Thread by @CarlT_03

#scots #scotsleid #scotslanguage
I recently purchased Scots The Mither Tongue (2006) by @billykayscot. I purchased a paperback, and then realized taking notes was easier using an iPad app version. So I ended up buying it twice. (A thread)

As an American, and new to the study of Scots, I’ll reflect on what I’ve learned. Any and all mistakes and misinterpretations are my own. I gladly accept gentle correction.

I will keep quotes from the book to a minimum. Page numbers are from the Apple Books app version.

Excerpts From Scots
Billy Kay
books.apple.com/us/book/scots/…
This material may be protected by copyright. I believe one generally has limited rights to quote minimally in a book review. If I am incorrect or if the author @billykayscott requests that I remove them …

… I will gladly do so. Or if anyone I mention would rather have their name or link removed, I will do so as well.

I have been following a few Scots Language enthusiasts and educators on Twitter who’ve inspired me to learn more about Scots.

I’m hesitant to list them lest I miss someone who has been helpful or someone blames them for anything I might say. But for those who would like to learn more about Scots on Twitter, I can highly recommend @scotslanguage and @lairnscots.

Also @Lenniesaurus for her Scots Word of the Day and Michael Dempster @DrMDempster who also has a YouTube channel with Scots lessons. For other language resources, I recommend the Scots Language Center scotslanguage.com, and the DSL dsl.ac.uk.

If I’ve missed a particularly good resource, please let me know.

On to the book, just The Prologue for now. I have a full time job, with less time for reading and writing than I’d like.

“Sae come aa ye at hame wi freedom,” (8)
Possibly only the words we call our parents are more emotionally laden than the words home and freedom. So come all. I read this line which opens the prologue and which opened the newly reconvened Scottish Parliament in 1999 …

… and loved them instantly. Who could resist that call.

There’s a reason we sing Auld Lang Syne at New Years even though most Americans only vaguely understand what those words mean. We know that the feeling is right. “even people who do not understand the language …

… feel it’s power to communicate something profound in the human condition.” (8-9) I’ve come to think of Scots as an something like what English might’ve been had not the Normans imposed French on England. French provides 50-60% of Modern English words but our most common …

… words remain from Old English, the common ancestor of English and Scots. Hemingway also understood the power of these words. The simplicity and directness of his writing reflects this. Scots more direct connection to Old English retains this power, …

… even if we don’t understand all the words, we understand the sound and feel of the language.

I wasn’t following events in England and Scotland in the late 90’s. At some point I’ll go back and read about the political movement that resulted in the first Scottish …

… Parliament in 293 years. Self-determination and local control are in our political DNA as Americans. How much local control and what is local is always the question and there is frequent tension between the powers of the different levels of government.

I don’t know enough to have an opinion on the Scottish independence movement, and as a foreigner, it doesn’t seem my place to have one.

“Scotland’s languages should not be the preserve of one political group.”(12) Wandering into Scots Twitter, I discovered the strong …

feelings people have about independence and language. Having seen the negative effect of covid vaccination and the BLM movement becoming associated with one party in the US, it is unfortunate to see this concerning the Scots language. And I understand there are historical …

issues as well — England hasn’t historically been kind to other languages in British Isles. We have our own English-only movement and other language issues in the US as well.

Even saying Scots is a language is controversial, whether because of the specter of nationalism or …

the “Scottish cringe.” That one made me cringe! How awful to feel embarrassed for the language one speaks. Mr. Kay writes about Catalan “The effects of centuries of stigmatisation and cultural colonisation cannot, of course, be overcome instantly with a new political ...

attitude”(24) and notes that Scots faces a similar problem. On @Lenniesaurus SWOTD, on every post there’s at least one comment about how Scots isn’t a language — it’s bad English, slang, dialect. One should not have to defend the validity of one’s own language.

Linguistically it’s not even a question — Scots is a language. But I feel odd and more than a bit presumptuous arguing with a Scot that Scots is a language

It appears the state of Scots language is better than it was in 2006, despite continued political and media antipathy …

towards Scots and Scots speakers. The plethora of online resources for Scots language learning is encouraging, Is it better than it was in 2006? More classes for bairns in Scots? In 2006 there was hope for EU support for minority languages. Now that the UK has left the EU …

has that support left as well?

Kay quotes a school headmaster is Glasgow “ ‘I didn’t believe in it before. There didn’t seem to be any point in Scots. But if we’ve got our own parliament, we’ve surely got to have our own language to go with it. It’s just common sense.’”(29)

Makes sense to me too. But even more so, language is culture and thought. When you learn a foreign language, you learn a bit of how that culture organizes ideas and thinks about the world. For Kay and many of the Scots I’ve met online, the following is true —

the “Scotland we wanted – Scots in language, international in perspective, egalitarian in outlook and inclusive of all humanity.”(8) And as Robert Burns wrote “for aw that an aw that, it’s comin yet for aw that, the man tae man the world ower shall brithers be for aw that.”(9)

That’s worth preserving.

This ended up much longer than I’d anticipated. For those who hung in to the end — Thanks! I would be happy if you left your comments and gentle corrections.