A LONG STRUGGLE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1933, Page 5

A LONG STRUGGLE

the scots dictionary;

REPROACH TO THE COUNTRY

The scholar's battle against indifference has always been a hard one, .and at the present time' at least one lexicographer is proving that his trade, far from haying- changed since. Dr. Johnson's day, still demands learning and doggcdness in about equal parts, .says a writer in the "Manchester. .Guardian." He is Dr. William Grant, editor of the Scottish National Dictionary, that immpnse work which Will either help to bring back Scots or,; if tha language dies,; will, enshrine; it •„ for ever. The dictionary, which.'will: consist of ten volumes of four parts of 320 royal quarto pages each, is. being published by the Scottish National Dictionary Association in Edinburgh. Lord Mestbn is president of the association, and among ' the vice :p residents are tho Prime! Minister,. Mr. Stanley; Baldwin, the Lord Advocate, Sir Donald MacAlister, Sir George Adam Smith, and Mr. John Buchan. In spite of such backing, the. subscriptions and donations upon which the publication depends have been slow in coming in. Only tho first two parts of the dictionary have so far appeared.1 A third is expected soon. Truly the Scots,who are fond of advertising their devotion to learning, here shows a most surprising apathy. This is not the only current reproach to Scotland. Dr. Grant's dictionary, covers the language of literature and living speech since 1700. The dictionary of the older tongue is being edited by Sir AVilliam Craigic, of Chicago University, and is financed by tha Chicago' University Press. It is contemplation of such facts which compels one to ask if there is anything at all in the talk of a Scottish Renais* sauce. Although the 'headquarters ,Of tha association are in Edinburgh, all' tha work of editing has been done in Aberdeen. Since 1908 a Scottish Dialects Committee, under Dr. Grant, has been collecting material from every part of the country. In 1931, the first part of the dictionary was published. The office staff consists of two typists and1 the editor himself. So, for a period longer than the duration of a young man's life, this uphill work has been carried out. The two parts already, published have been acclaimed byj every reviewer, and a mere glance through them is sufficient to prove th» richness of the harvest. Every meaning is illustrated by quptation, with tha result that the dictionary is a treasure* house of idiomatic Scots. ' ' Burns clubs and Bunis dinners hava often been the butt of gibes, and thriva well in spite of it. The shafts of hostile wit aro usually directed against tha proposer of the immortal, memory, and, Heaven knows, he is generally a good target. Bu'tJ now: there is a new joke to add to that. Before the appearance of the first part Burns clubs were circularised. Three had already, talken. out subscriptions. ' There are hundreds of Burns clubs in Scotland, England, and the British Empire, but the only, answer to the, appeal was from Aber« deen, which gave a donation of £.L As the result of a lecture delivered in Manchester by the president of the association, Sir Joseph Dobbie, the Manchester St. Andrew's Society, subscribed to the dictionary and added a donation of £10.. The ;Manchester; Scots have come out of the matter honourably. Other Scottish ( societies ara not in such a strong position, but a, small yearly donation of' -10s.'. or £1 from a large number of them would at least ensure the publication of the dictionary. ', ■■'.'.'. The language which is its :concern is not, of course, Gaelic but the other, tongue of Scotland called-Braid Scots. It! is jthe language .of "The- Kingia Quhair," of the poems of Dunbar am. Henryson, and of . Gavin • Douglas '.a translation of the Acneid. The Scottish ballads aro set down ;in It.; Sinca 1600 powerful, influences—political, social, and educational—have-restricted its sphere. Yet nearly every performance of distinction in Scottish literature can be traced to. a . reaction against these hostile forces. Robert Fergusson and his.great successor Robert Burns wrote their finest poems in Braid Scots arid", were ■ poor . creatures when they tried their hands at English. Scott achieves an almost Shakespearean level when he writes of .his own-people and uses their own language. Gait, Stevenson, and others have all. done their most excellent work—Gait in the "Annals," Stevenson in ."AVeir of Hermiston' '—by a close application to Scottish life and ■ language. • Today the two foremost figures—Hugh MacDiarmid in poetry and Lewis Grassic Gib. bon in the novel —have . both brought' extraordinary powers to bear in their handling of Scots. - The old tree is not dead yet. . But who prevents it from dying1! Hardly the patriotic Burns clubman. Nor tha Scottish bourgeoise, which is frankly ashamed of its ancient language and puts the use of it on a par with, the Cockney's dropping -of his; h's. Perhaps it may be less ashamed when it feels the weight, of ■ a braw £15 dictionary at its back. , On the whole, the likelihood is that the dictionary will be eagerly drawn upon both by writers and by speakers. If so, the publication of the Scottish National Dictionary ushers in an era of importance.