LL-L: "Statistics" LOWLANDS-L, 09.AUG.2001 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 09.AUG.2001 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachian, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German), S=Scots, Sh=Shetlandic, Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: Statistics

Ron wrote:

> Sandy,

> Actually, I was the one you quoted above, and Colin Wilson
> <lcwilson at starmail.com> quoted me, further saying:

Oops, sorry! I'm writing emails from Internet cafes at the moment and am still
learning the ropes!

> I take it no more reliable figures for Scots are available, just as in the
> case of Low Saxon (Low German), which should not come as a surprise, given
> that these languages are not included in national census questions, and
> given that there are forces that are all too keen to belittle them (also
> in the original sense of the word "belittle") and see them disappear.

Apart from the census, I don't think it would be fair to say that
belittlement of Scots is the result of "forces" such as government and
education. Even though the form of Scottish education mostly precludes the
teaching of
Scots at the moment, and even though this is probably the major force in the
diminishment of the language at the present time, you have to take into
account
the fact that when you look at books about the Scots language, even when
written
by classic supporters of the language such as Sir Walter Scott and John
Buchan,
the emphasis always seems to be on the fact that the language is dying out,
that even where it's spoken it's only spoken in English-diluted form, and so
on.
When the reference works on the language are so nihilistic, I don't think we
can
blame governments &c, if their experts read such things, from drawing the sort
of conclusions they do.

I think that in fact scholars and researchers trying to find out the truth
about Scots from a neutral standpoint find themselves bombarded with what are
actually observations of illusory phenomena, to wit:

  o  Scots is dying out: maybe, but writers of every generation since before
Burns have been saying that Scots would be dead in their grandchildren's
generation, but it never seems to happen.

  o  Scots is now only spoken in diluted form: this conclusion is reached from
observing _written_ Scots from older writings. I suspect that comparing modern
spoken Scots to older _spoken_ Scots would give the lie to this, at least to a
great extent. You can go all the way back to the 16th century and find written
Scots that's essentially identical to the way I speak, even though I speak (a
rural form of) the "Central" dialect which has achieved notoriety for
widespread
Anglicisation. I think from this we have to conclude that not as much is
changing as writers seem to have thought down through the centuries. Certainly
when
you get back to the 16th century some Scots writings are found to be _more_
English-like than modern Scots. I'd say that there are many different styles,
and
styles change decade by decade: some writers deliberately exclude Romance
vocabulary from Scots, and some don't, and spellings change according to the
prevailing fashion. This gives varying impressions of how like English Scots
might be,
it doesn't justify writers picking on an older text to show their point that
Scots isn't as good now as it used to be - you could equally compare older
speech
(eg in Sir Walter Scott's or Sir James Barrie's or Robert Louis Stevenson's
dialogues) with modern written Scots and come to the opposite conclusion.
However,
it has always been more popular for Scottish writers to wax nostalgic over the
"auld lang syne" and pass on the impression that things ain't what they used
to
be with the "auld tongue". You can't really blame modern researchers for
coming
to silly conclusions if this is what is in the libraries.

Of course, their are dangers tot he language - but the main danger as I see it
is that all this amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy - that Scots is in
danger only because no-one can point to anything in the literature to support
the
idea of Scots as a language for future generations. This is something we need
to
turn on its head - I think myself that if Scots started being taught with
formal guidance in the schools, it would soon achieve the status of any fully
accepted national language such as Welsh or Gaelic.

I asked my father (who speaks Scots but doesn't support the langauge in any
sense - ie he's a typical Scots speaker) about how many people in Scotland he
thought spoke Scots as a first language, and he reckoned two million. This
seems
sensible to me - so maybe 30%. Again, there's the question of illusion: in my
area you can go into a shop or talk to a stranger in the street in Scots, and
they'll normally talk back to you in English. However, we almost never get a
visitor to our house, stranger or otherwise, who doesn't speak Scots. I think
the
conclusion is that although a visitor to the area may conclude that Scots
isn't
spoken at all, in fact almost everybody speaks it!

I must say that over the years I've more and more come to associate Billy Kay
with a voice which spouts lots of "facts" about Scots without any significant
research. I will get in touch with him about this - it would interesting
indeed
to hear how he came by those figures!

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Statistics

Thanks for the information (above), Sandy.

Much of what you write applies to Low Saxon (Low German), too, certainly to
Northern Germany.

>  o  Scots is dying out: maybe, but writers of every generation since > before
> Burns have been saying that Scots would be dead in their grandchildren's
> generation, but it never seems to happen.

Same thing.  I call it the "_Doodseggen_ (German _Totsagen_) tradition," a
tradition of pronouncing the imminent demise of the language, a tradition that
in writing dates back to the 18th century at least, probably began soon after
the fall of the Hanseatic League and the Reformation.  Sure, the language is
ailing, but mostly because of a climate of doom and gloom among "experts" and
policies that are at least in part based on it and on the old premise that it
is _Mundart_, i.e. "dialect," i.e., a part of German, and that it is thus not
as entitled to protection and promotion like a "real" language would be.

>  o  Scots is now only spoken in diluted form: this conclusion is reached > from
> observing _written_ Scots from older writings.

This is particularly the case with the dialects of larger North German cities,
where the dividing line between Low Saxon and the Missingsch dialects of
German are now blurred and _Patentplatt_ (i.e., word-for-word translation from
German with sprinklings of German words, as they are or made to sound like Low
Saxon) has become acceptable to many and helps the _Mundart_ ("way of the
mouth" = "way of speaking" = 'dialect' or 'sociolect') myth.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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