An old video but caused some stushie recently on FB (1.56 on for the Scots bit). “Could someone please tell David Mitchell that Scots is a language, not a dialect of English and that a language doesn’t die due to “natural selection” but due to discrimination, oppression and lack of protection and promotion ? This video is damaging. Certainly not funny. Language rights are human rights”.
Couple of interesting comments. “Does a single person in this group have a child under 30 that speaks in fluid, extemporaneous Scots? If not, is that because you are discriminating against Scots speakers?” This contributor blamed the parents for not caring, “If they truly cared about Scots, they would work to pass it down. They would read Scots stories every single day to their children from birth. They would talk with them at home. They would provide them with literature and media. They would go over uncommon words and various registers of the language. But they don’t do this. They just don’t really care, and that creates a society that doesn’t really care”.
One response in an interesting (if dispiriting) discussion was “we’ve never been in the position where people actively learned Scots using a whole gamut of resources including books, knowledge of language registers and so on”.