Gillespie is generally sympathetic to Scots but here he expresses a widely held belief that the Scots element of Scottish vernacular has eroded as to be possibly unsalvageable. While this type of ‘discourse of death’ has been around for a century at least, it is true that the baseline knowledge of Scots is now weak in many areas of the country. However experience has demonstrated with a relatively light touch intervention, ‘ingrained’ negative attitudes may be changed, linguistic awareness heightened, and abilities strengthened.

Tryin tae fin oot whit this means, “The recognition for Ulster Scots will also extend to giving it status as a National Minority under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities“.

Seems to be a dialect study of Scots words.

Here at the University of Glasgow, we’ve been working on a new resource for high schools – Speak for Yersel – which maps the use of Scots across Scotland.