Is Scots really a language? Surely it’s just the way Scottish people pronounce (or mis-pronounce) English?
These are among the most frequently asked questions that the Scots Language Coordinators have encountered since beginning their secondments. How would you answer these questions – and can you identify any influences on your opinion?
Something that might give you some food for thought on this is the recently published Glasgow University research on the changing sounds of Glaswegian speech. Called Sounds of the City, this project has studied sound changes from the early 20th century to the present day. If you are familair with Glaswegian speech patterns it will be interesting to see if you agree with their findings (I’m not convinced, for example, about their arguments for ‘th’ being replaced with ‘f’ as I often hear ‘h’ being used for ‘hink’ and ‘hingmy’). Have a read – and let me know whit ye hink on the Glow Scots Blether at http://bit.ly/scotsblether
Join us for a lively Scots language poetry reading session with poet Stuart Paterson on Thursday 5th March at 1.30pm.
Scots poet Stuart Paterson will be joining us live in the Glow TV Studio to read you some rhymes for bairns. Find out what makes him ‘squeamish’, where ‘The Tobermory Dodo’ went to and what he thinks about the ‘Houlit’ Join in and learn new Scots words or add even more to your vocabulary and learn some great new poems.
Register to take part in Glow TV – Scots Language Poetry with Stuart Paterson
Scots language is being used and taught increasingly in schools as a way of enhancing literacy skills and learning across the curriculum. A good example of this can be found at Sanquhar Primary School in Dumfries and Galloway where Scots is used across the school and throughout the year as appropriate: it is not just for Burns Night!
On Monday 26th January ITV Border ran a very positive feature on the work which is going on there on its magazine programme Border Life. One of Education Scotland’s four Scots Language Co-ordinators, Diane Anderson, was there to see how Scots is benefitting the learning and teaching in the school for herself.
You can watch the programme by visiting http://stv.com/border and clicking on the “Watch Border Life” tile.
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