Dawn

Dawn

Monday, March 30, 2015

Liverpool

Some readers will know that Scouse is the dialect of Merseyside folk, most properly those in the city of Liverpool itself. But how many of you know that it's also a lamb stew, similar to a dish served in many European countries, where it's called something like Lobscouse. But back to the dialect . . . Here's a bit of Wiki on it: Scouse is highly distinguishable from other English dialects and because of this international recognition on 16 September 1996 Keith Szlamp made a request to IANA to make it a recognised Internet dialect. After citing a number of references, the application was accepted on 25 May 2000 and now allows internet documents that use the dialect to be categorised as 'Scouse' by using the language tag "en-Scouse". Many natives of northern Europe, and especially the Scandinavian region, have suggested that Scousers 'sound like they sing when they talk' due to the flowing rhythm and pitch. Which is much the same as what the Madrileños say about the Gallegos. The Celtic/Gaelic link . . ?

By coincidence, there was a BBC Radio program on Scouse last Saturday evening. You can find it here, I hope. Perhaps the most unusual fact it gives is that the 28th February is Global Scouse Day. If and when you've listened to that, here are The Spinners singing the local anthem - 'The Leaving of Liverpool' - And here are The Dubliners performing it slightly more gruffly.

And here are the famous Three Graces built over what used to be a dock.




And here's a statue of Queen Vic, on the spot where Liverpool Castle used to look out over the river and the sea,



Finally . . . the HQ of the White Star Line, owners of of the ill-fated Titanic.



No comments: