Defending the Scots language from the Tory MSP for Mordor

Yet again Scotland’s languages are making the news, following on from Andrew Marr’s factually incorrect and ignorantly dismissive comments about Gaelic, for which he eventually apologised, this time it’s Scots which is the object of British nationalist ignorance. The graciousness free zone which is the Scottish Tory MSP for Mordor Stephen Kerr has taken to The Times newspaper to complain that a consultation on the Scots language, written for MSPs as part of supporting documentation for the Scottish Languages Bill currently making its way through Holyrood, has been translated into Scots. Kerr fumed in The Times: “Written Scots really should be left to the pages of Oor Wullie and The Broons, and esoteric authors.”

Leaving aside the fact that the poetry of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, is written in Scots and as such is hardly “esoteric.” It is telling that Kerr thinks that the only suitable use for written Scots is in the pages of comic books – for all that Oor Wullie and The Broons are Scottish national treasures. His comments reflect the ghettoisation of Scottish languages which is typical of British nationalism and the Cringe. In the case of Gaelic this ghettoisation demands that the language be confined to the West Highlands and islands and not be recognised and promoted as a national language for all of Scotland.

Even its detractors cannot deny that Gaelic is a full language in its own right, so their demands usually insist on restricting the language to a narrowly defined geographical area where it can safely be ignored. Kerr reflected this in his comments in The Times when he stated that he would “support any sensible measure to support [Gaelic’s] everyday use in areas where it is traditionally spoken.” But presumably not elsewhere – like areas where it was once traditionally spoken but hasn’t been for generations, such areas encompass almost all of Scotland.

The attacks on Scots have a different focus. These attacks typically insist that Scots is not suitable as a written medium for serious topics and deny the unity of the Scots language. Scots is seen as fit for comic use because it’s regarded as a fundamentally unserious and trivial language, lacking the dignity of English. This attitude is one of the key foundation stones of the Cringe. That’s why it’s fine for Scots to be used for comedy, that poses no threat to the sole use of English as the only medium for serious topics or writing in Scotland.

In many cases the detractors of Scots deny that Scots is a language in its own right, often insisting falsely that it is merely English slang. Kerr did not go that far, but he did deny the unity of the Scots language, saying: “But a Scots language can’t be easily defined; it is different for everyone who speaks it depending on where they are from and how they use it. It is a living, breathing and vibrant spoken language.”

“There are many dialects and versions of Scots. There isn’t a single Scots language, and it is an oral tradition.”

That’s linguistically illiterate. Scots, like all languages, exists as a series of spoken varieties, however that does not deny the fundamental unity of those linguistic varieties which collectively make up the Scots language.

In fact Scots has linguistic features, in terms of grammar, vocabulary and phonology, which clearly distinguish varieties of Scots from other languages and show that together they constitute a single language. There is a sharp and well defined language border between Scots and northern English dialects which closely follows the political border between Scotland and England. This linguistic boundary is unique in the English speaking world.

The dialects of Scots are actually not that different from one another as linguists judge these things, and the differences between them pale into insignificance compared to the differences between dialects of certain other languages which are universally accepted as single languages, such as Basque, Slovenian, or German. Even the Doric of the North East, the only Scots dialect usually given a distinct name, is not hugely different from other Scots dialects although it has a number of features such as the change of wh to f which are typical of it. It abundantly shares in the phonological, grammatical and lexical features of Scots as  whole. In fact the name Doric was originally applied to any Scots dialect. In 1811, William Aiton published a volume entitled  General View of the Agriculture of the County of Ayr in which he likens Ayrshire Scots to the rural and rustic Greek Doric dialect. It was only in the later 19th and 20th centuries that the term Doric came to refer solely to North Eastern Scots. Mischaracterising Scots not as a single language but merely a series of spoken dialects is the linguistic equivalent of divide and rule, if Scots is not a single language it poses no threat to the dominance of English.

Scots possesses a huge wealth of written literature which the late Scottish linguist A.J. Aitken once described as far surpassing in both quality and quantity anything else which might be described as an English dialect. This literature is not confined to poetry although the Scots poetic tradition is especially rich. The Scots prose tradition includes amongst other gems the masterly translation of the New Testament by W.L. Lorimer, a scholar of Ancient Greek, which was published in 1983. There was a previous translation of the New Testament by William Wye Smith, published in 1901, an extract is shown here complete with the apologetic apostrophes typical of Scots spelling of the era.

The Scots prose tradition also includes the play Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis written by the written by the makar Sir David Lyndsay in 1540, the sole surviving example of plays in Scots written for the Scottish royal court.

Scots was the official language of record of the Scottish state and Scottish courts while Scotland was an independent state. There was, and still is, such a thing as formal literary Scots. There is no such thing as formal literary Geordie or Cockney.

What Scots lacks is a universally accepted standard written form, but that is a political and cultural choice not a linguistic one. Scots was well on the way to developing such a written form but following the accession of James VI to the English throne he imposed the English language translation of the bible which he had sponsored on Scotland as well. This created an association in Scottish minds between the English language and serious writing which persists to this day.

People like Kerr are determined to resist any moves for Scots to gain acceptance as a written language because it would allow Scots to come out of the ghetto to which it has been confined by the Cringe and by British nationalism in Scotland.

I could quite easily have written this article in Scots, but I chose not to do so because people who read non fiction prose in Scots do not need to be persuaded of the suitability of Scots for such written use. However there is no reason other than the linguistic inhibition created by the Cringe why Scots could not be widely taught and used as a medium for writing in Scotland as it was once in the past.

_______________________________________________

My Gaelic maps of Scotland are still available, a perfect gift for any Gaelic learner or just for anyone who likes maps. The maps cost £15 each plus £8 P&P within the UK. P&P to the USA or Canada is £18 and P&P to Europe is £14. You can order by sending a PayPal payment of £23 to [email protected] (Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to).

I am now writing the daily newsletter for The National, published every day from Monday to Friday in the late afternoon.  So if you’d like a daily dose of dug you can subscribe to The National, Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, here: Subscriptions from The National

I am also now selling my Cornish language map of Cornwall which was produced in collaboration with Akademi Kernewek, the umbrella body for Cornish language organisations. The approximately 1200 place names on the map were researched and agreed by the Akademi’s place name panel. The map is A1 in size. The Cornish maps cost £15 each plus £8 P&P within the UK.  P&P to the USA or Canada is £18 and P&P to Europe is £14. You can order by sending a PayPal payment for the appropriate amount to [email protected]  or by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug Please remember to include the postal address where you want the map sent to and clearly mark your payment Gaelic map or Cornish map). Alternatively contact me at [email protected] for other means to pay.

Within Cornwall the map is available at Kowsva, 6 Artists Muse, Heartlands, Poll/Pool – The Kowethas shop. They are also available from The Cornish Store in Aberfala/Falmouth. Other outlets in Cornwall will follow soon.

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address [email protected]. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. You can also donate by PayPal by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug