The people who are using it, seem to have no doubt which:
Nearly two-thirds of the Scottish public do not believe that Scots is a real language, according to a study.One thing that you can never accuse the SNP of is an inability to spin...
The result is as blow to SNP ministers, who commissioned the report as part of their policy of promoting indigenous Scottish languages.
Dubbed the "mother tongue" by supporters, there has been a long-running controversy over whether Scots is any more than a version of English. And the results of the study have led opponents to call on the SNP to stop spending taxpayers' money trying to embed Scots as a separate language in the school curriculum.
Concerns have already been raised over the millions spent on promoting Gaelic, which is spoken by just over 1 per cent of the population.
Despite claiming the Scottish block grant faces a real-terms cut from Whitehall, finance secretary John Swinney proposes to increase the budget for Gaelic support by more than 10 per cent, from £19.2 million to £21.7m.
However, the Scottish Government pointed out that the study showed 85 per cent said they used Scots and that 67 per cent thought it should continue to be used in Scotland.That's interesting, 20% of people who use Scots believe also it should not be continued to be used in Scotland? Kind of weakens the SNP's argument somewhat.
5 comments:
Mibbe you shid stoap haverin yirsel Oneil....................ach nae chance ae that!
>>One thing that you can never accuse the SNP of is an inability to spin...<<
Pardon my eedjitry but what is it that they are spinning?
>>However, the Scottish Government pointed out that the study showed 85 per cent said they used Scots and that 67 per cent thought it should continue to be used in Scotland.
That's interesting, 20% of people who use Scots believe also it should not be continued to be used in Scotland? Kind of weakens the SNP's argument somewhat.<<
Actually it highlights the urgent need to preserve the Scots language which is still in daily use from thw "Speak properly brigade" who's influence clearly has the 20% ashamed to b e speaking their own language. My partner who was once a member was always chastising oor weans to "speak properly" What she meant was to speak in Thames estuary English with a Scots accent. Truly a succesfull mind colonising excercise re-inforced by so called national telly that hardly ever shows Scots speaking as most natuarally would. Instead we get very nuetral accents or worse my pet hate(more to follow)
Scots and English languages developed differently, perhaps from close origins but the massive differences are there in the pattern of speech and a whole host of words used. The pet hate of mine are Anglo-Scots(or tv wannabee's who say good moaning for good morning trying to immitate their English betters) who speak with English speech patterns mangled with Scots words, anyway............ Gladly Scots in now re-emerging in our education system at Universities. Perhaps this may have a trickle down affect on the "speak English properly" snobs whose ignorance is all too evident. See we really are speaking properly in our own native tongue, Scots.
>>Concerns have already been raised over the millions spent on promoting Gaelic, which is spoken by just over 1 per cent of the population.
Despite claiming the Scottish block grant faces a real-terms cut from Whitehall, finance secretary John Swinney proposes to increase the budget for Gaelic support by more than 10 per cent, from £19.2 million to £21.7m.<<
The use of block-grant conjours up begging bowl for me.....grrr. We give more to the friggin thing than we get back.
Anyhow does it not occur to you that it is precisely becaue of under funding and negligence from the pro-English parties that have always been in power that Gaelic has declined so much. It is our's we need to preserve it. Our heritage and culture is not just to be put on show at cringeworthy jingoistic jamborees celebrating the British army, like pipe bands and bonny sodjers in tartan.
Cost of troughing MP's, moats and duck houses in the British Parliament: £159 million a year
Cost of keeping Scots Gaelic alive: £21 Million a year.
Current expenditure on Scots: £200,000 so far.
I thought as a loyal Briton you'd be eager to spend money to keep alive the languages, culture and heritage of Britain, money to ensure Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Scots survive in order to make up for the official hostility and suppression they have suffered over the years. If you make no distinction between the UK and Britain then I would also hope that you would encourage the use of Irish and Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland as well as indigenous languages spoken in Britain.
I'm not surprised that a lot of Scots don't recognise Scots as a language, for years Scots have been told that their own language is slang, stupid and the mark of the ignorant and it has always been heavily suppressed in schools. As far as whether it is a dialect or a language goes it is very difficult even for linguists to distinguish where a dialect ends and a language starts.
The best way to define the difference between a language and a dialect is, "A language is a dialect with an army and navy".
When I was at primary school, many moons ago, there was a concerted attempt across the board to get us to "talk proper", ie as far as possible have our dialect and accents polished out of existance.
It was a wrong approach- as long as the child was understandable and (by the normal conventions) grammatically correct then they should have been allowed to speak as they wished. As a result of this policy many of the Ulster-Scots (and actually also colloquial gaelic words) that my late grandparents' generation would have used have virtually disappeared.
But today, the approach amongst educationalists and schools is much more enlightened and RP is no longer the be-all and end-all, to the extent that in the various international Eng lang exams non-native speakers will be confronted by all kinds of weird and wonderful accents from the UK and further afield.
Which is a long way round of saying that I believe it is important that local accents/dialects/languages are preserved, but for the sake of their own intrinsic linguistic and cultural value not for any narrow nationalistic or political reason.
Cost needn't be not a factor- it cost nothing for schools to *permit* their students to start speaking their local dialect and vernicular, it costs nothing for activists to promote the language by using and teaching it as often as is feasibly impossible.
What I don't agree with is the legal imposition, with the accompagnying costs, of a language on society (eg forcing shopkeepers to have bi-lingual signs and labels).
I've been thinking about this... Scots English is a distinct language, but the stuff most Scots speak ain't.
>> Anyhow does it not occur to you that it is precisely becaue of under funding and negligence from the pro-English parties that have always been in power that Gaelic has declined so much.
Teutonic Scotland has been kicking the Gaelic speakers up the Erse for centuries without 'English' help. Lewis Grassic Gibbons, hardly a pro-English toadie, had Chris Guthrie declaring Euan Tavendale to be a "coarse Highland tink".
Hardly one of a cross-cultural love-in, not least considering the Teutonic inhabitants have gone and pochle'd the Gaelic word "Scots".
>> Our heritage and culture is not just to be put on show at cringeworthy jingoistic jamborees celebrating the British army, like pipe bands and bonny sodjers in tartan.
A lot of Highlanders joined that British Army. Must be race traitors.
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