March 28, 2006

Signs in Scots


I was passing by this post office down in Canonmills, where I used to live, and I noticed for the first time that the signs on the doors are in Scots and not English. I thought it was great to see Scots being written and used in a more formal context. The ironic thing is that the post office and shop are owned by second generation Pakistani-Scots - it seems that new Scots have more confidence in how we speak than those that have lived here through the generations. I love seeing different languages being used, written and spoken and hope to see more signs around Scotland in Scots and Gaelic, not just English.

12 comments:

midnitebara said...

And I thought that the scots language was english! silly, thanks for that information. I bought a cd with lothian lyrics. Do you know that language too?

G Fraser said...

lothian would probably the edinburgh dialect...like in the folm trainspotting

Nicola said...

It took me a second but then it's not too hard to understand. Probably would be more difficult when listening to it...

Lisi said...

let me guess...no smoking, sorry no dogs, give something back to the community??...postage stamps sold here...

how did i do in my scottish test?

Anonymous said...

I have always loved walking past that P.O. too. They've had signs there in Scots for as long as I can remember. Sadly, I've never seen them anywhere else in Scotland!

BondBloke said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
BondBloke said...

Great photo Grant, and is something that The Sensual Eye missed when walking down there recently. But then how many of us ever notice what is on our doorstep?

Andreea said...

quite interesting this shot ...

Philipp said...

Interesting...I didn't know that there is an own Scottish "speech". Funny thing with the Pakistanis ;-)

G Fraser said...

well done lisi...you can graduate to an advanced Scots exam!
nola - wish more places would use them, love the coasters and mouse mats that you get with the dictionary definitions of Scots words

Christine McIntosh said...

Out here in the sticks (no pun intended) we have a variant on signs I've not seen elsewhere: on the green in Inveraray there is a sign saying "No shinty".

G Fraser said...

yep, chris, can't say I've seen one of those anywhere - shame it wasn't 'nae shinty'