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Wikipedia

Most of Scottish Wikipedia Written By American in Mangled English (vice.com) 157

For over six years, one Wikipedia user -- AmaryllisGardener -- has written well over 23,000 articles on the Scots Wikipedia and done well over 200,000 edits. The only problem is that AmaryllisGardener isn't Scottish, they don't speak Scots, and none of their articles are written in Scots. From a report: Since 2013, this user -- a self-professed Christian INTP furry living somewhere in North Carolina -- has simply written articles that are written in English, riddled with misspellings that mimic a spoken Scottish accent. Many of the articles were written while they were a teenager. AmaryllisGardener is an admin of the Scots Wikipedia, and Wikipedians now have no idea what to do, because their influence over the country's pages has been so vast that their only options seem to be to delete the Scots language version entirely or revert the entire thing back to 2012. This ridiculous situation was discovered by a redditor on r/Scotland who happened to check the edit history of one article. By the redditor u/Ultach's count, Amaryllis was responsible for well over one-third of Scots Wikipedia in 2018, but Amaryllis stopped updating their milestones that year.
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Most of Scottish Wikipedia Written By American in Mangled English

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  • I thought (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:30PM (#60444181)

    that the native language of Scotland was Gaelic.

    • Re:I thought (Score:5, Informative)

      by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:40PM (#60444221)

      I was curious since that's also what I'd heard, so decided to look it up [scotland.org].

      Apparently they're multi-lingual. Gaelic, Scots, British Sign Language, and English. I did not know that.

      • by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:55PM (#60444301)

        Should've checked wikipedia!

        • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @05:34PM (#60444509)

          ...a surly American teen that did these edits. No true Scotsman would do such a thing.

      • Re:I thought (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @05:08PM (#60444367)

        "Scots" is really just English with an accent and some regionalisms.

        Having a separate Wikipedia fork for the "language" is silly.

        That fact that nearly all the edits were made by one person shows that there are few contributors.

        That fact that nobody even noticed that the articles were mangled shows that there are even fewer readers.

        A Wiki fork for Scots makes no more sense than a fork for Ebonics.

        • Re:I thought (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Areyoukiddingme ( 1289470 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @05:35PM (#60444517)

          "Scots" is really just English with an accent and some regionalisms.

          Well... maybe. There's a post farther down from a Scot claiming it has a buttload of Swedish loan words in it, among others. At least for a while in history, it was a fairly distinct dialect. It's apparently fast fading into little more than English with an accent, but once upon a time it had a separable identity.

          Having a separate Wikipedia fork for the "language" is silly.

          That fact that nearly all the edits were made by one person shows that there are few contributors.

          Agreed. Translating text for a constituency of no one is pointless and silly. When they're so hard up for authentic writers, it's time to give up. Languages die all the time. This is another one gone, and less successful than some.

        • Go to Aberdeenshire, and speak with a taxi driver. Youâ(TM)ll soon change your mind about whether itâ(TM)s the same language as English. This is a bit like arguing that German and Dutch are the same language because they sound kinda similar and people who speak one can kinda understand what someone speaking the other is trying to say.

          • The best test is inter-intelligibility. I have never been to Aberdeen, but I have been Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Inverness. I had no problem at all communicating with taxi drivers or anyone else. I even understood their dry self-deprecating jokes.

            German and Dutch have nowhere near that level of inter-intelligibility.

            • My experience is that if you go to, say Amsterdam, and speak German, the Dutch will answer you in English, almost always. When I asked my Dutch friend for the reason, he said it was two-fold. The first reason is that the Dutch don't like the Germans and don't consider their language a derivative. The second reason is that speaking in English makes intent clear, and it disses the German.

              • If you go to Amsterdam and speak Dutch (with an international accent), the Dutch will answer you in English, almost always. Trying to be helpful, but hard for people who genuinely want to learn Dutch.

              • Why would it diss the German? Dutch and German have a common ancestor, but no more than that. They have stopped being mutually intelligible many centuries ago, hence an average German speaker can only - somewhat - understand written Dutch, but definitely not spoken Dutch (which sounds like a mix of Low Saxon, English and a sore throat to a German). The Dutch will answer in English because if they answer in Dutch, they won't be understood.

