LL-L "Scots" 2002.03.08 (01) [E]

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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Scots" 2002.02.28 (08) [E]

A few additional comments re. the language situation in Scotland, with
particular reference to written Scots.

Firstly, it should be pointed out that, although most Scots activists are
in favour of Scottish independence, it is certainly not true that most
Scots who are in favour of independence - members of the SNP, for example -
are interested in Scots.

Secondly, because interest in Scots is largely associated with its loss,
its nationalist significance and its use in literature, many - perhaps the
majority - of Scots enthusiasts are either not Scots speakers at all
(except insofar as some of them re-define it to include Scottish Standard
English) or are speakers of the most depleted Central Urban varieties.
Organisations such as the Scottish National Dictionary Association are
certainly dominated by non speakers of Scots. Many of the 'names' of Scots
language literature - such as Hugh MacDiarmaid and Sydney Goodsir Smith -
were not Scots speakers, and most of the academics who write on Scots are
not Scots speakers (I have heard one academic, who is on record as
describing people like myself who are interested in Scots spelling as 'heid
bangers', attempting to speak what could best be described as halting Scots
at a meeting of the Scots Language Society.) Consequently, whereas
traditional Scots is spoken mainly in country areas and small towns and
villages by working class people, Scots enthusiasts are mostly English
speaking and middle class, and seem to be increasingly centred in
Edinburgh. Speakers of Scots, as a whole, have no interest in it, and where
they do, are likely to be interested only in their local dialect. This is
in sharp contrast to Gaelic, where interest in and enthusiasm for the
language is centred, by and large, in areas where it is still spoken (such
as the Gaelic college - Sabhal Mo/r Ostaig - in Skye).

Thus, whereas Gaelic is taught much as any language is taught - i.e.:
either by native speakers to native speakers, or to learners - and written
primarily by native speakers, Scots is largely written by people who do not
(at least habitually) speak it, and is taught only passively and
descriptively as literature, linguistics and, increasingly,
sociolinguistics. As far as I know, there is nowhere in Scotland where you
can go and learn to speak or write Scots. Whereas Gaelic is treated as a
language in Scots academia, Scots is treated largely as a convenient
literary medium for slumming intellectuals, and a source of material for
sociolinguists' dissertations. Whereas the framework for teaching and
studying Gaelic is that of any other language, the framework for teaching
and studying Scots is largely based on the study of literature, and
increasingly, on the Labovian sociolinguistic model derived from studies of
lower class speech in American cities.

The prerequisites for developing a language are described by Haugen as 'the
activity of preparing a normative orthography, grammar and dictionary for
the guidance of writers and speakers in a non-homogenous speech-community.'
Any 'minority' language which has achieved status - such as Catalan,
Faroese, Welsh, Tok Pisin - has taken this route. One would imagine, then,
that Scots enthusiasts would be inclined to follow the example of other
'minority' languages which have achieved some success by this method. On
the contrary, however, most of the currently dominant academics and
literati in the field are vehemently opposed to what they describe as
'purism' and 'prescriptivism', favouring a laissez-faire approach where the
lack of a normative orthography and grammar is seen as liberating.
Correlatively, the writers who are lionised by the literary establishment
are those such as Tom Leonard and Irvine Welsh, who use depleted forms of
urban Scots, containing a high word count of obscenities, to express urban
deprivation and an ostensibly anti-establishment attitude. While Gaelic is
presented as a whole language, Scots is presented as the Cinderella, or
perhaps rather the Johnny Rotten, language of Scotland, particularly suited
- as Frank Zappa once said of the electric guitar - for spewing forth true
obscenity.

In contrast to proven methods of language development which start from its
use as a whole language in the places where it is still most used - such as
the North East - this presentation of Scots depends upon an external view
of working class Scots, filtered through the perception of middle class
urban literati and linguistic dilettanti. Whereas Gaelic writers and
teachers are by and large writing and teaching their own language, Scots
writers and teachers - especially those who are prominent in literary
circles - are often writing or teaching a language which is not their own,
which they regard as belonging to the social underbelly of Scotland, and
which they value because of what has been described as a 'literary love of
squalor.' Having assigned this role to Scots, and having established
themselves as experts in the field of the passive description of Scots and
its literature, they are defensive and derisive of any attempt to advance
Scots in the way in which languages such as Catalan and Frisian have been
advanced - understandably, because in a situation where Scots was taught as
a language their passive expertise would be in question.

