The best laid schemes: The Scots keeping oor language alive
Scots, a language loved, died (nearly) and revived. Despite hundreds of years of suppression, it could never be stamped out. Naebdy’d let it.
What was once the dominant language in the lowlands for hundreds of years was subdued into hiding in the 18th century whilst an Anglicised way of speaking was encouraged in Scotland.
But the language lay low, out of the eye of public areas of life. It’s survived within the communities and households of Scotland.
Until now, a new wave of activists and the rest o’ us fowk have resurrected the language across public areas of life. No longer kept hidden.
Billy Kay, a Scottish broadcaster and author is known for his activism fir oor language has been writing since the 1970s: “We’ve still got a long way to go I would say. But I would say things have improved when I started broadcast and standing up and talking Scots in public, it was quite radical.”
Known for his work including Scots: The Mither Tongue and The Complete Odyssey: Voices from Scotland’s recent past as well as his language activism, Billy defends his use of language: “It’s my mother tongue. That’s the main thing, it’s the first language I learned at my mothers, it’s the language spoken by all my mother’s family growing up and when I studied at university I realised it wasn’t just a spoken dialect it had a pedigree going back hundreds of years beyond Burns to the medieval makars.”
Although it is still listed as ane of the three national languages, there’s a lot of confusion where mony still regard the language to be ‘slang’.
He says that to dub the language Burns and Henryson wrote in as slang is ‘outrageous’. Recognising the effect that education can hae on the revival or reduction of Scots, he says that schools are the way forward if we want the language to thrive amongst later generations.
“There’s a greater knowledge now of what Scots is. There still are sections of society with prejudice and there’s others sections of society that have come round and value it and realise it is one of Scotland’s indigenous languages.”
Scots is a multifaceted language made up of distinct regional dialects. In Dundee, Oary is the mither tongue. It’s seen rise to the new torch bearers of street poets, ane of them, Gary Robertson, also says that he’s seen a change in attitude towards the language over the past ten years, and thinks that young people writing in their ane local dialects on social media has propelled the movement towards acceptance.
Scottish Twitter itself has made its mark on the social media world with its on-point self-deprecating humour, trademark of Scotland. But it’s no joke – just as much discussed are the tweets as is the language. It’s been met with both awe and criticism. ‘Write in English’, they say. Nae danger. These tweets are written in our own tongue, the variations in spellings uncover the richness of Scotland’s different dialects.
Gary says that in schooldays, Scots was left behind in the playground, or else it could git ye the belt in the classroom. From a young age, kids were reprimanded for speaking in their native tongue as the language was continually dismissed as course and common.
There is some civic backing already, Education Scotland is leading the way by getting Scots back into the classroom. Bruce Eunson, the Scots language co-ordinator for Education Scotland has been partnering with other organisations for the last 10 years to re-instil Scots back into the bairns’ learning. “In education we want to give out the message to both parents and carers as well as the children and young people that that language of the home has a place in the classroom and is a valued means of communication.”
Bruce has also worked hand in hand with the Open University, to create the OLCreate: Scots Language and Culture free online course to promote it further.
Despite in the 2011 census, one third of Scottish people identified as speaking Scots. With millions of us identifying as having the Scots leid, it’s still met with prejudice. Bruce says the language is regarded as being lower in status, but the education benefits that the language can bring to bairns is tangible and not to be overlooked.
Billy says that in schools, recognition of Scots language can level out the attainment gap between kids of different socio-economic backgrounds. A language they can recognise and engage with sparked new found interest and engagement with their studies.
There’s an overwhelming amount activists calling on civic support for the language, a board to operate in the same capacity as the Bòrd na Gàidhlig. Billy says: “Now what Scots needs is like every other living thing, it has to be cherished and it has to be fed and funded and that’s where the proof in the pudding will come whether the fact that a language board is being encouraged, whether some money is forthcoming for that to be set up. And we’ll see if that happens.”
Talking in Scots need not politicised, but oft a general election fuels a dialogue in Scotland about her and her future, her identity. Some might say that the best way to grow our find our identity is to look back and reconnect with our mither tongue.
