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Sun 13 Nov, 2011 08:48 am
Lyrics
As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t'other say,
'Where sall we gang and dine to-day,
Where sall we gang and dine to-day?'
'In behint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his honnd, and lady fair,
His hawk, his honnd, and lady fair.
'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady 'a ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet,
We may mak our dinner sweet.
'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare,
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.'
'Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken where he is gane;
Oer his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sail blaw for evennair,
The wind sail blaw for evennair.'
@oristarA,
I'm going to guess Irish or Scottish. Do you know who wrote this? If it's Robert Burns, it's Scottish.
@oristarA,
It's Old Scots, sometimes called Lallans. It pre-dates the dialect of Rabbie Burns.
It's the words of a song.
@McTag,
I knew you would know, McTag.
Joe(ah dinna hae aenee doot.)Nation
for O.
I didn't have any doubt.
@McTag,
I should have said the name of the song,
The Twa Corbies, the two crows.
In French, with which nation Scotland had an historic alliance, the word for crow is
corbiere
@Joe Nation,
Aw', Nation, ya wee bauchle ye.
"Ah didnae hae ony doot", ken? Onywey, lang may yer lum reek.
@McTag,
McTag wrote:In French, with which nation Scotland had an historic alliance, the word for crow is corbiere
Funny, I thought it was corbeau.
I am surprised that no one has picked Oristar up about calling Lallans an "English dialect".
@contrex,
Well you might be right about that. Anyway, that's where many Scots dialect words come from, words like cundy (conduit) and ashet (assiette).
@contrex,
Quote:I am surprised that no one has picked Oristar up about calling Lallans an "English dialect".
Well okay. Not all Scots exhibit the knee-jerk reaction whose most extreme manifestation is known as the "Glasgow Kiss".
A dialect of the English language, shall we say?
I must say I'm impressed by the breadth of his reading.