The Outlandish Companion

by Diana Gabaldon

  Page 131: A helpful French-speaking reader wrote to inquire why I had called Fergus’s male child “Germaine,” this being the strictly female spelling of said name. Well… because I don’t speak French, and none of my French dictionaries and idiom books included proper names, that’s why. Change “Germaine” to “Germain,” throughout, please.

  Page 139: typo; change “breois voluptas” to “brevis voluptas.”

  Page 139: typo; change “veneiis” to “veneris.”

  Page 225: change “Thou” to “Thee.”

  Page 229: insert comma. Change “dribbled down staining the blanket” to “dribbled down, staining the blanket.”

  Pages 333, 336: “Glenmorangie” is one word, not two.

  Page 333: “then” should be “hen”; “That’s not it, hen, and you know it.”

  Page 420: Moravians.

  This was a matter of some mild confusion to me, since varying sources informed me that the Moravians were a) from Moravia (a likely story), which is in part of modern-day Czechoslovakia (or whatever they’re calling it these days), and therefore spoke something like Slovakian, and that b) the Moravians who settled in North Carolina spoke German. Since I needed German-speakers (I thought it doubtful that Jamie spoke either Czech or Slovakian, but I did know he could speak German), I opted merely to mention the Moravians in a doubtful tone of voice, and feature the Muellers and Pastor Gottfried as German Lutherans—who were certainly there, and who also certainly spoke German.

  However, I am now reliably informed that the Moravian settlement at Salem (which may appear in one of the future books) was composed of German-speaking people, who were merely called Moravians because the religious movement to which they were attached originated in Moravia. So there, now we’ve got that straight. Not that it matters, since there aren’t actually any Moravians in any of the first four books, but we like to be as accurate as possible anyway.

  Page 500: insert comma. Change “Fresh, too—see the sap’s not dried” to “Fresh, too—see, the sap’s not dried.”

  Page 520: knitting.

  Again, here’s one of those maybe so/maybe no bits. I knew there were such things as straight knitting needles in the eighteenth century, but that’s about all I knew about them. I therefore asked one of my knowledgeable friends, who is a crafts expert, about the history of knitting needles, wanting to know whether such things as circular knitting needles existed at the time.

  She replied with a great deal of useful and valuable information, including a description of something called “knitting sheaths,” made of steel wire, and (I gathered) used to hold excess stitches while working on a large garment. This, of course, is what circular knitting needles do, and I promptly made a mental leap, equating the two—and provided Claire with circular knitting needles in her basket, as well as the quadruple double-pointed needles for turning stocking heels.

  As I later learned from the experts of the CompuServe Crafts Forum, a knitting sheath is not the same thing as a circular needle, and while the double-pointed needles are historically accurate, the circular ones aren’t. On the other hand, they all added, they loved the scene, and we are writing fiction here rather than history, aren’t we?

  Page 528: “the the.” Pick one, discard the other.

  Page 696: Change “silent for moment.” to “silent for a moment.”

  Page 847: Insert period after “fight”; “It was a fair fight. I said.”

  Page 1070: Insert comma; “brushing sand from her skirts, and bent.”

  Now, I don’t by any means claim that this listing of errata is complete. I now and then get helpful letters or E-mail pointing out some small inaccuracy (perceived or real), which invariably conclude with the writer kindly assuring me that this is really pretty good, if they’ve found only one error in umpty-zillion pages! I thank them graciously, and refrain from telling them about the errors they didn’t happen to notice.

  APPENDIX II

  GAELIC

  (GAIDHLIG)

  RESOURCES

  ————

  A WRITER’S SHORT GUIDE TO SCOTTISH SPEECH PATTERNS

  Using Scots and Gaelic in Dialogue

  I get a number of letters from writers who want to use a Scottish setting in their books, asking me for advice and information on using “Gaelic” in the dialogue of their characters, as they’ve found my handling of Scottish “brogue” to be effective. I usually write back to tell them that if they really mean to use Gaelic, I’m afraid the effect is not going to be quite what they think.

