LL-L: "Language conflicts" LOWLANDS-L, 02.AUG.2000 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

Sorry.  This went out under a wrong heading.  RFH
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 L O W L A N D S - L * 02.AUG.2000 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: John M. Tait [jmtait at altavista.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Language conflicts" LOWLANDS-L, 31.JUL.2000 (02) [E]

Colin wrote:
>
>Without evidence that a certain proportion of the public is broadly in
>favour (I'd put the lower limit at 15%, in at least one council area),
>then it may well be that Scots-language activists are simply pissing
>into the wind.

Again, I'm not entirely convinced about this. It very much depends exactly
what you mean by the promotion of Scots. To take two examples: (1) The Tory
representative at the last-but-one SLS conference wanted to be assured that
any Scots taught in schools would be good Scots; (2) Most of the educational
thinking about teaching Scots is concerned primarily with eliciting whatever
the pupils already know, and derides orthography and prescriptive grammar.

Although the Tory was regarded as a waste of space by many Scots enthusiasts -
probably just because he was a Tory - I didn't agree with this, because I have
no doubt that similar concerns would be voiced by many people of different
political persuasions. It is possible, therefore, that people for and against
the teaching or promotion of Scots would be swayed by how they already
perceived it, and many fors and againsts might change sides quite rapidly if
Scots was taught or promoted in a way they had not envisaged.

My own theory, for what it's worth, is that more parents would be happy about
their children being taught Scots if it was taught as any other language is,
rather than in the way which most educational theory approves of.

John M. Tait.

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