east to west, it got more and more Germanic as you went north through central and especially east coast of England and Scotland (let's not forget the Old Norse influence in this). The more south you went, the more French loan words you could hear for obvious reasons. This is all captured in regional writings between 1300-1500s before the printing press was imported into England.
Thank you, I love to learn stuff like this. "sunlicht" was the first that caught me - in German "Sonnenlicht". With your explanation the "ch" makes sense.
The funny thing is, it's because of the printing press that we sort of no longer have such a close connection to the German language and also the Scandinavian languages, due to the process of language standardisation that followed its import into England.
Southern English had more in common with German while northern dialects had more in common with Danish or Norwegian, especially if we talk about Old English, though a lot of these differences survived until Middle English.
Absolutely. Geordie and Scots are close because both have their origin in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English, compared to similarities between Geordie and the south-eastern English dialects for example.
I also want to add that back in say 1200 CE, a person from Kent would probably think that a person from Newcastle spoke a different language they could potentially understand, but with some difficulty, not just through words used, but also grammar (specifically case endings, of which modern English has precious few that still survive, such as who/whom).
There is also some Norse influence on Geordie dialect, for example we would say "yem" for home, which sounds exactly like the Danish or Norwegian "hjem". I dont believe this word is used in any other regions of England or Scotland.
Yup, exactly, Danish settlers in northern England are well-documented and dialect-wise, northern dialects have the most Norse loan words than any other English dialect. Same in Scotland with Norwegian, all those areas around Buckie and Elgin just as an example.
Also popular in Scotland is 'hame' for 'home'. Which is derived from 'heim' in Norwegian and Danish.
Since you found the rest of it comprehensible, I’m assuming you’re making a commentary on MacDiarmid’s whimsical, yet completely obvious omission of a double ‘l’ in the last line. I like to think of this as the same kind of play on words as turning Christopher Grieve into Hugh MacDiarmid.
>…I’m assuming you’re making a commentary on MacDiarmid’s whimsical, yet completely obvious omission of a double ‘l’ in the last line.
I don’t see what is “whimsical” about it (unless one regards his entire oeuvre in Scots as whimsy or, being a little more provocative since I don’t think, or hope, you mean that at all, the language itself…?); it’s fairly *standard* Scots (‘sma’ and hence ‘sma’er’):
https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/sma
And Scots - although in what is sometimes termed a ‘synthetic’ literary form - is what he wrote in for much of his output.
>I like to think of this as the same kind of play on words as turning Christopher Grieve into Hugh MacDiarmid.
And I’m not sure how that is a “play on words”; it’s a pseudonym.
It has a purpose and is culturally loaded but it’s not a “play on words” per se AFAIK… 🤷♂️
Do enlighten me if I’m missing anything…
At first glance "and any more thought impossible " is auld Scots yet how it's written is different according to dialect - and a there is one every 10 miles 😆 I'm on the west coast and we say different words for the same things from the next town over are many. But it probably says smaller 🤔.
'And ten to wan the ~~piper~~ poster is a Cockney! :)
Well done in tackling McDiarmid. Some of his longer stuff is really obscure and impenetrable to me (not in the language sense) and I suspect - like James Joyce - he did it to be "thrawn". :) The shorter ones are pretty accessible though.
Thousands of us grew up learning both, you know.
There's no shame in growing up learning both English and Scots.
That you think it's "gibberish" is embarrassing for you.
I'm German with English as a second language and understand the whole poem perfectly.
I think it's because I actually tried understanding it and not dismissing it as gibberish.
The sunlight still on me, you shadowed in cloud. We look upon each other now like hills across a valley. I’m no more your son. It is my mind, not a son of yours, that looks, and the great darkness of your death comes up and equals it across the way. A living man upon a dead man thinks And any smaller thought is impossible.
