This is a past event
Elphinstone Institute Public Lecture Series
This talk will look at ‘macaronic songs’, songs which mix two or more languages. After showing a range of examples from the North-East and the Highlands, I’ll focus on one collected in the 1930s by James Madison Carpenter, ‘Whiskers on a Baby’, a version of the Child ballad ‘Seven Nights Drunk’. Though a light-hearted story of drunken mistaken identity, the song’s use of Scots and Gaelic is fluent, graceful, and natural, as befits two languages that have shared the same island for a thousand years. Such songs are fairly common throughout the geographic areas where these tongues interface, mix, and overlay, including parts of the Southern USA and Canada, where songs using four languages have been found. Finally, I’ll offer some thoughts on these songs’ popularity and function.
- Speaker
- Dr Tom McKean
- Hosted by
- Elphinstone Institute
- Venue
- MacRobert Building, MR051