LL-L "Language policies" 2002.08.26 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 26.AUG.2002 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: "John M. Tait" <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language policies" 2002.08.20 (03) [E]

Colin wrote:

>As far as the workplace is concerened, I think it depends very much
>on what kind of workplace it is, and probably on where in the country
>it is.
>
>Where the work being done is primarily manual, it isn't particularly
>likely that someone would be "mocked and reprimanded" for using
>Scots while on the job. Things are different in the case of
>non-manual work, although it's difficult to generalise here as
>there could be wide differences between different kinds of workplace.

For fifteen years I worked in a hospital for the mentally handicapped
(as it was known then) where almost everybody - staff and patients -
spoke Scots almost all the time. Even lectures on aspects of nursing,
when they were undertaken by local charge nurses rather than by external
trainers, were given predominantly in Scots.

One of the shocking aspects of the so called Scots Language Movement is
that most of those involved in it come from places in Scotland where the
role of Scots is very much depleted, and their entire approach to Scots
is determined by this. They have no experience of living or working in a
situation where Scots is actually used. Thus you have Scots for schools
being written by people who have never used it in everyday life -
perhaps since their own childhood - and who have lost any feeling they
ever had for the language. In other words, Children are being taught
Scots by people who themselves haven't learned it.

John M. Tait.

http://www.wirhoose.co.uk

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