Jack continues to explore his native language –

Last week I explored the history of the Scots language and how it relates to English, and I briefly mentioned Robert Burns.

A few weeks ago people all over the world celebrated at Burns Nights or Burns Suppers remembering his poetry and songs. He is often referred to as ‘the ploughman poet’ and he certainly worked on farms at various times. But that suggests that he was somehow less educated and lowly. However his father paid for him to be educated by a tutor and he attended schools. So he learned French, Latin and Mathematics – so not uneducated at all.

But another part of his learning was from an old woman who lived with his family and was well versed in traditional stories and folk-tales.

He had his first book of poems and songs published in Kilmarnock and headed to Edinburgh, where he became the ‘toast of the town’. This has always struck me as a parallel to Bob Dylan heading to New York and becoming the toast of that town. What’s interesting about that connection is that Bob has often said that among his favorite songs are some by Burns.

Burns was always ambitious and wanted to be recognized both in Scotland and elsewhere, so he wrote in Scots, Scots/English and in standard British English for different audiences.

Sadly he was eventually dumped by Edinburgh society and they moved on. But when he died at the age of 38 thousands of his compatriots turned up for his funeral. That, I’m sure was because they all recognized what others around the world ever since did!

When I was a kid all schools in Scotland had annual competitions for songs and poems by Burns, and I’m sure that played a big part keeping the language alive.

This time I’ve just been looking at Burns’ connections to language. Next week I’ll examine the other well known aspects of his life.

The usual weekly guest post from Wendy’s husband Jack Beck –

I’m sure I’ve covered this before, but it’s worth repeating.

I am Scottish and my natural language is Scots-English. By that I mean standard British English, but with a lot of Scots mixed in. But what is ‘Scots’? It’s a language that developed in parallel with English, but headed off on its own, rather in the same way that Scandinavian languages did, as well as Spanish versus Portuguese.

An example: ‘Ah widnae hae screivit that hid a kent ye’d hae bin affrontit.’ In English that would be ‘I wouldn’t have written that if I’d known that you’d have been offended’.

Because English and Scots have shared words pronounced differently it’s very common to see what’s often termed an ‘apologetic apostrophe’ – a’ for all or ca’ for call. It took me a while to realize just how insulting that term was and I never do that anymore. Never apologize for your indigenous speech.

Following the publication of the King James Bible and its adoption by the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, the language became spoken rather than written and different versions evolved in different areas. At the same time children were ‘encouraged’ to speak ‘proper’ English and often punished for speaking Scots.

However, all is not lost. Scotland’s National poet Robert Burns wrote in Scots and his popularity kept the language going and then the publication of Lorimer’s New Testament in Scots kept the flame alive. More recently Matthew Fitt and others began writing and publishing children’s’ books in the language.

Finally, like many others, my language has been nurtured by my involvement in traditional Scots songs and the current champions of the leid are also from the same background. They are pushing the Scottish Government to recognize and support Scots to the same extent as they do the other indigenous language – Gaelic.