The Psalms frae Hebrew intil Scottis

The lack of a Scots bible during the Reformation is well-recognised as a major factor in the demise of Scots as a prestige and institutional language, with reformers turning instead to English language bibles. The Geneva bible was dominant in Scotland until well into the 17th century, before being overtaken in popularity by the Authorized Version (AV).

This shouldn’t, however, overshadow the many Scots bible translations that have been produced over the centuries. Though there has never been a translation of the complete text, there exists a remarkably rich body of biblical Scots, from 14th century fragments to Nisbet’s early 16th century translation of the New Testament, and from Waddell’s 1871 ‘The Psalms: Frae Hebrew intil Scottis’ to Lorimer’s magnificent 1983 translation of the New Testament from the original Greek.

On the whole, Scots bible translations fall into two main groups. On the one hand, we have the religiously motivated translations of the 16th century, a Scottish expression of the wider Reformation commitment to vernacular versions of the bible. On the other hand, after a gap of nearly three centuries, the steady stream of translations that we see from the mid-19th century onwards are more linguistically than religiously motivated. Produced at a time when Scots had suffered from centuries of attrition, these translations can be seen as part attempt at romantic revival, part lamentation for the dire status of the language.

Waddell’s ‘The Psalms: Frae Hebrew intil Scottis’ clearly forms part of this broad latter group, and it is to the details of his text that we now turn.

Waddell was a great admirer of Burns, who had, in his opinion, elevated Scots as a language of poetry and ‘rescued [it] from obliteration’. Given this, it should perhaps be of little surprise that Waddell selected two of the most poetic books of the bible (the Psalms and later Isaiah) to translate into Scots.

His own knowledge of Scots was rich. In addition to the spoken Scots that he grew up with, he would have been surrounded by Scots in the communities he served as a minister, and could also draw on his significant scholarly and linguistic insight.

Waddell is notable for being the first person to undertake a translation into Scots from the original language of the bible as opposed to an existing English version (Lorimer would follow in his foot-steps in the 20th century with his translation of the New Testament into Scots from the original Greek.)

This serves to make the Scots in Waddell’s translations markedly more distinct and independent than earlier translations based on an English text, which retained much by way of English vocabularly and grammar.

In his translation of the Pslams, Waddell frequently eschews words of Latin origin, instead creating numerous Germanic-sounding compounds, which Waddell argued gave a closer sense of the original Hebrew meaning. At the same time, we can assume that this was at least partly down to a desire on Waddell’s behalf to make the Scots as distinct from the English of the AV as possible.

In addition, Waddell attached great significance to the Germanic roots of Scots. In his lecture, ‘Genius and Morality of Robert Burns’, Waddell contended that Scots ‘adheres more perfectly in its root to the old Teutonic than the English’ and celebrated how ‘genuine Scotch’ words were ‘almost pure German’.

For example, where the AV has generation, integrity, and testimony, Waddell has kithgettin, leal-gate, and truth-tryst. In addition, Waddell’s use of richt-recht for to judge echoes the German richten, as does his righters, for judges, echo the German Richter. So the Scots in Waddell’s Psalms is markedly and consciously Germanic, to the extent of writing the Romance inheritance of Scots out of history.

Waddell employs a handful of Scots archaisms, for example, yo and scho for you and she, fuhre meaning to go, redd meaning deliver, and thring meaning oppress. There is also the Middle Scots word Scottis in the title of the translation. It is thought that Waddell used this word in order to underline the status of Scots as independent language, ‘not a mere dialect, but a tongue congate with the English…not a dialect of English, but a dialect of the Teutonic, even as English itself is’, as he put it in his aforementioned lecture on Burns. The alternative terms, on the other hand, were both problematic: Scotch was an English term whilst Scots in the 19th century lacked any prestige.

The overall effect is of a rich and independent Scots, with elements of archaism and literary artefact blending with the vigour of authentic Scots as it would have been spoken in Waddell’s time. Waddell’s David, who speaks with the voice of the common people, is a strong example of the latter.

At a time when written Scots was largely restricted to dialogue in novels (such as those of Walter Scott) or to poetry (such as that of Burns), Waddell’s translation of the Psalms boldly created a formal prose register of Scots, appropriate to translating the bible, for which there was no meaningful precedent (Nisbet’s 16th century translation of the New Testament was not published until the 20th century and it seems unlikely that Waddell would have had access to Riddell’s mid-nineteenth century translation of the Psalms into Scots). Burns was, of course, an important resource, however, the informality of the Scots meant that it was unsuitable as a straightforward model for biblical prose. As Waddell wrote himself in his ‘Notice To The General Reader’ printed alongside the Pslams, ‘a very large number of terms employed by Burns are also employed here […] but the expressions or phrases most frequently employed by Burns could not, for obvious reasons, be admitted into a translation of the Bible.’

Waddell was conscious of the fact that he was using Scots in a novel and unfamilar way for the era. In his ‘Notice’, he laments how the ‘true vernacular […] of the country’, spoken from the days of the Reformation and the Convenant, and with which the translator was familiar in his childhood, ‘may seem strange to the young of the present generation.’ He goes on to argue, however, that ‘any strangeness […] must result solely from the newness of its grammatical application to so solemn a theme as the Word of God.’

Here we see clearly how Waddell is keen to revive and to elevate the Scots language by demonstrating how it is fully capable of, and suitable for, expressing the Word of God.

Waddell’s impressive translation of the Psalms themselves is complimented by the rich and formal Scots of the lengthy introduction – a rare example of extended formal prose in Scots – as well as all of the paraphernalia that his readers would have been used to in English versions of the bible: from marginal notes and footnotes to explanations of the terms used in the original Hebrew headings. It’s also touching to note that Waddell uses the marginal notes to point out some of his favourite parts. At the beginning of Psalm VIII, for example, he writes: ‘tak tent as ye read: thar’e no mony grander kirk sangs nor this’ (pay attention as you read: there aren’t many grander psalms than this).

Testament to Waddell’s linguistic prowess, his translation from the original Hebrew into Scots wis extremely accurate and meticulous. In keeping with traditional practice, he uses italics to indicate where words not in the original have been added to make the meaning clearer. Moreover, on a number of occasions, Waddell disagrees with the AV. In two of these cases, the Revised Version (RV) agrees with Waddell’s translation. In a further two, the RV retains the translation of the AV but provides alternative readings, similar to Waddell’s, in the margin.

In all of the above, Waddell The Psalms: frae Hebrew intil Scottis’ succeeds in creating a rich and independent Scots translation in a register suitable for biblical translation. In this, he also succeeds in elevating the language, making clear that Scots could be used for all purposes, not just informal ones. The text was intended for public usage and went through several editions.