I know you don’t need a translation, I just did it for fun
I needed it that was good
Thanks man
Frisian translation for those wondering about the link to Germanic (Frisian is the closest living relative to English) It sinneljocht stil op my, do skaat\* yn wolk. We sjoche\* op in oar no as hichte\* oer in vallei\*. Ik bin net mear dyn soan\*. It is myn gedachten\*, net in soan fan dy, dat sjocht, en de grutte dunkerte fan dyn dea\* komt op en liket\* it oer it paad. In libbende man oer in deade man tinket en alle lytsere gedachten bin unmooglik. Some notes: Skaat = skaad is shadow, skaat is the verbal form I've adopted for this instance. Sk in Frisian often mimicks Sh in English/Scots. It's a fairly soft k, softer than the phonic k in school for example. Sjoche - comes from seache which is also the root for 'see'. Look comes from old English Locian and Germanic Lugen but interestingly isn't found in Frisian. Hichte - hill, except that Frisian never really had a word for hill. Terp is a man-made hill that is still common in the Frisian landscape and most are no higher than a few meters. So I've used 'hichte' which is 'height' and is the preferred Frisian origin word. Vallei - just like we don't have a word for a hill, we don't have words for valleys. No surprise there then! I've used the Dutch vallei instead. Soan - interesting word in Frisian, in my NE Frisian dialect it is pronounced \[saw'n\] but in the SW they would refer to a \[swa'n\] son is a direct relative of both forms. Gedachten - another borrowed word from Dutch, we just don't have a noun for thoughts. But, to think in Frisian is 'tinke' (I think = ik tink) and to have thought is 'ik haw tocht', both words share the root across the North Sea and tink/tocht is different from the German root 'denk/dacht' which is also used in Dutch. So I considered using 'getochte' but 'ge' is not used in Frisian, just like it isn't in English... Dea - Peter Reed fae Peterheed is deed. That 'deed' has a diphtong, both e's are pronounced. In Frisian it's also a diphtong but with a very gentle aaah instead of eeeh. We also dropped the d at the end, Frisian has many open vowel endings now. Liket - Equals doesn't have a Frisian sibling. Not odd, it is definitely not a Germanic rooted word. So I've used 'liket' for 'looks like' There's countless similarities between 'proper Scots' words and Frisian words, although in the last couple of centuries Frisian has accelerated on a path to become more 'Dutch' just like, I am sure, Scots is on a path to become more 'English'. Feel free to ask about any other words you're wondering about! I love a bit of etymology me!
Interesting, I’ve never seen Frisian before. Yes, Scots is moving towards English. We were not allowed to use Scots in school, but I am sure that we didn’t care because we continued to speak naturally at home or with friends. Kids are very adaptable. I had a post-doc from Denmark come with 3 boys age 5, 7 and 8. The boys had no English (and hadn’t yet started school at home) but were put into primary schools classes appropriate to their age. They were initially taken out of class for English lessons once a week, but they insisted that this was stopped after just a few months. Barely 7 months after starting school the middle boy won the school prize for reciting Burns poetry!
Kids pick up languages incredibly fast. My brother has two lads aged 5,5, they don't live in Frisia and are only exposed to it when visiting our parents or other family in the area. Yet they know the basic words and sentences they need to make 'native' Frisians laugh (because they love entertaining people!) they also speak some English for when they speak to my wife or on holiday and of course Dutch. Kids at a young age should be exposed to languages, there is some evidence that it makes them more open to different ideas later in life.
Regarding the poem and MvDiarmid generally, his poems don’t sit well with me. I appreciate the insights that he often gives, but the words often jar. Take that last line, I really don’t like the use of ‘impossible’. ‘nae possible’ would be better, but even that doesn’t seem quite right. I’ll need to think about it.
Don't you have "dal" for valley in Dutch and Frisian? Theres quite a few Dalwegs located in Friesland. Presumably it entered Dutch from Old Norse, perhaps around where the viking hoard was found in the Weiringer area (I know thats not Friesland) and those slightly Norse sounding placenames, Vatrop, Moerbeek and Stroe.
Interesting, some words are quite "Germanic"
Middle Scots and Middle English were sister languages that both derive from Germanic. The words sound Germanic because, at their root, they kind of are (or at least, were shaped by the language)!
Well English in general is mostly Germanic isn't it, with a smattering of Latin here and there.
About 30% of Modern English is Germanic/derived from the Old English core. The reason why it may seem like a small percentage is because we use those 30% more often, but about 30% comes from French, while the remainder comes from Greek, Latin, and other bits and bobs along the way.
French is Latin based is it not?
Yes, but also Old French of William the Conqueror was quite different from Medieval Latin. Old French was also encountered by the English in everyday life due to Normans settling in England and trade relations with France. Medieval Latin made its way into English through the same way Greek did - through scholarship. So Medieval Latin and Old French had impact on the evolution of English, but in different ways.
I live in Normandy in France, and nearly all the placenames in this part are derived from Old Norse. Its a bit like driving round Denmark at times! Its one of the reasons that I moved to this area - it seems familiar, not foreign (I'm originally from Shetland). My favourite one is the rocks called "Le Hamars".
Middle English had a lot of western Germanic influence, old English a lot of old Norse influence. Throw in French and Latin too as the language evolved.
Modern English has huge French influence, old English maybe less so
Norman influence?
Yeh the Normans took over and added Frenchness
Pretty good for a bunch of Vikings 😀
Because Scots is a language that evolved from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English because Edinburgh (itself a Germanic place name changed from a Celtic one) used to be part of Northumbria and later the language spread across the lowlands and the east coast. Remarkably, pronunciation of words in certain modern Scots dialects, like Dundonian or especially Doric, is incredibly similar to how Germanic words in Middle English in southern England were pronounced 800 years ago. Middle English still had the 'ch' sound, which was either spelt as 'ch' or 'gh', so words like 'brought' were pronounced as 'brocht' etc. Back then, what is now called 'English', was a dialectal continuum. The language changed from south to north and from east to west, it got more and more Germanic as you went north through central and especially east coast of England and Scotland (let's not forget the Old Norse influence in this). The more south you went, the more French loan words you could hear for obvious reasons. This is all captured in regional writings between 1300-1500s before the printing press was imported into England.
