Alien-ness is relative: Susan Rennie, Kat and Doug on Planet Fankle. Scotland, Itchykooo: 2002.
"Fankle" is the Scots word for crooked or twisted, and this entire book is written in Scots (a dialect of English but don't say that in Scotland).
Kat wakes on her birthday to find a cyberdog by the bed, but Dug is much smarter and more interesting than most cyberdogs. When he goes looking for space worm holes she follows him, and he shows her a map. It turns out that her bedroom is a worm hole roundabout.
What follows is a short exploratory adventure to the Planet Fankle (by accident--Dug is as good at navigating as The Tardis).
The tale is warm, funny, not terribly demanding but is told with a casual air that puts to shame many of the more complicated tales I've read.
posted by Farah @ 1/28/2006 11:09:00 PM
1 Comments:
"A dialect of English"
As you say don't say that in Scotland.
"There are many people who ask if Scots is a language in its own right or a dialect of English. We should already know by now the answer to that. Scots is not a dialect of English if we take "English" to be the language we hear every day from radio and television broadcasters. The English that they speak and the Scots that we speak (or some of us) both came, by different but equally long routes, from Anglo-Saxon. But Scots and English are related: similar to each other, though not identical, because they have a common ancestor."
From http://www.scots-online.org/
There is a problem with Scots, because although Gaelic has lots of money pumped into it both by the Scottish Executive and by the EU, Scots has been sidelined. This is because many people assume wrongly that Gaelic was historically spoken all over Scotland, and that Scots is simply English for "uneducated" people.
There is a sci fi book I read last year "But 'n Ben a Go Go" which is published by Luath Press which is an excellent, light, funny read.
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