Thanks - it's as if certain lefty politicians who abhor 'nationalism' cannot do enough to establish 'their nation', using what you rightly describe as Cultural Revisionism and Reinvention.
Living in Wales, this has been happening here ever since devolution, with the twist that generally now the Welsh local names are on the top of those road signs.
While native Welsh speakers are mostly living in the North, the South has been speaking English, despite kids being taught Welsh in schools, despite that Welsh TV Channel which nobody watches. A certain group of people and politicians (especially in certain areas of Cardiff) have made it a sign of their 'virtue' speaking Welsh when everybody around them speaks English ...
So yes: it's the same Cultural Revisionism as the one you describe - firmly embedded in a certain lefty ideology despite their claim of being anti Nationalism - for others, of course.
It's heartening to see a protest about the imposition of Gaelic in places where it is simply not relevant even to the most elderly among us. Yes, there are Gaelic speakers in the Western Highlands and Isles, but Gaelic is not a spoken language in the rest of the country, despite there being Gaelic place names all over the place. Folk seem to forget that there are Pictish , Brythonic and Norse derived place names too, as well as English. Gaelic road signs in Skye, or Lewis, fair enough, but not in Edinburgh or the Borders. That's just posturing. My family heritage is from Banffshire and Shetland, and I'd defy anyone to suggest that Gaelic is relevant in either place. I love languages, a fault that I inherited from my parents, but I could never support the promotion of Gaelic in places where it has not been relevant for centuries, especially if it's at the cost of the Scots dialect, in all its varieties. An acquaintance of mine in the brewing business comes from Falkirk, and he speaks a beautiful Lowland Scots dialect. It's not Gaelic, at all. Likewise my aunt, who lived in the same Banffshire village for most of her life. She spoke 'proper' English when required, but her native tongue was a broad Buchan dialect. As you mentioned, it's not far from Northumbrian, and peppered with Norse for extra sauce. All good fun, but the Gaelic promoters have gone too far.
PS: Scots seems to have only one day a year to itself, and very restricted at that. January 25th.
Thanks for this, C.J. - I'll include it in the forthcoming Bazaar at Stranger Worlds. I'm a quarter Scottish myself, but alas speak no Scots (nor Gaelic for that matter). My Scottish Grandfather died before I was born.
I am reminded of the problems the Welsh have had over their own language - and I note that getting it onto the road signs did not prevent the decline of the language...
While I agree with the thrust of the article, it must be pointed out that Scots isn't a language, it's a dialect of English, just like Geordie or Scouse (equally easy/difficult to comprehend for a native RP English speaker). Burns's masterwork was his "Poems: chiefly in the Scottish dialect" and he was writing in Lallans, whereas Scots is based on the Doric form spoken in Edinburgh (which is where most of it was written down, mainly for legal purposes), as different from Lallans as is Aberdonian (or 'Furry Boots' if you prefer)..
It’s a claim often made in passing, sometimes with confidence, sometimes with indifference: that Scots is merely a dialect of English. On the surface, it might seem plausible. After all, the two languages share many similarities, and most Scots today grow up speaking a mixture of both. But the truth is more complex, and more significant, than that. Scots is not just a quirky branch of English. It is a language in its own right, with a long, rich, and independent history.
Although Scots and English both descend from Old English, they parted ways many centuries ago. Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect, the northernmost variety of Old English, and followed a distinct path shaped by different influences, different rulers, and different social and cultural needs. By the fourteenth century, Scots had become the language of state, law, literature, and education in the Kingdom of Scotland. It was, for all practical purposes, the national language.
Like any national language, Scots absorbed vocabulary and idioms from its neighbours and allies, including Norse, Dutch, Gaelic, and especially French through the Auld Alliance. Its grammar and pronunciation evolved separately from English, and many of its features are closer to Old Norse or Middle Dutch than to anything spoken in the south of England. Scots developed its own rules, its own cadence, and its own identity. It is not broken English or a lazy form of slang. It is a living linguistic tradition.
This tradition is vividly present in the Scots literary canon. From John Barbour’s The Brus in the fourteenth century, through William Dunbar and Robert Henryson, to Burns and MacDiarmid, Scots has been the medium of a rich and self-aware literary culture. These writers were not dabbling in dialect for effect. They were composing in their own tongue, with its own aesthetic, philosophical, and emotional range.
