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Manx Dialect Society


Rhumsaa

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There was a thing in the papers back in March about a group being set up to preserve the manx dialect

 

This was followed up with a meeting in Lezayre Church Hall on Saturday

 

I went along for a skeet, it was attended by 26 people or so and they provided home made scones and cake with a cup of tea. John Dog Callister wasn't there but Ned Kennaugh (I think) spoke for almost an hour. Then there were some readings of TE Brown poems by a lady and then a CD recording of a fella from the 1970's.

 

I wasn't really sure the point of the evening, he started saying they'd like to preserve the Manx dialect but then would meander off into a story about Manx farmers. From the average age of the crowd I don't see how they will be preserving the Manx dialect past this decade, even if they had a lot of young people there and managed to get them engaged it felt like they just wanted to turn back the clock to the 1950's or earlier more than anything.

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I think it's really important to preserve the past, and preserving traditional Manx dialect has to play an important role in doing just that. Local culture needs an element of continuity, even if it is also evolving alongside that continuity. Once it's gone, it's exponentially more difficult to bring back. Anyway, did I tell you about the time I bumped into old Farmer Quayle in the lower field, he was in tears of laughter! He'd just dug up a turnip that he said looked just like a good old Manx triskelion! It was so funny! Although to me it just looked like a hideously deformed vegetable. Stupid old fool.

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I suspect this is a veiled lead up to an advertisement but I'll bite... what were the home made scones like?

 

You conveniently left that out.

 

I didn't have any, my dad seemed happy with the cake he ate

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I wasn't really sure the point of the evening, he started saying they'd like to preserve the Manx dialect but then would meander off into a story about Manx farmers. From the average age of the crowd I don't see how they will be preserving the Manx dialect past this decade, even if they had a lot of young people there and managed to get them engaged it felt like they just wanted to turn back the clock to the 1950's or earlier more than anything.

So it was a bit like the up coming DED isle-expo will be then?

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If it entails calling Andreas = Andruss, and Foxdale - Foxtul, you can count me out.

 

They just sound plain stupid although I concede that the entymology of Foxdale may well show the above pronunciation, strictly speaking is correct, but calling Andreas anything but Andreas (after St Andreas) is just plain wrong. Unless you are actually conversating in the damn place talking about the place then by all means drop into whatever vernacular people understand.

 

Oh, by the way, did you know that Pulrose is pronounce Pully in Manx dialect

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When people put themselves up as some sort of arbiter or self styled font of knowledge on this sort of thing, they are often wrong or nothing like representative, or just speaking from within their own limited sized bubble and narrow view on life, albeit a Manxie type of life

 

I think it's all well and good, but a bit of a giggle watching it from the outside.

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I fail to see how a few fellas sitting in a pub discussing the fast dying dialect of the IOM could be objected to by anyone - if it's not your bag then don't go. Live and let live people!

 

For me trying to keep the manx dialect alive is my bag and having seen what they're about I fear that they will not succeed in their aim and in fact might do some damage as they will become a publicised stereotype

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did you mean so hard rather than do hard?

 

What it should be about is keeping it alive, not coddled in some 1950's rosy view of what Manxness means.

 

I agree and that's what I thought it would be. It wasn't even rosy, they were talking about this fella they knew who worked as a nomadic farm labourer and couldn't afford socks and had hay bales for furniture. It sounded horrific and long may it stay in the past.

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