AT A COST OF £15,000

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 993, 9 June 1930, Page 10

AT A COST OF £15,000

THE NEW SCOTTISH DICTIONARY OLD REPROACH REMOVED The reproach that Scotland does not possess a modern dictionary of her own distinctive speech is one that will be removed before long if two important enterprises come to fruition, writes Mr. G. M. Thomson, in the London “Observer.” The first is Sir William Craigie’s “Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue,” which will carry the story down to 1700; the second the "Scottish National Dictionary,” which Mi\ William Grant is editing for the Scottish National Dictionary Association, Ltd. This work will deal with the modern period when Scots, having ceased to be a lettered language, had split up into various dialects. In the century that has elapsed since Dr. John Jamieson’s famous “Dictionary of the Scottish Language” was completed, an enormous amount of research has been done in Scotland. Mr. Grant’s dictionary alone w ill contain thousands of words that have never appeared in a dictionary before. It will be all the more deplorable, therefore, if lack of support brings the devoted labour of many unrewarded workers to nauglit. Yet it must be confessed that, so far, Scotland has responded but feebly to appeals for subscriptions issued on behalf of both projects. The fact that an unfortunate duplication has come about is itself due to the failure of Scotsmen to appreciate the importance of completing in an adequate way what ought to be an elementary national possession. No one regrets more than Sir William Craigie that he has had to seek American assistance. He has devoted a considerable portion of his leisure for many years to the work, and has spent his own money freely on it. But so far Scotland has only aided him with a paltry grant of £IOO. “The Chicago University Press has agreed to publish the dictionary as soon as the names of the first 200 subscribers have been received,” he said to me when I saw him the other day, in his Oxfordshire home. “Some of my students there are helping me with the .filing and clerking work. it is of course, a pity that Scottish students are not doing this work, but I am assisted by a Scotsman, Mr. Watson. 1 have been greatly disappointed by the results of an appeal I addressed to the Burns Clubs. When I left Chicago not one of them had written to subscribe.”

Mr. Grant’s dictionary is in slightly better case, for on the latest list of subscribers the name of one Burns Club (at Hamilton) figures, along with one Scottish society (in New Zealand). The names of seven English booksellers appear, but not a single Scottish bookseller is there. The most extraordinary fact about the list is the generosity with which Aberdonians have subscribed; had the rest of Scotland given proportionately, there would have been no question—as there unfortunately is—of the dictionary being in some danger. The work of the National Dictionary is being carried on in a room in the Training Centre, Aberdeen. Mr. Grant, with three assistants, performs the whole laborious work of compilation and classification, assisted occasionally by some of the senior children of the Demonstration School, who file the word slips as they are received from different parts of the country. The whole of Scotland, excluding the Highland area, where Gaelic is being replaced by board-school English, has been divided into areas roughly corresponding to the counties; each has a supervisor, under whom work ministers, teachers, cottar women, fisher folk and other humble but enthusiastic lexicographers. The work of collecting material was begun by the Scottish Dialects Committee about 20 years ago, but the actual editing of the dictionary started last year. It is already so far advanced that half the words under "A” are ready for the press; in the case of Sir William Craigie’s dictionary “A” is completed. Sir William Craigie’s dictionary will be published in four volumes or twenty-five parts, costing four dollars each; the Scottish National Dictionary will be contained In 10 volumes, and will cost £ls. Subscription should be sent to Sir William Craigie, University of Chicago Press, and the hon. treasurer, Scottish National Dictionary Association, North of Scotland Bank, Edinburgh, respectively.