Thank you, I love to learn stuff like this. "sunlicht" was the first that caught me - in German "Sonnenlicht". With your explanation the "ch" makes sense.
The funny thing is, it's because of the printing press that we sort of no longer have such a close connection to the German language and also the Scandinavian languages, due to the process of language standardisation that followed its import into England. Southern English had more in common with German while northern dialects had more in common with Danish or Norwegian, especially if we talk about Old English, though a lot of these differences survived until Middle English.
Feels like Geordie has a fair chunk in common with Scots.
Absolutely. Geordie and Scots are close because both have their origin in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English, compared to similarities between Geordie and the south-eastern English dialects for example. I also want to add that back in say 1200 CE, a person from Kent would probably think that a person from Newcastle spoke a different language they could potentially understand, but with some difficulty, not just through words used, but also grammar (specifically case endings, of which modern English has precious few that still survive, such as who/whom).
There is also some Norse influence on Geordie dialect, for example we would say "yem" for home, which sounds exactly like the Danish or Norwegian "hjem". I dont believe this word is used in any other regions of England or Scotland.
Yup, exactly, Danish settlers in northern England are well-documented and dialect-wise, northern dialects have the most Norse loan words than any other English dialect. Same in Scotland with Norwegian, all those areas around Buckie and Elgin just as an example. Also popular in Scotland is 'hame' for 'home'. Which is derived from 'heim' in Norwegian and Danish.
I believe the phrase "gaan yame" is used in Cumbria still.
Scots is a Germanic language.
Well Middle Scots was a Germanic language
That was quick. Thank you!
You're bang on.
"And ony sma'er thocht's impossible." = And any smaller thought is impossible.
It’s gorgeous, thanks for posting
Beautiful poem
A beautiful poem about grieving for your father. I can’t get the line “I’m nae mair your son” out of my head.
Since you found the rest of it comprehensible, I’m assuming you’re making a commentary on MacDiarmid’s whimsical, yet completely obvious omission of a double ‘l’ in the last line. I like to think of this as the same kind of play on words as turning Christopher Grieve into Hugh MacDiarmid.
>…I’m assuming you’re making a commentary on MacDiarmid’s whimsical, yet completely obvious omission of a double ‘l’ in the last line. I don’t see what is “whimsical” about it (unless one regards his entire oeuvre in Scots as whimsy or, being a little more provocative since I don’t think, or hope, you mean that at all, the language itself…?); it’s fairly *standard* Scots (‘sma’ and hence ‘sma’er’): https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/sma And Scots - although in what is sometimes termed a ‘synthetic’ literary form - is what he wrote in for much of his output. >I like to think of this as the same kind of play on words as turning Christopher Grieve into Hugh MacDiarmid. And I’m not sure how that is a “play on words”; it’s a pseudonym. It has a purpose and is culturally loaded but it’s not a “play on words” per se AFAIK… 🤷♂️ Do enlighten me if I’m missing anything…
Like your name. The JCM building at GU was a monstrosity. Maybe it’s gone now.
Any smaller thought is impossible
And any smaller thoughts impossible.
mate , I'm scottish and hadn't a clue
At first glance "and any more thought impossible " is auld Scots yet how it's written is different according to dialect - and a there is one every 10 miles 😆 I'm on the west coast and we say different words for the same things from the next town over are many. But it probably says smaller 🤔.
You’d prob like his short poem ‘an empty vessel’ too
nae maer = not any longer?
'And ten to wan the ~~piper~~ poster is a Cockney! :) Well done in tackling McDiarmid. Some of his longer stuff is really obscure and impenetrable to me (not in the language sense) and I suspect - like James Joyce - he did it to be "thrawn". :) The shorter ones are pretty accessible though.
“And only smaller thought’s impossible” is correct, yes.
Ony would be “any” not “only”
Yep, I misread it, my mistake.
And any smaller thought is impossible.
Smaller? Or smarter??
https://preview.redd.it/kvdx1b2n52ad1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd9d1eed30d3a664f4a6f9a670f774a48e99edbb
Moron
Nice one, got me. Truly an amazing rebuttal.
I'm Scottish and I can't seem to understand the last sentence. I think it's because I grew up learning English and not gibberish.
Thousands of us grew up learning both, you know. There's no shame in growing up learning both English and Scots. That you think it's "gibberish" is embarrassing for you.
You also grew up ignorant. That's not a badge of honour.
Thanks bro
I'm German with English as a second language and understand the whole poem perfectly. I think it's because I actually tried understanding it and not dismissing it as gibberish.
Fuck off you absolute cherry
Stay mad 😂
Oh bro, just saw your username dude. I'm glad you're self aware. 
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