The following quotation by James Robertson, a prominent figure in Scots
language circles, is from the editorial to a collection of Scots short
stories:

'One argument against a standardisation of Scots spelling is that one of
the language’s very strengths lies in its flexibility and its
less-than-respectable status: writers turn to it because it offers a refuge
for linguistic individualism, anarchism, nomadism and hedonism... William
McIlvanney has spoken of Scots as being like English in its underwear,
stripped of all pretensions, and in some respects this is very apt.'

This illustrates the attitude of much of the 'Scots' literary
establishment. Scots is not seen by them as a language like other
languages, such as Gaelic, English, Catalan, Tok Pisin, which have a
normative orthography and grammar in order to enable those who speak them
every day to become literate in them, but as a language which writers 'turn
to' when they want a particular effect which English is not degraded enough
to express. Instead of literacy in Scots being seen as the natural right of
Scots speakers, a skill which would enable them to have a higher regard for
their language and to express themselves in it and develop it as with
languages like Faroese, lack of literacy in Scots is seen as an asset to an
effete elite of largely Edinburgh based and mostly English speaking lounge
linguists and literati, who wish to maintain its disreputable status so
that they can turn to it, like Jekyll to Hyde, when they wish to indulge in
a little fashionable literary slumming, before returning to their own
comfortable standard English. William McIlvanney's characterisation of
Scots as English in its underwear may seem appropriate to him - I have
heard him being interviewed on television in Scots (by Billy Kay) and
answering in English, so if he uses Scots at all, it is presumably not in
public. I find it surprising that habitual speakers of Scots can quote,
apparently approvingly, the suggestion that they go around in their
linguistic underwear.

Such writers present Scots as an anti-establishment language. However, as
their views about Scots are actually in conformity with the establishment
view that Scots is a sub-standard tongue, they are in fact reinforcing the
views of the establishment and are squarely within its pericope. It is
notable, however, that although the attitude of writers such as Robertson
towards Scots is very much the sort of attitude that one takes towards a
dialect or type of slang rather than towards a language, they still use the
word 'language' to refer to it. This is probably largely because they wish
to confer status upon it with the aim of obtaining state funding for their
own literary and research projects. They are thus trying to use the
argument that Scots should have funding parity with Gaelic as a language,
along with an explicit denial that Scots should have the characteristics of
a distinct language (as opposed to a dialect of English), to divert any
funds which may be available for Scots into the maintenance of a literary
and linguistic hobby for largely English-speaking intellectuals.

The inconsistent claim that Scots is a language but should not have the
norms which we normally associate with a language is illustrated from the
following quotation from John Hodgart, another prominent figure in Scots
language circles.

'Indeed when it comes to spelling (again mistakenly thought of as having
only one ‘correct’ form) it is possible that the flexible spelling of Scots
might have some distinct advantages as it has never been set in a fixed
form with only one acceptable ‘richt’ spelling, though there are
distinctive Scots norms and conventions (e.g., as in the C.S.D. or English
Scots dictionaries) that should be taught, but where these do not fit the
local sound patterns, the best advice to children is to use their ears!
Just think how liberating a more flexible spelling system could be for
personal and imaginative writing, with some words having several possible
spellings...

We need to...above all stir up a public debate to make sure that Scots gets
the economic and political support it needs, and has a right to, on the
same kind of level as Gaelic.

Indeed we could learn a lot from other small European nations or minority
cultures, such as Catalonia, where bilingual education and policies of
cultural ‘normalisation’ (i.e. restoring the local language to its normal
place in education, the media and public life etc) have been successfully
developed in recent years.'

John Hodgart (translated by myself).

Here, Hodgart is arguing that Scots should have funding on the same basis
as Gaelic, in spite of being presented as essentially an unwritten tongue,
and that we should learn from places like Catalonia while ignoring
everything they have done! The efforts of people like Hammarshaimb and
Fabro are praised as long as they are in one of the countries we are
supposed to be learning from, but ridiculed when applied to the language
which is supposed to be learning from them.