  With the basic disclaimer that I Am Not a Scot:

  A good many people are under the misapprehension that Gaelic and Scots are the same thing, and are likewise confused about the difference between a dialect and an accent. In hopes of lending some small clarification to these matters, following is a short (and highly inexpert) observation on Scottish speech patterns:

  “Scots” is an honest-to-goodness dialect of the English language. By this, I mean that it is basically English (and can be—more or less—understood by an English speaker), but has its own specific and distinguishable idiom, sentence structure, and vocabulary. In its most exaggerated form, it’s called “broad Scots,” “braid Scots”) which is the highly accented form of the dialect, in which Robbie Burns wrote his poetry “wee cow’rin’, sleekit, timorous beastie,” etc.).

  Gaelic, on the other hand, is a completely different language, spoken (in differing forms) by Scottish Highlanders and the Irish (it is the official language of Ireland, and is taught in the schools—but is not in common use by most of the inhabitants). Both forms of Gaelic are referred to as “Erse” in older reference texts, and the modern Scottish movement prefers to spell their form of the language as “Gaidhlig” (so as to reject English influence), just to make things more confusing.

  As a brief example: “My bonny wee lassie” is a Scots endearment—“Mo nighean donn is the Gaelic equivalent (literally, it means “my brown-haired girl”). Spoken (or sung) Gaelic sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before, and definitely wouldn’t be understood by an English speaker.

  Now, Gaelic in Scotland is spoken only in the Highlands (and is not all that common there, though the Scottish Nationalist movement has spurred new interest in preserving and encouraging the language. [In terms of the Outlander books, Gaelic would likely have been fairly common in the 1940s, but still restricted to the Highlands]). Scots is spoken throughout Scotland, but occurs in broad form mostly in the Lowlands—if you’ve heard Glaswegians, you’ve heard the broadest—and most idiosyncratic—Scots there is. Highlanders, by contrast, speak fairly pure English, in that there is not a great deal of accent or peculiar vocabulary to their speech, though they do use the Scots idiom and sentence structure.

  Now, accent and dialect. As I mentioned above, a dialect has a peculiar idiom, vocabulary, and sentence structure. To illustrate the latter point—

  An American hotel clerk will say, “Can I help you?”

  An English clerk will say, “May I help you, please?”

  A Highland clerk will say, “Can I be helpin’ ye at all, then?” Likewise,

  An American will say, “Sorry, I don’t remember that.”

  An Englishman will say, “I’m afraid I don’t recall that.”

  And a Scot may say (if he’s being old-fashioned about it), “Aye, well, I canna just charge my memory about that, I’m afraid.”

  In general, the occasional dropping of the terminal “g” “helpin’,” “doin’”) is a characteristic of Scots dialect, as is the common insertion of “particle” words at the beginning or end of a sentence—things like “then,” “aye,” “well,” or “man,” which aren’t necessary to the meaning of the sentence, but give the speech a characteristic rhythm. Example: “Ye canna be doin’ that, man!”

  By contrast, the slight oddities of pronunciation—“canna” for “cannot,” “didna” for “didn’t,” “ye” for “you” (or however an individual writer chooses to render these expressions)�
�are accent rather than dialect. Consequently, they vary in the strength and frequency of their usage among individuals, and they aren’t invariable in either usage or form. That is, a given person may use both “you” and “ye” in a single sentence, and does not have to say, “I canna do that,” every time. If one is writing Scottish dialect, in some cases, “I cannot” will sound better, and it is perfectly all right to use the unaccented form when it does.

  Now, representation of Scots dialect in written form is another question altogether. When writing accented speech, representation is a matter of judgment on the writer’s part. You may use “canna,” “cannae,” “can na” or whatever seems best to you and easiest on the reader’s eye and comprehension.

  Two general points of advice:

  1) “Eye dialect” spellings (strictly phonetic spellings that often involve a lot of apostrophes) are more difficult to read.

  2) Accent is best used sparingly when writing dialogue. Too much of it is both jarring to the ear and hard on the eye. It’s better to depend more on idiom and sentence structure than on accent to get the “flavor” of speech, without annoying the reader.

