(a) What is Scots?
(a) What is Scots?
Scots is a Germanic language derived from Anglo-Saxon, but influenced
by Norse, French, Gaelic and particularly English. It was for 300
years the official state language of Scotland and is still widely
spoken as an informal linguistic variety all over lowland Scotland.
It has a range of local forms and dialects, and despite being used
for literary purposes (especially poetry) for several centuries,
written forms for everyday purposes are only now being standardised.
Overseas readers should not confuse Scots with Gaelic, the other
indigenous Scottish language which is of Celtic origin. Gaelic was
once spoken over nearly all of mainland Scotland but is now largely
confined to the Western Isles of Scotland.
(b) Why do you say Scots is a language, not a dialect?
Although obviously closely related to English, Scots has a distinct
linguistic history (see Section 3) and in a reasonably pure form is
at least as different from English as Norwegian (Bokmal) is from
Danish or as Catalan is from Spanish. However, Norwegian and Catalan
are 'established' languages (they are taught in schools, have TV
stations, press etc) while Scots is not. Scots has therefore suffered
considerable erosion over the years to the point that modern Scottish
lowland speech is a sort of 'creole' of English and Scots. To make
things more complicated there are several dialects of Scots itself.
Currently Scots is only ever used for informal conversation (hence it
has a restricted vocabulary), English for everything else. In daily
usage, therefore, Scots speakers may find themselves switching
regularly between predominantly Scots to predominantly English
patterns of speech, often without thinking.
(c) Where is Scots spoken?
All over Scotland apart from the Highlands and Western Islands where
Gaelic was the predominant language until the 19th Century. By this
time Scots had lost its national status, so Gaelic was replaced by
a Highland variety of English (an interesting dialect in itself).
In contrast when Gaelic died out in Ayrshire two centuries earlier
it was replaced by Scots, where it is strong to this day. There are
also still a few thousand Scots speakers in Ulster.
(d) Who speaks it?
Scots seems to be one of the most poorly studied varieties of
language in Europe, so the simple answer is that nobody knows.
Most lowland Scots (over 4.5 million people) will use elements of
Scots grammar, pronounce 'English' words as Scots ones (and often
use them in particularly Scots ways) and have a vocabulary of
distinct Scots words from a few hundred to several thousand,
depending on where they come from. In general, Scots tends to be at
its strongest in rural areas, although all four major Scottish
cities have distinctive Scots/English dialects. One common
distinction is made between the 'Braid' Scots of rural areas which
are closer to older literary forms and 'Laich' Scots of the urban
population. However even the latter generally contain many Scots
grammar and vocabulary elements. There is an attempt to include a
question on Scots in the next Census, but the problem is defining it.
(e) Is Scots not a bit 'common' (low class)?
It is important to recognise that current Scots is a class-based
language. Scots forms occur more frequently among working class
speech, although in the North East there is a small Scots-speaking
middle class. Edinburgh, for example, once the linguistic heart of
Scots, now has a remarkably (and deliberately) anglicised middle
class. The middle classes of Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen on the
whole seem happier with Scots or 'local' usage, but it is clear that
much of the prejudice against Scots is still to some extent class-
based. The problem is that without formal status and awareness
(particularly among teachers), good Scots has often been mistaken
for 'bad' English (eg the use of Scots past forms such as gaed,
makkit, seed, ett), and mistakes in Scots have gone uncorrected.
(f) How many Scots words are there?
The Scots National Dictionary Association (SNDA) has about 50,000
on its computers, although the majority are archaic. The modern
Concise English-Scots Dictionary lists some 15,000 words and the
Scots Thesaurus over 20,000. Nevertheless, although Scots has a
finely-tuned vocabulary in many areas (the environment, rural life,
food and drink, character, emotions, social behaviour, informal
conversation etc) it is poorly developed in more formal registers
(styles) such as journalistic, literary, historic and technical
writing. At the moment such Scots writing as exists in these areas
tends to borrow heavily from English vocabulary to express the more
complex and subtle concepts required.
(g) What is Braid Scots, plastic Scots and synthetic Scots?
Scots and English form a linguistic continuum (ie they can be mixed
easily). Speakers interchange Scots and English words freely, depending on the social circumstances. For example a simple sentence such as I'm going home could be rendered A'm awa hame, A'm away hame, A'm gaun hame, I'm gaun hame, I'm goin hame, I'm going home (and probably a few others!). This word-by-word 'switching' is so engrained that it is rarely noticed. When a high frequency of
distinctive Scots forms and vocabulary are used, this is sometimes known as Braid Scots. However, few people use this full style
naturally (as they have had neither the education or liguistic
upbringing). People uncomfortable or ignorant of the processes of
linguistic change sometimes attack any use of Braid Scots (unless
by 80-year-old Buchan farmers) as somehow artificial, referring to
'plastic Scots' or 'cod Scots', forgetting that we happily use a
multitude of spoken and written English styles without comment and
regularly use dictionaries and thesauri to extend our vocabulary.
