Following the recent Stephen Daisley (STV) and Graham Grant (Daily Mail) attacks on Scots as a language, Michael Hance, the Director of the Scots Language Centre responds.
This country is one of the most interesting, lively and exciting linguistic spaces in Europe. We have a thrilling range of language forms. In every street, every train, every boring old supermarket you can encounter a symphony of voices and accents. Wonderful voices replete with the cadences and words of our long language history. Words and expressions that would have been used and understood by those who preceded us centuries since. Scots jumbles alongside the arresting accents and idiosyncratic grammar of Scottish Standard English. Many of our place names reveal the Gaelic and Brythonic past and in the islands Gaelic and Scandinavian influenced Scots live on. How wonderful it all is and what a splendid linguistic space we are privileged to inhabit. It’s something that makes us unique and special and, really, what could be wrong with that?
It appears some people for political reasons don’t want Scotland to be unique and special at all.