  It’s a common mistake among authors writing Scottish characters to write straight English dialogue, merely substituting “ye” for “you” throughout (the most irritating ones also put “yer” for “your,” which is characteristic of some kinds of Irish speech, but not usually of Scots, though lower-class Lowlanders and some people from the northern parts of England do it sometimes). If you listen to Scots speak, they don’t invariably say “ye”—sometimes the word sounds like “ye” (especially at the beginnings of sentences) and frequently it’s clearly “you,” depending on the rhythm of the sentence and the words surrounding the pronoun. Making it “ye” every time makes the sentences read awkwardly, I think, and the rhythms of English and Scots are distinctly different.

  If you are writing about the historical Highlands, and you do want to give your Highlander a salting of Gaelic (it’s useful for picturesque cursing where you want to make it clear that a person is using dreadful invective1 by the shocked expression of his companions—without offending your readers or having to try to think up accurate period curses that will still sound like bad language to your readers), you can use the occasional Gaelic phrase or sentence, provided (as with any other foreign-language insertion) that you make the meaning clear—whether you do this through direct translation or merely by context.

  As with any writing that involves the British Isles, the language of the characters will be affected by their social class. Lower-class Scots do not speak the same as upper-class Scots, though both may use similar expressions, depending on the circumstances of the story. Lower-class characters will tend to use more strongly accented speech; upper-class characters will use fairly clear standard English—though often with the unique Scots sentence structures and idioms. Lower-class characters are likely to show more strongly accented dialect.

  Obviously, making effective use of dialect and accent depends on developing a good “ear” for these elements. One thing I’ve found useful is to listen to tapes of Scottish bands and singers; beyond the lyrics of the songs themselves, the bands in “live” recordings will often banter with the audience between numbers, giving you a chance to hear real Scots talk naturally.

  Novels set in Scotland—preferably written by native Scots—are also helpful. One very good reference, which includes several meticulously rendered Scottish accents from different social classes, is Dorothy L. Sayers’s Five Red Herrings (Sayers wasn’t Scottish, but she had a wonderful ear and a painstaking approach to nuances of accent and social class). I’d also recommend The Big Book of Scottish Stories, which is composed entirely of stories—both historical and contemporary—by Scottish authors, and gives a wide range of depicted accents and idioms. For more modern depictions of Scottish speech, the novels of Irvine Welsh or Iain Banks are excellent; Welsh uses very idiomatic (and phonetically spelled) Edinburgh patois, while Banks’s characters tend to use clear English, with the Scots structures and idioms simply embedded in the dialogue, rather than shown off.

  In my own work, I’ve used several Gaelic dictionaries (listed later in this appendix), but have also been lucky enough to have the invaluable services of one Iain MacKinnon Taylor, an expatriate Scot and native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Harris.

  Mr. Taylor wrote to me, following the publication of Dragonfly in Amber, to say that he very much enjoyed my books, particularly seeing Scottish history treated with such accuracy and respect. However, he continued delicately, he did wonder whether perhaps I was getting my Gaelic from a dictionary?

  The words, he gave me to understand, were largely correct, but were not used idiomatically (or, likely, grammatically!), as a real Gaelic-speaker would use them. Would I think it presumptuous of him, he asked, if he were to volunteer to assist with the Gaelic translation, in case I intended writing more books?

  To this generous offer, my response was, “Mr. Taylor! Where have you been all my life?”

  So it’s Iain Taylor who (now) vets the Gaelic inclusions in my own books for correctness of grammar and idiom. Consequently, there is a lot more Gaelic in the books than there would be if I were doing this on my own. The usual procedure is for me to write out what I want to say in English, then fax it to Mr. Taylor, who returns me the correct Gaelic version—frequently with additional comments as to appropriate usage.

  Mr. Taylor’s twin brother, Hamish, also obliges now and then with assistance in particularly difficult bits of translation. Hamish Taylor still lives on Harris, where he is a lay-preacher, preaching in Gaelic every Sunday. As his brother Iain says, “When it comes to cursing, you really need a preacher to get it right!”

