According to unionist journalist Stephen Daisley, “Children should be learning real languages in school — not slang English”
The text of the Daily Mail piece (4 Sept 2017) in response to the Scots Language in Curriculum for Excellence report.
The Nattering classes, those pro-SNP culture warriors who dominate Scottish public life, are heralding a report on the teaching of Scots in schools.
‘There is clear evidence,’ the paper decrees, ‘to confirm the educational benefits of including Scots in Curriculum for Excellence.’ Mebbes aye, mebbes naw.
This ‘research’ was carried out by a single ‘Scots language practitioner’ and involved sitting in on lessons in six schools. The final report runs to a robust 11 pages. In one school, ‘young people were translating newspaper articles, originally written in English, into Scots’. Other than putting them in good stead for a column in the National, what is the point of this?
The advantages of bilingualism are well-known. That’s why resources should be spent on useful tongues such as Mandarin or Spanish instead of teaching children English with a Glaswegian accent and calling it a modern language.
‘Parlez-vous Rab C Nesbitt?’ is unlikely to come up in a job interview.
Not surprisingly he was taken to task on Twitter.
Yer Da
The tragic limits to cultural self-loathing, or, social media meets monolingualism… *We really need your support to develop though and we’d like to ask you to support us by donating to…
Wee Ginger Dug had his own take.
Looking under the bonnet of language
Who needs linguists eh? Who needs to bother with all the bother of the academic study of language when we have the wit and wisdom of Stephen Daisley and his continuing crusade to deny the existence of the Scots language. It’s not a “real language” according to the erudite Daisley, it’s merely “slang English”.