            • by shilly ( 142940 )

              Oh bollox. Many English people struggle with a Glaswegian accent, never mind when Glaswegians use Scots. It's not just the odd "hen" instead of "love", you know. Have a listen to this

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @05:54PM (#60444613) Journal

          In Scotland, both Scots and English are spoken, with each being more prominent in different areas. They are therefore often mixed together. Pure Scots sounds a lot like Middle English, though it certainly isn't. Here is a sentence in modern Scots:

          No desirin her name sud be i' teh mooth o' the public, was ettlin to pit her awa' hidlins.

          I have a friend (associate) who moved to the US from Scotland many years ago. Even as he tries to speak English, he's mostly incomprehensible because Scots words sneak in, along with the very different pronunciation (what you called "an accent"). If he weren't trying to make himself understood to Americans, if he were speaking to his boyhood friends, their dialect of Scots would be totally incomprehensible to Americans.

          When someone sounds different from me, but I can understand them, I call that an accent. When the pronunciation and grammar is so different as to be incomprehensible ...

          • by malx ( 7723 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @05:50AM (#60445744)

            In Scotland, both Scots and English are spoken, with each being more prominent in different areas.

            This is very misleading to foreign audiences who don't know any better.

            Overwhelmingly, the language spoken in Scotland is English. While in the 2011 census 1.5 million people claimed to be able to speak Scots (out of a population a little under 5.5 million) in the same census 93% of people reported speaking English exclusively at home; only 1% reported speaking Scots at home, broadly on a par with Polish.

            What you're reading in the previous comment is a reflection of the desire by some Scottish nationalists to encourage, promote and overestimate the prevalence of Scots and Gaelic in order to bolster a distinctive Scottish political identity. To be fair, historically the English did exactly the same in reverse - suppressing the teaching of Scots and Gaelic in order to support integration into a single British political identity. Nonetheless, if you are genuinely curious about the facts, English is overwhelmingly the language spoken in Scotland, with Scots and Gaelic spoken rarely, and even more rarely as a first language.

            Saying "Both Scots and English are spoken in Scotland, with each being more prominent in different areas" is technically true, but only as much as is the equally misleading statement "Both English and Navaho are spoken in the United States, with each being more prominent in different areas".

          • ... along with the very different pronunciation (what you called "an accent").

            Pedant alert: Among language nerds an accent is the pronunciation of a non-native language speaker. So someone originally from Spain would speak English with a Spanish accent.

            When two native speakers have different pronunciation that is a dialect. So someone from Queens and someone from Alabama would be speaking with different regional dialects. There are also differences in word choices, like "water fountain" vs. "bubbler" that can indicate a dialect even when pronunciation is the same.

        • Re:I thought (Score:5, Interesting)

          by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @01:41AM (#60445384)

          This is the kind of shit that the subject of this article causes. I'm an Englishman living up in Aberdeen and my fiancee (who isn't ethnically Scottish but her parents are) speaks in Scots, and she loses her head when people think that Scots is just "English with an accent". To quote our mutual friend, what this guy did on the Scots wiki is equivalent to a white kid making an ebonics language page called "Dat time our boy Treyvon got lit up by da popo". If I quoted a full sentence in proper Scots it would be unintelligible to you.

          The only reason this went unnoticed is because most Scots speakers tend to only read in Scots if it's meant to be read in Scots, such as poetry or traditional songs like Auld Lang Syne. Whenever it's a dialect or distinct enough to be its own language has been debated for years but regardless of the opinion it's just as valid a language as English is.

        • Not the only time. There is a Scots-language BBC TV channel called BBC Alba that has so few viewers the ratings people cannot tell there are any [order-order.com]

          "Twenty-one programmes on the BBCâ(TM)s new Scottish channel have been measured to have no viewers at all by since the £32 million channel went live at the end of February."

      • Apparently they're multi-lingual. Gaelic, Scots, British Sign Language, and English. I did not know that.

        Also Glaswegian. Parliamo Glasgoow?

      • As an aside, there is debate amongst linguists over whether Scots is its own language or simply a dialect of English and it's true that when you see it written, you can actually see a great deal of similarity with English, just pronounced really differently and hence the spellings changed accordingly.