  MANY PEOPLE WRITE TO ME (evidently under the wildly mistaken impression that I am a Gaelic-speaker) for advice or resources in learning Gaelic themselves. A few have asked me to teach them Gaelic. Unfortunately, I’m not equipped to oblige in this way, but I did think it might be helpful to provide a list of Gaelic books and resources, for those with an interest in this part of Scottish culture.

  I’m indebted to several people from the CompuServe Writers Forum for help in compiling the following list of Gaelic resources (all comments regarding the publications, Web sites, etc., are those of the people recommending them, and are marked with the person’s name or initials). —D.G.

  BOOKS, TAPES, AND OTHER GAELIC (GAIDHLIG) PUBLICATIONS

  One that will be recommended to you often in Scotland if you ask is Speaking Our Language, based on a TV series on Grampian Television. It consists of tapes and books, which can be used separately and are produced by a company called Cànan, P.O. Box 345, Isle of Skye IV44 8XA, Scotland. —Barbara Schnell

  I myself am using the Teach Yourself series, “Gaelic” by Boyd Robertson and Iain Taylor, published by NTC Publishing Group. Comes with two tapes of native Scottish Gaelic-speakers and has grammar, structure, etc. Mine was purchased at a Highland Games, fairly reasonable—about $45.00. I highly recommend it. —Tamara Bernard

  First things first: Gaelic is Irish. “Gaidhlig” is Scottish Gaelic—there’s a big push in the speaking communities to reclaim the original name of the language and to move away from English influences on the syntax. Here is a brief list of resources:2

  Am Braighe P.O. Box 170 Mabou, Nova Scotia BOE 1X0 Canada

  A quarterly bilingual paper out of Cape Breton that focuses on events in the Gaidhlig speaking communities of North America. It’s $15.95 (American) for a yearly subscription. In the back it always has a list of publications for Scotophiles, including Gaidhlig learning resources, history books, etc. It’s a good read generally.—Michelle LaFrance

  (The following titles are from D.G.’s bookshelf; this list includes books on Scots dialect, as well as those dealing with the Gaelic language, as many people seem interested in the overall linguistic environment of Scotland.)

  The Concise Scots Dictionary compiled by Alexander Warrack, published by C
rescent Books, New York.

  The Gaelic Dictionary (This is actually a two-way dictionary; Gaelic to English, English to Gaelic.) by Malcolm Maclennan, published jointly by Acair (a Gaelic-language press) and Aberdeen University Press.

  The New English-Gaelic Dictionary (This really is only from English to Gaelic, which makes it of limited use. It doesn’t always agree with the Maclennan dictionary on spelling, either.) by Derick S. Thomson, published by Gairm Publications, Glasgow.

  The Original Patter: A Guide to Current Glasgow Usage by Michael Munro, published by Glasgow District Libraries.

  Scottish Proverbs compiled by Nicola Wood, published by W&R Chambers Ltd., Edinburgh.

  Scottish Love Poems: A Personal Anthology, compiled by Antonia Fraser, published by Peter Bedrick Books, New York.

  The Complete Illustrated Poems, Songs, and Ballards of Robert Burns, published by Chart-well Books, Inc., Edison, N.J.

  Teach Yourself Gaelic, by Roderick Mackinnon, published by Teach Yourself Books, Hodder & Stoughton, London. I am told this book is now out of print, but there is a new edition by different authors.

  The Pocket Guide to Scottish Words: Place Names, Personal Names, Food and Drink (Scots and Gaelic) by Iseabail MacLeod, published by Richard Drew Publishing Limited, Glasgow.

  British/American Language Dictionary (Doesn’t involve Scots directly, but an interesting book that deals with differences between the British and American dialects of English.) by Norman Moss, published by Passport Books, National Textbook Company, Lincolnwood, Ill.

  The Giant Book of Scottish Short Stories, edited by Carl MacDougall, published by Peter Bedrick Books, New York. (Includes many stories written in broad Scots dialect, as well as those containing only occasional Scots or Gaidhlig elements.)

  A Tongue in Yer Heid: A Selection of the Best Contemporary Short Stories in Scots, edited by James Robertson, published by B&W Publishing, Edinburgh.