'Synthetic Scots' is associated with the Lallans movement stared in
the 1920s, an earlier attempt to extend the use of Scots for literary
purposes. It received exactly the same type of criticism 70 years ago,
showing that deep-seated prejudice is difficult to dislodge. As Lallans
writer Sidney Goodsir Smith commented:
(h) How many dialects of Scots are there?
We've come intil a gey queer time (gey = very)
Whan screivin Scots is near a crime (screivin = writing)
According to the SNDA there are three mainland varieties, Central,
Northern, and Southern together with Island (Orkney and Shetland)
and Ulster dialects. All share a common core vocabulary and grammar,
but often differ widely in pronunctiation. In recent years there has
been an upsurge of interest in these local forms (especially the
Northern variety, Doric, which is perhaps the strongest). At the
moment it is hard to say whether such a focus on the local dialects
will revive interest in the national language or lead to further
fragmentation.
(i) What is the current status of Scots?
None. No Scot has a right to speak Scots in any official or public
context, no right to have his or her children taught in Scots, there
virtually no TV or radio in Scots, no newspapers and only a few books
and magazines. Most Scots speakers are functionally illiterate in
their own language as Scots has been banned from all levels of
education for over a century. The growing interest in Scots as a
language therefore faces an uphill struggle against prejudice and
ignorance. There is no guarantee that this will succeed, but if it
does not Scots is likely to die out as a language early in the next
century.
(j) What is its future?
There are two possible futures for Scots: further degeneration until
it becomes a real dialect of English (by losing most or all of its
links with the historical language), or revival. Revival really means
elevation of Scots into an official or semi-official language, so-
called 'normalisation'. Normalisation involves four stages: selection
(of the dialect/s to be developed), codification (standardisation),
elaboration (extending the vocabualry to handle new concepts and
contexts) and acceptance (encouraging people to use it). There are
many successful international examples of languages which have gone
through this process in comparatively recent times: Catalan, Gallego,
Swahili (in Tanzania), Maori, Hebrew. The task is not impossible and
already for Scots much progress has been made on the first two stages.
However further development (elaboration and acceptance) will require
a political will, flexibility, co-operation and, eventually, funding.
If Scots had a fraction of the monies used to support ballet, opera or
other such Scottish cultural activities, one would have more confidence.
Even Gaelic, Scotland's other beleagured indigenous tongue fares much
better in this context.
(k) Why bother with Scots, when English is a more practical language?
English is a world language of great beauty and power. But Scots is
our language, providing a link with the past and enabling a
distinctly Scottish way of describing the world. When that is gone, it
is gone forever and we will have lost a major part of our identity.
From an international perspective, Scots is the nearest living relative
to English, it has many unique linguistic features, and has a literature
of world-wide cultural importance. No one is saying that English should
(or could) be removed from Scotland, rather that a better balance be
found between the languages. With about half of the world bilingual,
there is much evidence to suggest that a genuine bilingualism (as
opposed to the confused, unrecognised, half-hidden sort at the moment)
will enrich Scots people rather than impoverish them. Scots, and Scots
children in particular, have laboured too long under the impression
that the language of their family and friends is somehow 'wrong'.
(l) Why do you spell Scots like that?
Scots is now becoming reasonably standardised, but Scots still recognises some variation in spelling according to local dialect and preference. Moreover, many Scots words common in Scottish English (eg folk, outwith, couthy) also have 'preferred' Scots forms (fowk, ootwi, couthie). See the section on spelling systems for more information.
(m) Why do you use Scots words I've never heard before?
In order to use Scots in a wider context the vocabulary has to be
extended. This can come form a number of sources. The most obvious
one is English, but too much can result in 'thin Scots'. A better
option is to use a composite vocabulary of words from different living
Scots dialects and possibly revived words (if recently lost). This can
be augmented by 'stretching' the meaning of familiar Scots words (ie
making specific meanings more generic). The last option is invention
(using words like 'flichtpairk' for airport or 'faurspeaker' for
telephone) but clearly this has to be treated with caution. However
there is nothing particularly unusual in a linguistic sense about
these processes. They occur all the time in all languages; just think of
the new words associated with the Internet.
© Clive P L Young August 96