LL-L "Scots" 2002.03.14 (05) [E]

Thu Mar 14 21:57:56 UTC 2002

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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Scots" 2002.03.11 (01) [E]

Ron wrote:

>Colin, Ian, John Magnus, Lowlanders,
>
>I submit to you that misperceptions, disparagement and the like
>typically go both ways, needlessly in my opinion.  The "And what would
>*you* know?" reaction from native speakers to input from "experts" is in
>my opinion just as non-constructive, just as much of an over-reaction
>based on suspicion and cliquishness as is the same "question" directed
>by linguists at native speakers.  I call it "native speaker arrogance"
>vs "academic arrogance."  Both sides have something to offer.  You do
>not always have to be a native speaker to work in research and problem
>solving, as long as this is in collaboration with native speakers.
>Ideally they would work *with* each other rather than against each
>other, and ideally a generation of people would be "produced" that
>combine both attributes.

This is, of course, perfectly true, in theory. However, we are not
talking
here about a hypothetical case, still less an ideal one where everyone
is
working towards a common end, but the problems we find with the actual
situation as it exists in Scotland at the moment.

The academics we are complaining about typically have nothing against
native speakers, as long as those native speakers do not conflict with
their ideologies. In this respect, looking at yourself, Ron, as an
example
of an academic, would give a false impression, because you (and a few
like
you in Scotland, like Derrick McClure) have an interest in active
promotion
of languages such as Scots and Low Saxon, and recognise the value of
e.g.
orthography to this end. Likewise, I (and Sandy has made similar points,
though not I think on this list) have no objection to the academic -
that
is, the descriptive - study of Scots as an academic subject - indeed,
we're
interested in this ourselves. What I do object to is the fact that some
academics and literary figures, who not only speak little or no Scots
but
who also are ideologically opposed to all the measures which have a
proven
track record in giving status to hitherto neglected languages, are able
to
dominate the institutions which make decisions on Scots and represent it
to
government, while simultaneously deriding the efforts of those of us who
speak and write Scots on a daily basis. The native speaker who remains
in
his place - who is not too concerned about what I call the prerequisites
of
literacy, i.e., academically unfashionable areas such as orthography and
grammatical guidelines - is doubtless welcome in such an environment.
Those
who are, are not.

I might quote a comment from one well known academic who, when she was
told
about the spelling committee with which Andy and I were involved,
commented
that it was a good idea because it meant you could put all the
head-bangers
together into a room and shut the door on them. As I have already said,
one
of the characteristics of that committee was that all the survivors were
Scots speakers.

The situation in Scotland is that someone without any Scots can, by
virtue
of choosing the Scottish option in a degree in English literature and/or
language, become an expert in Scots without having ever to speak or
write
it. This person is then qualified to apply for any job which is
concerned
with Scots, where he or she can then perpetuate a culture of descriptive
linguistics and take a holier-than-thou attitude to anyone who would
disturb the value of Scots as a  resource of sociolinguistic
investigation
and what someone has called 'a literary love of squalor' by trying to
make
it widely readable and writable.

I've certainly come across native speaker arrogance as well. However,
this
tends to pull in the same direction as academic arrogance, in that the
attitude of some native speakers is to question the value of any
technical
knowledge about Scots, taking the view that Scots is what they speak,
and
should be written how they speak it. This is the native-speaker attitude
to
Scots which academic arrogance tends to approve of, however, because it,
also, sees the 'heid-banger' area - the use of technical knowledge of
the
language for providing a basis for the prerequisites of literacy - as
irrelevant or ridiculous.

There is another sort of even more detrimental arrogance - that of the
non-Scots speaking, non-academic Scots writer, who (to labour the point)
neither speaks Scots nor has any technical knowledge about its phonology
or
grammar, and, where they often have a large vocabulary, have little
grasp
of idiom or the finer points of semantics. In the context of any other
language, such people would regard themselves as learners of Scots, but
in
Scotland, they often regard themselves as authorities.

