Should Scots Have a Language Act?
Is Scots a language? Is it a slang? An estimated 1.5 million people speak it today. However, due to its close relation to English and its use as a celebration of Scottishness, it has resulted in many unionists politicising it. But why?
For many Scottish people, it is the language of their childhood. There are so many great words like Eejit, dinnae, braw, and dreich. However, once they reach adulthood, they store away these words and rarely use them.
In large parts of the country – the Borders, Shetland, the North-East – it is the everyday language of the majority. However, there are many areas of Scotland, particularly urban areas, where Scots is not as socially accepted. Scots remains removed from classrooms, government meetings and publicly funded media.
Political opponents of Scottish independence have often associated the promotion of the Scots language with the promotion of Scottish nationalism.
Scots social media star and campaigner Lentil Pentil spoke about this issue saying: “Scots language has lost some of its original message and meaning due to it being politicised. Scots is a method of communication, however when you speak it, most think ‘oh you’re a nationalist. You are going for Scottish exceptionalism’. It is one of Scotland’s three official languages as well as Gaelic and English.
“All nations in the UK have distinct traditions and culture. It is not a Scottish nationalism thing to put anyone else down. It is interesting when people equate the celebration of one culture as an attack on another because it always seem bias and so disingenuous, it is just a language. People should have distinct aspects of themselves they can relate to and access. Scots is a joyful expression of culture. The point of culture is to be shared.
“It is important to have aspects of culture we can share with people. A lot of Scottish culture has been repressed and suppressed. Scots was a minoritised language. It was beaten out of children in private schools up until the 1980s. It was a language in decline. However there has been a renaissance of Scots through online documentation and cataloguing. People are taking an interest again.”
There are a lot more campaigners pushing for Scots to be recognised globally as a language.
Pentil noted her thoughts for Scots future: “I have a lot of hope for Scots. It is really a great time to be a campaigner. There are a lot more women which is nice. People are starting to listen now. They see it as a language and are excited to learn different words. People are taking an interest especially in what I am doing. People are having more of an interest in culture and heritage. It is important to learn from the shameful mistakes of the past and take the positive from it. We need to decide where we want to go as a community. A lot of people have not got to see this renaissance, so we owe it to them to keep going.”
Young children also do not show much of a preference for English or Scots.
“When you go to schools and talk to weans, they love it, they don’t have preference for English or Scots, they don’t think it is uneducated or bad English. They see it as a language and are excited to learn different words. Also, dyslexic children and kids in which English is not their first language find Scots easier to write in. This is because they do not have to worry about standardised orthography. They light up when learning new words and find ways they can articulate themselves better.”
Scots is recognised as a language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Linguistically, it is a different language, with its own words, grammar and syntax, despite its relation to English. In fact, English only became the main language of Scotland as recently as the 18th century.
Finally, Pentil explained her views on Scots being a language: “UNESCO has already recognised it as a language. The Scottish government and linguists independent of Scotland recognise it as a language. A lot of people who do not study languages, would say it is a dialect because they can understand a lot it. But there is mutual intelligibility of many languages. I speak Spanish and I understand some words in Portuguese, French, Italian because romance languages are linked. I have vested interest in calling Scots a language because through my work, I have seen the lines of which people have tried to eradicate Scots.
“Scots should have a language act that equals the Gaelic Language Act. There should be more money invested in both languages. It is not a competition between the two languages.”