Thursday 18 August 2022

We need to talk about "Scots"

 Some time ago, longer than I might like to confess, I was taught that when addressing a jury, you must make your key points first.

So here they are. Last week, there was a survey of Afghan refugees to the UK. . It discovered they did not want to come to Scotland. Because they believed people here did not speak English. And that conclusion on their part, and its consequence, was the overt objective of our SNP Government. For they did not want them here.

Nationalists across Europe do not want refugees with brown or black skins. Hungarian nationalists do not want them. Polish nationalists do not want them. Italian nationalists do not want them. French nationalists do not want them. Swedish nationalists don't want them. Danish nationalists do not want them and, yes, British nationalists do not want them. I could go on. So why conceivably would Scottish nationalists be an exception to that? Of course they aren't. They are nationalists. 

But Scottish nationalists are trying to build a coalition that requires the involvement, no matter how deludedly, of those who regard themselves to be left wing. So Sturgeon needs a solution that keeps them on board while not confessing her personal politics are little different from those of Orban, Morawiecki, Meloni, Le Pen or (I'll skip the Scandanavians) Farage. And that solution is not to say they can't come here, just that they really, really wouldn't want to. And her mechanism is Scots. "Don't come here. If you thought learning English as a second language was difficult, just think how difficult learning "Scots" is going to be?" So, stay where you are, in England. While we will hypocritically insist you are being terribly treated while, at the same time, putting up an implied  language barrier to you being encouraged to come here.  An entirely fictitious barrier but that's not the point, except it actually is.

Nobody, nobody in England will have told refugees that we do not speak English in Scotland. But plenty in Scotland will have told them we do. That is not my conclusion, it is the conclusion of the refugees themselves. I refer again to the polling

The whole thing is, and I do not hesitate to use the word, racist.

Pretty much everybody in Scotland has a dialect. Ayrshire does not speak like Fife. Nobody speaks like bloody Aberdeen. Again I could go on. But we all recognise that, if we slow down a bit, we can mutually understand each other. In English. just as we would in Newcastle or Truro,. So why, I repeat, are potential immigrants to here encouraged to reach a different conclusion, as they apparently have? That we in Scotland, all of us, speak a different language here. An assertion made by no less than the SNP Scottish Government? 

The why has its own answer.

There is no such thing as "Scots" as a language. It is a dialect of English. Don't take my word for that, take that of Robert Burns. And even he might have doubted that if he had ever been north of Falkirk. 

If you look at who promotes the idea of "Scots" being a language you quickly reach the conclusion that they are invariably white middle aged, and older, men on the blood and soil wing of the SNP. They are entitled to their views. I have no plan to stand outside their meetings , throwing eggs, spitting at them and shouting incoherent abuse. But I see them. We should all see them. And as to the SNP Government giving them public money? We should see that as well and appreciate why.


16 comments:

  1. Firstly; A Mongrel; Yes English Scots Irish Welsh
    Views purely personal

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  2. English (Like it or not ) Is an International Language

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  3. Speaking your own native language, recognised as a minority language as it happens by the *UK Government*, is now 'racist' in the delusions of Mr. Smart. This really should be a lesson in how not to look very smart.

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  4. What a deranged hate filled rant with not a shred of evidence to support your bizarre and baseless allegations.

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  5. Can I have the reference for Robert Burns's views please?

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  6. There's not an ounce of sense gone into this.

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  7. He has a lot to say about language yet seems to be barely literate.

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  8. I used to attend Scots Language Society events in the 1980s. Contrary to what Ian suggests, there was a substantial female contingent, with concerns about teaching and education. Immigration was not mentioned. The intellectual background was debates between Hugh MacDiarmid and his opponents, encouraging the teaching of Dunbar's poetry, rules for writing and the development of prose.

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  9. Ian, I studied Scottish Literature at the same Uni where you were studying law. The poet Alexander Scott was my lecturer ... he wrote "The heicht o the biggins is happit in rauchens o haar". Is that just English? In fact Scots is part of a close family of languages which also includes English. I'd say that Scots is now diluted in many places to the point where it's very close to English, but you can still find rich seams of Scots language in the Borders, Aberdeen, Dundee, the North East generally and Caithness too.

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    1. Auld Scots is sub-dialect of NORTH Northumbrian. That includes what people erroneously called Geordie, pitmatic, mackem, Cumbrian and the north Durham dialect. South Northumbria is the Yorkshire dialects - and those of old Mercia (Lancs, Cheshire etc) and Anglian are known as SOUTH Northumbrian. Why because they're all from the old ANGLE dialect. What people thing of as standard English is in fact rooted in old west SAXON (Though it has been modified by the great vowel shift in the middle ages - something that didn't really make it past the Tees river. This is why Auld Scots says HAME for home... before the vowel shift HAME was said through all of England (This is why so many towns have HAM at the end of them.

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  10. Oh dear what utter tosh. Such ignorance is embarrassing. I am not sure that presenting any facts or evidence will make any difference to Ian Smart whose invective is there for all to see but the cultural renaissance of Scots as a language especially its rich oral traditions is something we can all take pride in.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Today, Modern Scots, Northumbrian, Cumbrian and north/east riding dialects originate purely from Northumbrian, as well as forming the basis for the since mercian influenced west riding and Lancashire dialects.[2] It was significantly different from the dialects spoken by other Kingdoms, especially that of West-Saxon (the primary dialect).

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    3. But don't forget - it was a TWO-WAY process. Words originally unique to Scotland also went south! Back in the days when your family were notorious Reivers (My ancestry includes the equally infamous Dodds English riding family) the dialect across the border lands was roughly the same. And the way the old riding families sorted blood feuds out was to call a truce and use marriage to cement the peace - Thomas Carlton, the Constable of Carlisle Castle, was married to Kinmont Willie Armstrong's daughter - this was extremely common and who rocks the cradle...

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  11. I often wondered why immigrants don't come to Scotland

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  12. The Labour Party in Scotland have completely lost the plot. On on 4 June 1998 the Labour UK Government announced its decision to sign the Council of Europe Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. That came into effect as of the 1 July 2001. The Scots language will be covered by Part II of the Charter. "By applying Part II of the Charter to Scots the Government will be recognising the distinctive nature and cultural value of the language." Following that in 2003 the Labour-Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive made a commitment to introduce a national language strategy to guide the development and support of Scotland's languages. For Scots it stated that "the Scots language will be treated with respect and pride" adding that Scots is closely linked to the cultural heritage of Scotland and makes a significant contribution to Scottish arts and culture. A duty to protect the Scots language and celebrate its contribution to Scotland and the world was recognised.

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