    • Re: I thought (Score:5, Informative)

      by beelsebob ( 529313 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:53PM (#60444289)

      Thereâ(TM)s three languages spoken in Scotland - English, Gaelic (mostly on the west coast), and Scots (mostly in the south east and Aberdeenshire). Hereâ(TM)s a good explanation https://youtu.be/sNhUL4SrcRg [youtu.be].

    • This video may or may not be relevant to the discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    • Actually, the native language is most likely trash---considering all of the trash talk from Scotland regarding their football team's prowess.

  • This person not only isnt an expert in 200,000 things (s)he is literally not an expert at anything Scottish?

    Well that makes you wonder about everything wiki-whatever doesnt it...

  • Who knew there was a "Scots" language? I thought it was just English with an accent.

    • Who knew there was a "Scots" language? I thought it was just English with an accent.

      Who's to says it isn't? I think the current Scots admin has pretty good case in support that it is.

      • The fuss is being kicked up because true Scots isn't just "English with an accent", which is what the wiki editor made had incorrectly assumed it to be. The problem is that the "Scots" that the wider world often sees (hears?) is heavily anglicised to make it intelligible to English speakers.

  • If Only... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:33PM (#60444195)

    If only there were some way to fix the articles. I guess they are just broken forever, then.

  • by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite ( 721679 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:34PM (#60444199)

    Scots is just an elaborate hoax and wikipedia proves it.

  • If it's not scottish, it's crap [youtube.com]!

  • by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:37PM (#60444205) Homepage
    I'll show you what's under me kilt if you bring me another pint of stout.
  • Order of the stick (Score:4, Informative)

    by bickerdyke ( 670000 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:40PM (#60444223)

    That's exactly how the dwarves speak in "Order of the Stick" https://www.giantitp.com/Comic... [giantitp.com]

  • Usually a bot writes thousands of database generated articles in a minority language drowning out native speakers or languages invented for political reasons. Wikipedia’s history is filled with these examples. I don’t understand why Google or Duckduckgo haven’t got some professional editors to write a proper encyclopedia already and ignore vandal prone wikis.
    • I don’t understand why Google or Duckduckgo haven’t got some professional editors to write a proper encyclopedia already and ignore vandal prone wikis.

      Because that would cost money.

    • Google prides itself on returning relevant results. Whether they are accurate or truthful is relatively unimportant to them. And they can regurgitate Wikipedia for free.

    • You mean, like, err... Encyclopaedia Britannica [britannica.com]?

      Although numerous studies have shown that the errors &/or biases between Wikipedia & Encyclopaedia Britannica are roughly equal. It seems the pros & cons of crowd-sourced knowledge versus professionally curated knowledge are very similar to the pros & cons of open-source versus closed-source code.

  • by timholman ( 71886 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:47PM (#60444247)

    Since 2013, this user -- a self-professed Christian INTP furry living somewhere in North Carolina -- has simply written articles that are written in English, riddled with misspellings that mimic a spoken Scottish accent.

    And for every admin or editor like this on Wikipedia, you'll run into a dozen more who do a slightly better job of hiding their quirks, but are no less bizarre.

    It only takes one encounter with this personality type where they go berserk over on an edit on "their" article, and then you walk away for good, because life is entirely too short to spend time butting heads with them over an online encyclopedia.

  • Any chance AmaryllisGardener lives in Highlands, NC?
  • Definition of Scots? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seoras ( 147590 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:51PM (#60444271)

    As someone who is Scottish when the "Scots Language" is mentioned I tend to think of "old Scots".
    An example of Old Scots would be the writings of Robert Burns. To a Mouse [wikipedia.org]
    "Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
    O, what a pannic's in thy breastie!
    Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
    Wi' bickering brattle!
    I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
    Wi' murd'ring pattle! "

    As you'll see on the Wikipedia page it has The original Scots and English translation

    My father used a lot of old Scots, he was a farmer, and some sub-cultures and regions of Scotland continue to use words from Old Scots but I can't say that I've heard anyone speaking entirely in Old Scots, unlike Scots Gaelic - my mother's first language. she learned English at school.