The attitude to language which combines academic knowledge with a
developmental approach is represented by e.g. Derrick McClure, Graham
Tulloch (an Australian scholar!), and by Lorimer in his New Testament
(to
try to mitigate myself of native speaker arrogance, none of these
are/were
native Scots speakers, though Derrick McClure, at least, can speak it
without difficulty.) However, this approach seems to be becoming
increasingly rare in academic circles, being replaced largely by a new
generation of linguists - mostly sociolinguists - influenced by the
Labov/Trudgill approach to language. Indeed, the McClure/Lorimer
attitude
represents what I would call _competent_  academia - academics who,
although not native speakers in the sense of having learned it at their
mother's knee, study the language from a position of competence, rather
as
any lecturer on German in a British university would do.

(I am not here implying that all academic linguists should be able to
speak
all the languages which they study. That is obviously not what
linguistics
is about. The problem is that scholars who study Scots passively, as
someone might study, say, a North American Indian language, then act as
though they have studied it as someone will study e.g. French or German
-
i.e. to gain an active knowledge of it - and _then_ go on to dominate
discussion on it.)

Also, the literary approach to Scots which attempted to develop the
language for a wide range of literary purposes has been largely
replaced,
or at least squeezed out of fashion, by a concentration on urban dialect
as
an expression of working class (though in actuality often non-working
class) life. The problem with the academics and literary figures is that
their approach seeks to define Scots as consisting of these areas and
registers, while leaving all other areas to English alone. I think my
previous quotation from James Robertson amply illustrates this.

I would have no objection to academics using their technical knowledge
to
further the language - indeed, when several years ago I started to take
an
interest in Scots promotion rather than just the language itself, I
naively
imagined that that was what they did do. The reality, however, is
different.

Again, I think the best comparison is Gaelic. If you were to transfer
the
Scots situation to Gaelic, and imagine Gaelic scholars opposed to
orthography, opposed to Gaelic primers, opposed to using Gaelic for
anything other than the direct speech of Gaelic speakers - with the
added
requirement that one shouldn't stress Gaelic characteristics, and that
the
mixed Gaelic/English which some Gaelic speakers lapse into is just as
much
'Gaelic' as the Gaelic of more traditional speakers - and you have some
idea of the situation. (I notice that you, Ron, make a distinction
between
Low Saxon and Missingisch (sp?). If these Scots academics were German
academics, one of the points they would stress most strongly is that
Missingisch is just as much entitled to be called Low Saxon as more
traditional varieties.)

Add to this the production of Gaelic texts by people who have picked up
Gaelic from a hotch-potch of texts, many of them written by non-speakers
with syntax heavily influenced by English idiom, and we are getting
close
to the idea. Indeed, I remember reading that Manx (the form of Goidelic
Celtic once spoken on the Isle of Man) was particularly interesting to
linguists as, unlike Irish and Gaelic, it was free from literary
influence.
It seems that many linguists want to preserve Scots from the influence
of
literary Scots so that they can document its free-fall into a heavily
Anglicised urban dialect. It's worth remembering that Manx is
functionally
extinct.

If there were any Scottish academics who study Scots on this list, they
would no doubt deny three quarters of the accusations I'm making here.
There are two points I could make about this.

Firstly, the academics I have come across usually regard the idea of
orthography, for example, as one more thing to debate about Scots. They
can therefore appear to be inclusive and liberal by including discussion
of such things in their courses, and documenting the pros and cons.
However, such debates are conducted in English, because, without an
orthography, few can write Scots. Orthography is functionally irrelevant
when you don't use written Scots for any practical purpose.

Secondly, by adopting this viewpoint - where everything is up for
discussion, because they never actually use Scots - they can easily
represent themselves as liberal and inclusive, and those of us who want
to
make Scots more 'user-friendly' as like linguistic traffic wardens
obsessed with rules and regulations at the expense of the untrammelled
expression of the free spirit.

In short, I have no objection to the idea that Scots activists and
academics should work together. But not if this involves bowing to the
current academic fashions. I only started to disparage the academic
situation when I had heard about enough of the 'head-banger' attitude to
my own type of approach.

In terms of the demarcations offered by Ian Parsley, most of the Scots
speakers on this list represent the 'overlap' between speakers and
activists which Ian says is lacking in Northern Ireland - plus, although
we are not professional academics, we have an interest in that aspect as
well.
It is perhaps precisely this overlap which is a threat (though, I would
guess, not a serious one in practical or numerical terms) to the
established demarcations.

John M. Tait.

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