by Gordon

A short time ago, I wrote an article on language snobbery which you can read here.

Examples of this sort of attitude continue, and there seems little doubt that, like so many things in the UK, the recent rise of nationalist views in all four of the constituent parts of the UK have encouraged people to highlight such snobbery. One example I heard of recently was a shopkeeper asking a woman why she was talking "foreign muck" to her child when the woman was speaking to her child in Welsh … in Wales. It seems we have a long way to go before people begin to appreciate that being bilingual is something to admire and be proud of.

However, in this short essay, I want to discuss a more specific aspect of language snobbery as it relates to the scots language.

Recently, there were some outraged splutterings over the news that some Scottish schoolchildren were being taught how to translate English written works into scots. This was decried as disgraceful because, in the minds of those who complained, Scots is merely bad English.

Sadly, it seems that this attitude is again linked to political bias rather than any understanding of language, because there are two rather important issues the grumblers appear to be unaware of.

The first is that the language spoken by most Scots these days is what could be termed Scottish English, i.e. it is modern English with some additional vocabulary which comes from Scots, and is spoken with a different and very distinctive accent. It is not what linguists would call Scots. Scottish English can be viewed as a dialect, while Scots is, in the eyes of many linguists, a separate language even though it shares a great deal of its vocabulary and grammar rules with modern English. Indeed, it is often known as "Lallands" in order to distinguish it from Scottish English.

Secondly, it is important to understand that Scots, like modern English, descended from Middle English and its predecessor, Old English. In fact, Scots retains many pronunciations which would be recognised by speakers of Old English. For example, "There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose" and "It’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht" are pronounced in much the same way as they would have been by the Anglo-Saxon speakers of Old English. Scottish English retains many features of Old and Middle English which Modern English has dropped or altered over the centuries. That does not mean one language is any better or worse than the other, simply that they have diverged in different directions from their original source language in much the same way as the Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian have diverged from Latin.

As for Scottish English, it has been heavily influenced by the transmission of radio and television programmes which have spread the influence of British English, just as British English itself has been influenced by American television and movies. There are a great many words in modern British English which were introduced relatively recently after first appearing in US English. "Commuter" is one such word, as is "movies".

Scottish English is a variant of British English, but whether it can be termed "bad English" is a matter of opinion. It is certainly not formal English but, like many regional versions of English, it has a wealth of phrases which its speakers can use which are unavailable to speakers of formal British English. The fact that many of those phrases are jocularly insulting perhaps says something about the Scots.

But we must not forget that there are many variants of English even if we ignore the wide variety of accents and dialects which can be found in the British Isles. For example, a speaker of formal British English who travels to Singapore would find a variant known as Singlish. This is English with strong Malay and Chinese influences, and it is very distinct from British English. A speaker of British English who claimed that Singaporeans were speaking bad English could equally be accused of speaking bad Singlish.

As I’ve said before, language is a tool for communication. Even formal British English often borrows words and expressions from other languages to convey a meaning which English cannot properly express. This is one of its great strengths, but it does mean that, as a global language, English will alter and develop many variants. We should never forget that, while we may find the way a Canadian or Australian says something to be odd or amusing, they think the same about some of the things we say.

But, to return to the original complaint about pupils being taught Scots, we must recognise that Scots is not the same as modern Scottish English. While Scots does retain much of its inherited vocabulary and grammar which makes it a sister language to British English, it is different enough that pupils studying the poems of Rabbie Burns are usually provided with translation notes so that they can understand the unfamiliar words which have dropped out of modern Scottish English.

It is probably fair to say that Scots, as opposed to Scottish English, is indeed a separate language, albeit one which retains a great deal of similarity to British English. For comparisons, look to the Scandinavian languages which are recognised as distinct but which all developed from Old Norse, and retain many similarities as a result.

So, first of all, the grumblers must recognise that speaking Scots is not the same as speaking Scottish English. By confusing the two, they seek to diminish the status of scots by implying that it is merely a local dialect of formal British English. One wonders whether these people have ever criticised the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne on the grounds that they are written in bad English? I suspect not.

Once we accept the difference between Scots and Scottish English, we must accept that there is absolutely nothing wrong with pupils being taught Scots. The language has a rich heritage and its influence on modern Scottish English can be heard all the time. I wonder whether there would be an outcry if the pupils were being taught to translate modern British English texts into Anglo-Saxon Old English? I suspect not, but, like Old English, Scots has a long and rich tradition which deserves some study.

Of course, it is important that pupils learn formal British English since this provides the tool through which they can communicate with people all around the world, but there is nothing wrong with them also learning their traditional language. It may not be as immediately useful as learning a modern foreign language but, aside from teaching them something of the heritage, history and culture of their country, it does help them develop language skills as they delve into the grammar and vocabulary of a new tongue. Sadly, I have a suspicion that those who have expressed their anger over the lessons are really more concerned with the historical and cultural aspects rather than the linguistic ones. If so, that is a great pity.

To sum up, those who have been vocal in their criticism have only shown their ignorance of the history of the language they themselves speak. To them, I say, "Gonnae no dae that."