In Review

Feeling like a cummerwarld, or even a dowbart, because your Older Scots vocabulary is a bit rusty? Fear not: you needn鈥檛 be looking glaikit for long.
In May, the University is hosting the Rochester鈥揝t Andrews Conference on Older Scots Literature and Culture. The gathering draws specialists from the United States, Canada, and Europe to share papers on 14th- to 16th-century literature in Older Scots, the descendant of Old English that was used in medieval and early modern Scotland.
Rhiannon Purdie of the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, who is visiting the University鈥檚 Robbins Library as a Fulbright Scottish Studies Scholar, and Thomas Hahn, professor of English, organized the event. Papers examine early literary and political texts, historiography, and language and ethnicity, among other subjects.
The Robbins Library is home to the Middle English Texts Series, sponsored by the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages. Among the nearly 100 volumes published, the series has made available, in digital and hard copy, a number of Older Scots writings and more are in production, helping to make Older Scots literature more accessible to teachers and students around the world.
More information about the conference is on its website: Olderscots.com.
鈥擪athleen McGarvey
Meet a Few Terms from Older Scots . . .
cummerwarld: n. useless person (i.e., 鈥渆ncumber-world鈥)
dowbart: n. dimwit
dreich: adj. tedious, dreary; (of weather) grey and miserable. Still common in modern usage.
glaik: n. fool; glaikit: adj. idiotic
lidder: adj. slow, sluggish, indecisive
maggil, maggle: v. to spoil
maggilit: adj. mangled, ruined
nipcaik: n. miser
quean: n. wench
skaldit skaitbird: n. scabby scavenger
skamelar: n. parasite
slawsy: n. fellow, guy
walidrag: n. wastrel