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Norman MacCaig

Norman MacCaig Quotes

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Famous Norman MacCaig Quotes

“Now Scots, it must be observed, is not English badly spelled; nor is it a dialect of English. To simplify, but not in a direction away from the truth; the Scots language was a development - and by now is a degeneration - of the Anglian branch of what is called Old English, and was originally spoken from the Forth to the Humber - that's to say, on both sides of the Border. The Saxon branch to the South flourished and became what we call English. With the establishment of the Border, the Anglian branch developed as Scots. Scots and English, therefore, are cousin languages with a common ancestor, and it is as absurdto call Scots a dialect of English as it would be to call English a dialect of Scots.”

ScotlandEnglish LanguageScots LanguageAnglo Saxon England
Book:Scottish Eccentrics
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“that this dying landscape belongs to the dead, the crofters and fighters and fishermen whose larochs sink into the bracken by Loch Assynt and Loch Crochach? - to men trampled under the hoofs of sheep and driven by deer to the ends of the earth - to men whose loyalty was so great it accepted their own betrayal by their own chiefs and whose descendants now are kept in their place by English businessmen and the indifference of a remote and ignorant government.”

LandscapeSheepHighland ClearancesBusinessmenAssyntCroftersRed DeerBracken
Book:Between Mountain and Sea: Poems from Assynt
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