[HN Gopher] Blackhouses of Scotland
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       Blackhouses of Scotland
        
       Author : yamrzou
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2024-08-06 20:19 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.amusingplanet.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.amusingplanet.com)
        
       | kamaitachi wrote:
       | Scotland and Ireland are intimately linked by a common language
       | (Gaelic). As an Irish person who speaks English (for obvious
       | historical reasons), visiting Scotland blew my mind because of
       | the common language.
       | 
       | Here's an example of a simple stone house from the south west of
       | Ireland:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloch%C3%A1n
       | 
       | Note that these are some houses from Skellig Michael, used as a
       | film location for one of the Star Wars movies Edit: typo
        
         | arethuza wrote:
         | What became Scotland pretty much originated with the kingdom of
         | Dal Riata that stretched between Ireland and Britain and there
         | are a _lot_ of legends and myths that tell of strong
         | connections between the two e.g. Deirdre of the Sorrows
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A1l_Riata
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deirdre
        
           | amiga386 wrote:
           | "Pretty much" is doing a lot of work there. The kingdom of
           | Dal Riata was predominantly the islands and the west coast of
           | modern Scotland. Picts held the north, east and central parts
           | of modern Scotland, the Britons of Strathclyde ruled the
           | south-west and the Anglo-Saxons of Bernicia (later joining
           | with Deira to form Northumbria) the south-east.
           | 
           | There were many other tribes, this is a gross simplification.
           | 
           | Ultimately the Picts and Celts/Scots of Dal Riata "merged"
           | (if that's the right word? it's not clear who took over who)
           | in the 700s-800s, for certain by the time of Kenneth MacAlpin
           | who was both King of Dal Riata and King of the Picts, and by
           | the 900s this was the Kingdom of Alba, later the Kingdom of
           | Scotland. This Kingdom still did not include what's in modern
           | south-west Scotland, that was won later.
        
             | mbreese wrote:
             | FWIW, the British History Podcast does a pretty good job of
             | covering Scotland and the migration of people through this
             | period. I actually don't know how good it is, but I do at
             | least remember all of the names and places you mentioned.
             | :)
             | 
             | The podcast is quite England heavy, but does also cover
             | Scotland and Wales, as well as the relevant parts of
             | France, Ireland, and Denmark (as appropriate).
        
         | m-i-l wrote:
         | > _Scotland and Ireland are intimately linked by a common
         | language (Gaelic)_
         | 
         | Just on parts of the west coast of Scotland - much of mainland
         | Scotland spoke the Scots language, with the (now dead) Norn
         | language spoken in the northern areas (with Norse heritage),
         | and other languages in the border areas. The promotion of
         | Scottish Gaelic as a "national language" is very much modern-
         | day myth-building.
        
           | nmeofthestate wrote:
           | It depends how far back you go. Gaelic was spoken across the
           | country, not just on the west coast. Nowadays it's been more
           | or less eradicated, except from the Western Isles (where it's
           | not that widely spoken - English is the main spoken
           | language). And it's increasingly become a political football
           | so you see untrue statements made about its history.
        
           | netcan wrote:
           | Scots is an English dialect, descended from Northumbrian
           | English.
           | 
           | The dialect is arguably alive in some locales, including some
           | places northern Ireland.
           | 
           | To me, the dividing line is code switch. There are rural pubs
           | and such where people will noticeably switch to standard
           | English when speaking to non-locals.
           | 
           | Ulster Scots, it is sometimes called.
           | 
           | Hard to draw distinct lines, especially since the "standard"
           | English near Scots speaking locales is not very standard.
           | Glasgow, Newry and whatnot have pretty quirky "standard"
           | English.
           | 
           | That said, an average person from Newry won't code switch. If
           | you can't understand the accent, they'll just speak loader,
           | slower and more directly at your forehead.
           | 
           | To me that makes it "not a dialect."
        
             | arethuza wrote:
             | I'm originally from a small fishing village in north-east
             | Scotland and used to speak a _very_ broad dialect called
             | Doric (loons, quines etc.) I 'm pretty sure this is fairly
             | different from the "Ulster Scots" you mention.
             | 
             | What was interesting is that people from a farming
             | background had a very different accent to folks from the
             | coastal fringe - even though they might only be living a
             | couple of kms away!
        
               | netcan wrote:
               | That's a very interesting point.
               | 
               | We tend to think genealogically about these things. I
               | said "Scots is descended from northumbrian" and that
               | Ulster Scots is spoken in NI. But irl... dialects are
               | porous. They don't really "descend."
               | 
               | In any case, I believe that most of the language
               | influence is from the borderlands and the glasgow area.
               | That said, 400 years is a long time... especially
               | considering how young English is.
        
               | arethuza wrote:
               | An interesting example is "weans" vs "bairns" for
               | children... first time I heard the former I had no idea
               | what people were talking about. "Weans" seems to be a
               | shortened form of "wee ains" and "bairns" is from Old
               | English:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bairn
        
               | m-i-l wrote:
               | I'm originally from Shetland, but moved to the Scottish
               | Borders when I was young, and do remember people had a
               | very hard time understanding my Shetland dialect (which I
               | had to lose pretty quickly to communicate locally).
               | 
               | And to the original point, neither Shetland nor the
               | Scottish Borders have ever had any Gaelic influence at
               | any point in their history, and recent attempts to claim
               | otherwise tend not to go down too well with the locals.
        
           | olddustytrail wrote:
           | No, Scottish Gaelic was the main language at the time of
           | Scotland emerging as a nation and for a couple of centuries
           | afterwards.
           | 
           | The demotion of the Scottish Gaelic language is ignorant
           | assertion. Stop listening to it and educate yourself.
        
           | bloqs wrote:
           | This is entirely factually incorrect I'm afraid, Scots is
           | essentially accented English
        
             | arethuza wrote:
             | Far are ye fae?
        
             | olddustytrail wrote:
             | This is entirely factually incorrect I'm afraid, English is
             | essentially accented Scots.
        
       | kgeist wrote:
       | Interesting, in Northern Russia they also had no chimneys up
       | until the beginning of the 20th century (in other places,
       | chimneys were introduced much earlier). They also called it
       | "black heating".
       | 
       | How common was it in Medieval Europe?
        
       | dave333 wrote:
       | Why does this remind me of the Four Yorkshiremen comedy sketch -
       | "You were lucky! We lived in hole in the ground."
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/ue7wM0QC5LE?si=exz-ZT2YMmZwmi1G
        
       | dave333 wrote:
       | One of these with a rocket mass heater
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater
       | 
       | would solve the smoke and heating problems in one go. Wouldn't
       | need trees either as you could burn whatever is providing the
       | thatch material - small sticks/brush.
        
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