LL-L: "Place names" LOWLANDS-L, 05.APR.2001 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 05.APR.2001 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: "Ian James Parsley" <parsleyij at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L: "Place names" (was "Pronunciation") LOWLANDS-L, 03.APR.2001
(05) [E/S]

Criostoir,

Nobody has satisfactorily defined exactly 'who' the Ulster Scots are,
or 'what' Ulster Scots areas are, yet. Most activists and many other
interested parties largely go by the map of Ulster Scots speech areas
(originally termed 'Scotch-Irish') by the late Robert Gregg in his PhD
thesis of 1963. If we draw a line from Derry to Letterkenny, then
almost down to Ballybofey, then back up to the north of Lifford and up
along the Foyle back to Derry, inside that area would be considered
'Ulster Scots speaking'.

In the intervening years, particularly since the mid-nineties,
Letterkenny has grown at a startling rate in all directions, which
means Ulster English in the Laggan Valley area has grown at the
expense of Ulster Scots (and probably also Irish Gaelic, actually).
However, the area around Newtowncunningham and St Johnstown would
indeed still be considered culturally very Ulster Scots, and I heard
some of the 'braidest' Scots I've ever heard when asking for
directions near Carrigans last year.

The economic growth in the Derry-Letterkenny area, and the projected
development of a hi-tech 'corridor' from Derry to Letterkenny, would
threaten the 'Ulster Scottishness' of this area severely.

Incidentally, I was contacted recently by Donegal County Libraries
about Donegal place names in Scots. Of course, because the area was
heavily settled by Scots, most place names are already Scots. You
could allow for some pretty standard alterations (e.g. St JohnstoUn),
but generally they are already Scots. The same applies to place names
that have been 'Anglicized' - in fact, very often they've been
'Scotticized'!

> It seems to me that one of the greatest obstacles to
> the promotion of Ulster Scots here in Ireland is that
> on the whole, the nationalist/republican population
> (and, I would argue, many unionist/loyalists) don't
> know exactly what the difference between Ulster Scots
> and the English of the Six Counties is. Further, there
> are no geographical definitions of the Ulster-Scots
> heartlands that are readily available. If anything
> needs to be done to ensure respect for and
> dissemination of Ulster Scots, it is firstly to make
> the people of Ireland familiar with what it is, where
> it is spoken, and by whom. It is clear that many
> nationalists/republicans also speak Ulster Scots: it
> is not merely the "unionist reaction to Irish".

This is an extremely fair assessment. It all comes down to the central
issue that there is no substitute for research, and there is no doubt
that activists would be well advised to switch from concentrating on
lobbying to concentrating on research. The classes I'm currently
running at the Linenhall Library (4.30 on Mondays, for anybody in the
Belfast area) are as much a question of teaching people Standard
English as teaching Scots - a lot already have a good passive
competence in Scots, they simply don't realize it!

ATB,
Ian.

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