Talk:bairn

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Scots[edit]

Surely the Scots entry is exactly the same as the English entry? (perhaps because Scots is not a separate language?) Dbfirs 19:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scots has its own language code and is considered by many a seperate lanaguage. It does have a lot of common vocabulary with English - however the commonality overlaps more with the dialects of Northern England - any cognates with standard English tend to have a different spelling and pronuciation.--Williamsayers79 07:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps because I live in Northern England, I see Southern English, rather than Scots, as a separate language. I think you would struggle to find anyone who seriously considers Scottish English as a separate written language. It is a dialect of English, just like my own (which shares many words with Scottish English). Of course, Scottish Gaelic is completely separate. Dbfirs 07:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(later) I enjoyed your Scots-English dictionary, though! Dbfirs 07:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The distinction between Scottish English and Scots is a bit vague, Scottish English to me does not sound to me like a seperate language - but maybe thats because I'm a Geordie! - and like you said being from the north it can seem that Southern English dialects can be just as "alien" as Scottish English. The language that we refer to here as Scots I believe to be mainly a literary language - confusing really because it almost seems to a sort of eye-dialect form for written Scottish English. --Williamsayers79 11:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, and we have similar eye-dialect for our respective English regional dialects. Most words regarded as "Scots" are either Old English or Old Norse, and are retained in Northern English dialects as well as in Southern Scotland, but I suppose we will never convince some Scots that they speak English! We could each make our own dialects unintelligible to Southerners, but, usually, we don't! Is it not just the separatist few who consider "Scots" to be a separate language? Thanks for your clarification, anyway. Did Burns think he was not writing in English? Dbfirs 12:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Scots supporters are like that. They live in a weird world where England=London and the rest of us don't exist. I'd definatly agree that Scots is far more akin to Geordie than either are to queens english. There is either one English or, if you want to count Scots as something different, a few dozen.--130.243.155.229 14:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree that Scots is a dialect of English. But for dialects that are very distinct from the respective standard language I find it justified, and even advisable, to separate their entries. Probably the same should be done for some other English dialects like Geordie. Several German dialects have their own entries on wiktionary (Low German, Alemannic German, Colognian, and maybe more).
Scottish English (which sometimes isn't even a particularly broad dialect of Modern English) is influenced by but is not equivalent to Scots which has it's own dialects and a history distinct from Modern English. Yes, Burns does talk about writing in Lallans (Scots). The points about it being closer to Geordie and other northern dialects than it is to those of the south are spot on, this is partly because Scots originates with Northumbrian Old English (which obviously still influences the dialects of modern Northumbria). The northern parts of the Kingdom of Northumbria later became the south east of Scotland and Scots spread and diverged from there. Monospaced (talk) 02:08, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Chambers 1908 has these two, defined as "a brood of children". Other sources suggest that bairntime may actually be a time: either the woman's lying-in (period of childbed) or the period of life when the children are raised. Equinox 12:17, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]