A common objection is that Scots cannot be a separate language because English speakers can understand it. But this rests on a misunderstanding of how languages function. Mutual intelligibility is not a reliable measure of whether something is a dialect or a language. Norwegians and Swedes can often understand one another, but no one claims they are speaking dialects of the same language. Even more telling is the case of Portuguese and Spanish. These two languages evolved from Latin, are highly similar, and share a great deal of vocabulary, yet no serious person would argue that Portuguese is merely a dialect of Spanish. They are recognised as distinct languages because of their separate histories, identities, and cultural expressions, just as Scots and English should be.
In fact, some regional dialects of English, such as Geordie or Scouse, are harder for outsiders to understand than standardised forms of Scots. The difference lies not in the sounds or grammar, but in perception. And perception is shaped by power.
This leads to a more uncomfortable truth. The decision to treat Scots as a dialect rather than a language has never been purely linguistic. It has been shaped by centuries of anglicisation, by the cultural and political consequences of the Union of 1707, and by deep-rooted assumptions about what is standard and what is not. As the old saying goes, a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Scots lost its army and its political autonomy, but it did not lose its legitimacy.
Today, that legitimacy is being gradually restored. The Scottish Government recognises Scots as a distinct language, as do the Council of Europe and UNESCO. It is protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This is not about romanticism or nostalgia. It is about acknowledging historical truth and respecting the dignity of a linguistic tradition that continues to shape lives and identities across the country.
So the next time someone claims that Scots is just a dialect of English, ask them this: would they say the same of Portuguese and Spanish? Would they dismiss centuries of literature, law, and national expression so lightly? Would they contradict international institutions and overlook the voices of millions who still speak and understand Scots in their homes, workplaces, and communities?
Sometimes, all it takes to change a mind is the right question.
I would indeed say the same of Portuguese (why is Portuguese a separate language when Galician is a Spanish dialect?) and Spanish (and Italian for that matter - Spaniards happily watch Italian TV without subtitles), even (at the risk of offending my Nederlandisch friends) Dutch and Deutsch. Linguistics and linguists steadfastly refuse to provide a scientific definition of the difference between a dialect and a language, but everything you claim for Scots is just as true for Scouse and Geordie. The claim that Scots is a language would have been treated as risible in Burns's time, and only arose because of the political drive for independence.
we will have to agree to disagree, this isn’t Burns’s time and it is perfectly possible to defend cultural differences without being labeled a nationalist.
Thanks - it's as if certain lefty politicians who abhor 'nationalism' cannot do enough to establish 'their nation', using what you rightly describe as Cultural Revisionism and Reinvention.
Living in Wales, this has been happening here ever since devolution, with the twist that generally now the Welsh local names are on the top of those road signs.
While native Welsh speakers are mostly living in the North, the South has been speaking English, despite kids being taught Welsh in schools, despite that Welsh TV Channel which nobody watches. A certain group of people and politicians (especially in certain areas of Cardiff) have made it a sign of their 'virtue' speaking Welsh when everybody around them speaks English ...
So yes: it's the same Cultural Revisionism as the one you describe - firmly embedded in a certain lefty ideology despite their claim of being anti Nationalism - for others, of course.
It's heartening to see a protest about the imposition of Gaelic in places where it is simply not relevant even to the most elderly among us. Yes, there are Gaelic speakers in the Western Highlands and Isles, but Gaelic is not a spoken language in the rest of the country, despite there being Gaelic place names all over the place. Folk seem to forget that there are Pictish , Brythonic and Norse derived place names too, as well as English. Gaelic road signs in Skye, or Lewis, fair enough, but not in Edinburgh or the Borders. That's just posturing. My family heritage is from Banffshire and Shetland, and I'd defy anyone to suggest that Gaelic is relevant in either place. I love languages, a fault that I inherited from my parents, but I could never support the promotion of Gaelic in places where it has not been relevant for centuries, especially if it's at the cost of the Scots dialect, in all its varieties. An acquaintance of mine in the brewing business comes from Falkirk, and he speaks a beautiful Lowland Scots dialect. It's not Gaelic, at all. Likewise my aunt, who lived in the same Banffshire village for most of her life. She spoke 'proper' English when required, but her native tongue was a broad Buchan dialect. As you mentioned, it's not far from Northumbrian, and peppered with Norse for extra sauce. All good fun, but the Gaelic promoters have gone too far.
PS: Scots seems to have only one day a year to itself, and very restricted at that. January 25th.
Thanks for this, C.J. - I'll include it in the forthcoming Bazaar at Stranger Worlds. I'm a quarter Scottish myself, but alas speak no Scots (nor Gaelic for that matter). My Scottish Grandfather died before I was born.
