Yeah, I’m not expecting it to go head-to-head with the latest installment of Saw down at the local multiplex. One thing that Portland has tons of is obscure repertory cinemas (and many of them serve beer! Hallelujah!), so who knows…?
Just updating that I’m still feeling like a bit of an amadan over the whisk(e)y spelling. Maybe I should just compound the pretension and refer to it all as uisge-beatha.
How in the hell did I miss this thread?
I feel as a Scot I should clear some things up here.
Gaelic is barely on the map as far as independance goes. The two aren’t linked in any official way and it’s not an issue I recall ever being mentioned in the run up to the recent Scottish Parliament elections.
It’s whisky.
I’ve never been to Scotland, but from what I’m aware, Scotland is historically separated from England in terms of religion, economy, and (in the north and west) language. One of the main arguments I’ve heard against Scotland’s independence is that it would mess up the economy because they’d have to “start all over” in terms of being part of the EU.
Norway seems to get along just fine without being a EU member, however…in the end it’s up to the Scottish voting public. We may see in 2010 what the fate of Scotland is. I see a lot of parallels between the sentiments of “free Scotland” people and the “free Quebec” folks–and in each case it seems language is one of the driving factors pushing for freedom.
I’d like to direct all discussion on Scottish independence to the thread I posted on the subject in the politics forum (http://cnfpoli.informe.com/viewtopic.php?t=149).
All I’ll say here is that there are very little parallels between our situation and Quebec’s situation and I’ll re-iterate that language has nothing to do with it.
Also the chances of a referendum even happening in 2010 are now non-existent with the SNP having to enter into a minority government after the recent election. But even if they were able to deliver the referendum I doubt (unforunately) that it would have been successful.
As for language, English is the language spoken across the whole of the country. Even in the western isles you’ll find that everyone speaks English, a few might also speak Gaelic, but they will all have English as well. Elsewhere in the country Gaelic may not be used but we have very, very strong local dialects (Scots) that almost qualify as seperate languages themselves. Indeed up here many people are adamant that the north east dialect, Doric, should be recognised as a language in it’s own right.
More needs to be done to get people speaking Doric and Gaelic and it should be taught as an option in all secondary schools and eventually it should be taught in primary schools. But that’s not going to happen just now and it’s not the most important priority for our politicians at the moment.
Lastly, Spot the Dog in Gaelic is one of the horrors of my childhood. Once a week our regular childrens programming would be replaced for an hour by Gaelic childrens programs (for that 1% of the population that spoke it as a second language) and it was ALWAYS Spot the dog.
Just curious, so is your native language English (or Doric/Scots)?
I really like the sound of Doric/Scots. They should make a movie in that.
English although I can speak and understand Doric, like most folk brought up in the North East (I’d never understand a lot of what my Gran says otherwise).
They did, it’s called Sunset Song. Or maybe that was just a TV series, we were made to watch it in school anyway.
If you read the works of Lewis Grassic Gibbon (like Sunset Song and the rest of his Scots Quair) you’ll be reading a slightly sanitized version of Doric.
You call that English?
More from that link:
[Makers Mark] don’t use a pressure cooker to speed up the process, instead preferring an open cooker which allows more aromatics from the air about to penetrate the mash.
“Alright, Bud, we’re cooking mash tomorrow. Back away from the beans tonight, y’hear?” 
I figured on the Scots connection with the spelling. If I rephrase, my question would be: why do other bourbons use the “E”? Just an idle musing with no particular relevance to anything…
Well, it’s probably what you would consider to be “clearer” English compared to what many people speak around where chrisoff lives. I’ve heard a few stories over the years of Scottish Gaels being mistaken for being Irish when traveling abroad on account of their accents being considered “milder” than the popular conception of a Scottish accent.
A friend of mine, a Gael in his early '20s who went to uni in Aberdeen, once told me that he was all for greater interest in Doric so long as people stopped calling it Doric, because the word originated as a definition for things primitive or not ornate (e.g. doric columns, etc.) and he figured that wasn’t something that should be associated with the rich traditional language of much of Scotland. Might be a bit pedantic to make a fuss about it a this stage of the game, though…
I think that part of the problem with promoting greater use of Doric/Scots is that there is still a fair bit of ambiguity over what it is–it wasn’t even officially recognized as a distinctly different language from English until the '90s. The question that I think a lot of people are trying to figure out now in terms of using it in education is where you draw the line between what is considered Scottish English and what is considered full-blown Scots…
I remember reading a number of years ago that when the SNP wrote up their original party manifesto in the '60s (?), one of their proposals for if they took power was the creation of four new universities in Scotland, one of which would be exclusively Gaelic-medium. That may be a moot point now that there’s the University of the Highlands & Islands scheme and two of the campuses involved (Lews Castle College & Sabhal Mòr Ostaig) teach a number of classes in Gaelic, but it would be nice if Scotland got four more universities, anyway. Any idea yet what Salmond & Co. plan on doing to win the hearts and minds of the people? Free fried Mars bars for all?
Incidentally, I received a very nice e-mail from Seachd’s director, Simon Miller and he told me that they’re negotiating international distribution deals for the film in Cannes this week, but that it would “certainly be on the US film festival circuit shortly.”
Yup that’s probably true. Nowadays I think there’s few people who would speak entirely in the doric. Most folk will speak English accented with a few doric words (this is what I tend to do). Where doric differs from lowland scots and ulster scots is that it not only is more distinct from English than those dialect but due to it being confined to the rural north east it has an entire culture distinct to the language. Bothy ballads, for example, were a unique gift this culture gave to the world.
Incidentally no-one in the Mearns or the rest of the north-east is bothered by the term ‘doric’.
The SNP was founded in the 1930’s.
I don’t think there’s a need for any more universities in Scotland at present (although working for a university I’d welcome the additional job opportunities 
). The 90’s saw many former polytechnics and colleges gain university status so that we now have a varied and competitive higher education sector in the country. As some of these insitutions are now having to close departments and scrape around for funding I don’t think the demand is there to sustain many more.
They were officially sworn in today so I don’t imagine we’ll have to wait long to find out. Unfortunately they’ll be constrained to working as a minority government so will struggle to implement many of their manifesto pledges.
The film’s producer has quit BAFTA after they refused to put the film forward for the Foreign Language Oscar.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7025599.stm
I didn’t know that there had been any cinematic films in Cherokee, though there are some videos in it.
So is Seachd: The Wandering Haggis available on DVD with English subtitles yet? Should I be checking for this at the local video store?
djm
It just got released in the UK theatrically to rave reviews. There is, however, a great deal of controversy about it because it was widely tapped to be the UK’s foreign language Oscar entry and BAFTA didn’t nominate it. In fact, BAFTA didn’t nominate any films, despite have several to choose from, and they haven’t given any reason why. The “Gaelic Mafia” are having a serious hissy fit…
It’s definitely going to be on the film festival circuit–I think it might have been at the Toronto Film Festival. I think there might be some small-scale foreign distribution deals lined up, but I haven’t heard any details…