What is Scots?
© National Library of Scotland / SCRAN
The Scots tongue, like many other aspects of our national life, has been a topic of heated debate over the years. The use and status of languages can be a controversial and often highly political subject.
Whether we should consider Scots as a language in its own right or a dialect of English is a question that undoubtedly influences how it is perceived and how it should be taught.
Several authorities on Scots have written extensively on its historical and linguistic credentials as a separate language.
The opposing viewpoint is that Scots is a dialect or variant of English.
Dogging such arguments are the difficulties and disagreements about how to define the terms 'language' and 'dialect' in the first place.
Another area of debate, potentially even more difficult to resolve, is about what forms of language can properly be called Scots. Scots exists more in distinctive local varieties than as a standardised modern language with an authoritative grammar and spelling. Are some of these varieties 'more' Scots than others?
In the past, some Scots specialists have been particularly critical of urban dialects such as Glaswegian, which they regarded as at best debased Scots, at worst even a dialect of English.
Some purists would view only 'braid Scots' - more associated with rural areas and with vocabulary as distinct from English as possible - as authentic.
However, Scotland has been largely urban for over 200 years, and Scottish cities such as Glasgow and Dundee have their own distinctive speech.
Given that few teachers have the time to negotiate a linguistic minefield, we believe that overly fixed understandings of Scots are likely to be to the detriment of promoting it in schools. While respecting different perspectives on Scots, we are primarily concerned with the practicalities of raising its profile in classrooms. We hope that by capturing the interest of pupils in the linguistic diversity of Scotland, they will eventually be able to make informed judgements for themselves.
The 5-14 guidelines do not specifically refer to Scots as a language or a dialect. Instead, they note the diversity of language in Scotland, recognise the existence of dialects, the distinctive speech of the Scottish people and the language children bring to school, as well as the importance of integrating Scottish texts and culture into the curriculum. This vagueness may be irksome to some, but it provides the teacher with a usefully flexible mandate for teaching language.
In this Special Focus Scots will be understood and discussed in as broad and inclusive a sense as possible.
Links
- Wir Ain Leid
An introduction to the background, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of Scots, taking the viewpoint that it is a language in its own right.