    Then there is colloquial modern Scots which has created new words, exclusively to Scotland, that are in regular use.
    The word "jobbie" for example. (it means "poo" and is used more often with kids)

    The old Scots, I discovered when I married a Scandinavian, is actually mostly Scandinavian itself.
    It is not just archaic English badly pronounced as some would think.
    The word "braw" has the same meaning and pronunciation in both Scotland and Sweden. I've used it to good effect there!
    A few other examples would be "Kirk(Church), Kneb(Nose), Moose(Mouse), Hoose(House), Hame(Home), Kist(Box), ken(to know), ".

    We are a bit of a mixture in Scotland. Picts, Irish Celts, Scandinavians, Anglo Saxons, Native Celtic Brits, Normans have all been and settled and have all left their mark on the language.

    Until I read this article I wasn't even aware that there was a Scots Wikipedia. Who's using it?

  • by clovis ( 4684 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @04:59PM (#60444319)

    Dang. And I used the Scots wiki to learn the Scots language.
    Now I know why I get so few answers on my dating page even though I have a really nice ship at Stornoway.

    • Dang. And I used the Scots wiki to learn the Scots language.
      Now I know why I get so few answers on my dating page even though I have a really nice ship at Stornoway.

      Pirates also have their own language!

  • Well, isn't that special. I didn't even know what INTP was until now - when I looked it up.

    "INTP (introverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving) is one of the 16 personality types described by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)."

    also

    "INTPs are logical and base decisions on objective information rather than subjective feelings."

    I have a hard time reconciling what I'm reading about INTP with what this person is doing. I have a hard time seeing how this person could even think they are even remotely INTP.

    • by CaseCrash ( 1120869 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @05:23PM (#60444451)

      I have a hard time reconciling what I'm reading about INTP with what this person is doing. I have a hard time seeing how this person could even think they are even remotely INTP.

      That's because Meyers-Briggs is bullshit made up by two bored housewives with no relation to the real world and has been shown repeatedly to be bullshit.

    • Personality types don't measure intelligence.

    • by thomst ( 1640045 )

      93 Escort Wagon confessed:

      I have a hard time reconciling what I'm reading about INTP with what this person is doing. I have a hard time seeing how this person could even think they are even remotely INTP.

      The Dunning-Kreuger effect, perhaps ... ?"

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @07:00PM (#60444861)

    No true Scotsman is a Christian INTP furry!

  • Really? I don't know of anyone that speaks Scot. It's called Gaelic. So did he also write this article in mangled English? LOL
  • by albuterol ( 7178449 ) on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @07:44PM (#60444989)
    What I find more disconcerting, and ironic, and either hilarious or deeply upsetting depending on how I look at it, is how gender-neutral pronouns render the article description so hard to parse. Take this, for instance:

    "AmaryllisGardener is an admin of the Scots Wikipedia, and Wikipedians now have no idea what to do, because their influence over the country's pages has been so vast that their only options seem to be to delete the Scots language version entirely or revert the entire thing back to 2012."

    The word "their" refers to both AmaryllisGardener and Wikipedians. This is NOT an improvement.
    • That sentence was badly constructed. It should say "because that one user's influence" and "the only options".

      English is a bit of a hot mess, but it's extraordinarily powerful. It's the C of natural languages :) If used incorrectly, the results are indeterminate, as in the above example.

  • What the hell’s an INTP furry?

  • I'm impressed he went to all that effort. It's also rather sad, the time he could have spent doing something more accurate and productive. Then again, he identifies as a furry.

    Also, "INTP furry"? I hadn't realized Myers-Briggs personality type indicators were especially significant for members of the furry community, or is that just this guy?

  • by koavf ( 1099649 ) on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:58AM (#60445480) Homepage
    I'll be happy to mentor.
  • Because the author isn't Scottish and doesn't even live there his words are crap.

    A lot of what he thinks is "Scots" is just way the some of the words sound when they are spoken with accent. They aren't valid Scots words.

    I read the main page of Scots wikipedia and just about every word was bollocks.

    He must have watched a lot of Stanley Baxter and "Parliamo Glasgow" : "werahellzabooze?" - We appear to have misplaced our bottles of whisky

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