I am reminded of the problems the Welsh have had over their own language - and I note that getting it onto the road signs did not prevent the decline of the language...
Stay wonderful!
Chris.
While I agree with the thrust of the article, it must be pointed out that Scots isn't a language, it's a dialect of English, just like Geordie or Scouse (equally easy/difficult to comprehend for a native RP English speaker). Burns's masterwork was his "Poems: chiefly in the Scottish dialect" and he was writing in Lallans, whereas Scots is based on the Doric form spoken in Edinburgh (which is where most of it was written down, mainly for legal purposes), as different from Lallans as is Aberdonian (or 'Furry Boots' if you prefer)..
It’s a claim often made in passing, sometimes with confidence, sometimes with indifference: that Scots is merely a dialect of English. On the surface, it might seem plausible. After all, the two languages share many similarities, and most Scots today grow up speaking a mixture of both. But the truth is more complex, and more significant, than that. Scots is not just a quirky branch of English. It is a language in its own right, with a long, rich, and independent history.
Although Scots and English both descend from Old English, they parted ways many centuries ago. Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect, the northernmost variety of Old English, and followed a distinct path shaped by different influences, different rulers, and different social and cultural needs. By the fourteenth century, Scots had become the language of state, law, literature, and education in the Kingdom of Scotland. It was, for all practical purposes, the national language.
Like any national language, Scots absorbed vocabulary and idioms from its neighbours and allies, including Norse, Dutch, Gaelic, and especially French through the Auld Alliance. Its grammar and pronunciation evolved separately from English, and many of its features are closer to Old Norse or Middle Dutch than to anything spoken in the south of England. Scots developed its own rules, its own cadence, and its own identity. It is not broken English or a lazy form of slang. It is a living linguistic tradition.
This tradition is vividly present in the Scots literary canon. From John Barbour’s The Brus in the fourteenth century, through William Dunbar and Robert Henryson, to Burns and MacDiarmid, Scots has been the medium of a rich and self-aware literary culture. These writers were not dabbling in dialect for effect. They were composing in their own tongue, with its own aesthetic, philosophical, and emotional range.
Cont…
Cont...
A common objection is that Scots cannot be a separate language because English speakers can understand it. But this rests on a misunderstanding of how languages function. Mutual intelligibility is not a reliable measure of whether something is a dialect or a language. Norwegians and Swedes can often understand one another, but no one claims they are speaking dialects of the same language. Even more telling is the case of Portuguese and Spanish. These two languages evolved from Latin, are highly similar, and share a great deal of vocabulary, yet no serious person would argue that Portuguese is merely a dialect of Spanish. They are recognised as distinct languages because of their separate histories, identities, and cultural expressions, just as Scots and English should be.
In fact, some regional dialects of English, such as Geordie or Scouse, are harder for outsiders to understand than standardised forms of Scots. The difference lies not in the sounds or grammar, but in perception. And perception is shaped by power.
This leads to a more uncomfortable truth. The decision to treat Scots as a dialect rather than a language has never been purely linguistic. It has been shaped by centuries of anglicisation, by the cultural and political consequences of the Union of 1707, and by deep-rooted assumptions about what is standard and what is not. As the old saying goes, a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Scots lost its army and its political autonomy, but it did not lose its legitimacy.
Today, that legitimacy is being gradually restored. The Scottish Government recognises Scots as a distinct language, as do the Council of Europe and UNESCO. It is protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This is not about romanticism or nostalgia. It is about acknowledging historical truth and respecting the dignity of a linguistic tradition that continues to shape lives and identities across the country.
So the next time someone claims that Scots is just a dialect of English, ask them this: would they say the same of Portuguese and Spanish? Would they dismiss centuries of literature, law, and national expression so lightly? Would they contradict international institutions and overlook the voices of millions who still speak and understand Scots in their homes, workplaces, and communities?
Sometimes, all it takes to change a mind is the right question.
I would indeed say the same of Portuguese (why is Portuguese a separate language when Galician is a Spanish dialect?) and Spanish (and Italian for that matter - Spaniards happily watch Italian TV without subtitles), even (at the risk of offending my Nederlandisch friends) Dutch and Deutsch. Linguistics and linguists steadfastly refuse to provide a scientific definition of the difference between a dialect and a language, but everything you claim for Scots is just as true for Scouse and Geordie. The claim that Scots is a language would have been treated as risible in Burns's time, and only arose because of the political drive for independence.
we will have to agree to disagree, this isn’t Burns’s time and it is perfectly possible to defend cultural differences without being labeled a nationalist.