As most of the institutions related to Scots -such as the Scottish National
Dictionary Association and the current Cross Party Committee - are centred
in Edinburgh and, as far as I can see, dominated by people with this type
of approach, Scots speakers who wish to develop their own language have
largely a choice of conforming with their approach, or giving up. No actual
Scots Language Movement - in the sense of a movement by Scots speakers to
enhance the status of their own language - exists. Moreover, insofar as any
steps are taken by Scots speakers to advance the status of Scots along
lines established for other 'minority' languages, these are bound
eventually to lead to the consultation of 'experts' - non Scots speaking
academics

I was for a time involved in an exercise to promote Scots and Shetlandic
alongside Gaelic in a university context. As the initial consultations
involved mostly Gaels who understand the prerequisites of language
development, it was possible to draft a policy which recognised Scots as a
language to be used alongside Gaelic and English. At the implementation
stage, however, non-Scots speaking (as far as I could gather) scholars were
drafted in from Edinburgh, who proceeded to deride 'irrelevancies' like
orthography, and establish a conventional academic passive approach, while
simultaneously claiming that this was meeting the criteria of the original
policy. When I questioned this, one scholar - again, a prominent figure in
Scots language circles - declared that she would not teach Scots in the way
in which Gaelic is taught - i.e.: with a primer-type approach - because she
did not intend to teach it 'as a foreign language.' However, she did not
intend to teach in Scots either, which is how a native language is usually
taught. Thus the tradition of passive teaching of Scots by people who need
neither speak nor write it was defended. It seems to me that all efforts by
Scots activists to enhance the status of Scots are likely to be sidelined
in this way, by 'experts', into a version of the currently fashionable
academic and literary approach.

Because Scots is not taught, and because Scots is often written by those
who don't speak it, written Scots tends to fall into two categories: (1)
dialect Scots, usually either poetry, dialogue, humour, or obscenity-ridden
expressions of urban deprivation, and (2) literary 'Lallans' - often an
artificial language comprising Scots vocabulary and English grammar and
idiom, of a sort which has been described variously as 're-lexified
English', and 'English in masquerade'. Because these are the only models
available - without considerable research - for written Scots prose, this
type of Scots tends to be self-perpetuating - as others copy it - enabling
academics and critics to use its bad example to appeal for more use of 'off
the cuff' spontaneous writing, of the first type. Because many of those who
write in Scots are not Scots speakers and/or are familiar only with the
most Anglicised urban dialects, real traditional Scots grammar, when it
does appear in literature, is criticised in much the same way as some will
now criticise classically correct constructions such as 'from her and me'
in English. Thus a reviewer in the most recent edition of Lallans magazine
castigated a poet for using singular verbs with plural nouns, in spite of
this being a characteristic of Scots grammar with a history reaching from
Barbour through the middle ages down to the present.

In these circumstances, I find it surprising that so many Scots-speaking
Scots activists seem to be content to accept the dominance of their
language institutions by non Scots speakers, and by those - whether Scots
speaking or not - who appear to be opposed to the prerequisites of language
development. I suppose that there is a certain amount of pragmatic 'better
than nothing' reasoning behind this. Also, it is easy enough for a group of
non speakers and effectively non users of Scots to agree that they _don't_
want a normative spelling, grammar or vocabulary; more difficult for those
who do want these things to agree on what exactly they want.

It is also surprising - to me, at any rate - that people who do not
habitually speak Scots should consider that they have a right not only to
dominate Scots language institutions, but also to dismiss the efforts of
Scots speaking activists (vis. 'heid bangers', above) - a trick which they
effect by claiming, or implying, that they speak for the 'real' Scots
speakers - those who have no interest in their own language, and who
increasingly regard it as slang. It is notable, however, that, on the
much-derided Scots Spelling Committee of which Andy and I were members,
those who didn't turn up or who resigned were mostly non Scots speakers,
whereas those who remained were all speakers (though not all native
speakers) of Scots. Hence my view that all efforts by actual Scots-speaking
activists will be circumvented by the largely non Scots speaking literary
and academic establishment, who will then persuade other Scots speaking
activists to follow their lead on a 'better than nothing' ticket. The plea
that all Scots enthusiasts should stick together - which means in effect
following the non-productive theories of the Edinburgh based establishment
- is another powerful argument for preventing effective dissent.

John M. Tait.

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