Category Archives: Scotland

More and Better Languages

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My last few posts have been about the Scots language, so I’ll finish the series with thoughts about being a Scots speaker in the US.

I’ll start by saying I’m a fairly regular ‘code switcher’. I can easily move between speaking Scots, Scots English, British English and American English.

Here in Appalachia there’s a surprising amount of Scots words, phrases and pronunciation. It came with the early settlers who spoke ‘Ulster Scots’ and whose parents had moved to the North of Ireland from south Scotland.

I can always tell when I’m speaking to someone who doesn’t understand me by the expression on their face and that’s when I have to shift my code shifting gear up a notch.

As a child I was encouraged by teachers to drop my natural language and speak ‘properly’. The same happens here in Appalachia. Yet I eventually became multi-lingual and learned that languages can be used as appropriate to the situation. This happens all over the world and I’m disappointed that I had to hang on to my language against the odds. What helped me was an early interest in Scots songs and ballads which has continued throughout my life and actually broadened and extended my vocabulary and fluency.

I’m pleased to say that there’s now a very successful program of after school clubs here in Appalachia (Junior Appalachian Musicians – JAM)  that teaches the music and songs of the region to kids, and I’m sure that will have a similarly good outcome.

It don’t make no never mind to me/ ye dinnae hiv tae tak tent/ You don’t have to pay any attention.

See? It’s easy.

Last Bad Language

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Jack continues with a final look at Burns and Language –

Robert Burns as previously explained was a complex character, and we tend to see him from a modern point of view. He died aged 38 which isn’t terribly unusual for the 1700s, plus his medical treatment was completely inappropriate for what he likely suffered from (rheumatoid arthritis).

During his brief life he gained quite a reputation beyond his songs and poems. He was definitely a romantic and fathered a number of children by different women and his wife Jean Armour took on some of them. This was also not unusual then. However many of his songs show a real empathy for the situation of women in general, and despite contemplating taking a job on a plantation in Jamaica he also wrote a great song from the point of view of a newly arrived slave in Virginia. Yes – complicated!

He wrote songs and poems in support of the French and American revolutions, but ended up working for the British government as a customs officer. This led to his reputation as a drinker –

Back then if you apprehended a boat smuggling alcohol and you were in charge you could keep a share of the cargo, so it’s hardly surprising –

I think despite all his human failings he is loved and respected for a number of reasons:

  • He epitomized humanity including its failings.
  • He demonstrated empathy for all living things – women, slaves – mice and men.
  • His writings influenced important folk in Russia and in America during their significant growing pains.
  • He made people around the world curious about the Scots language and helped keep it alive.
  • He kept the notion of ‘Scottishness’ alive when it was in great danger of being subsumed into Englishness or even Britishness.
  • Almost everyone knows books and movies that borrow his words – ‘Of Mice and Men’, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ etc.
  • Every year at midnight on December 31st all around the world people of all countries sing the song he collected and added to.