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Ulster Scots or Scots in Ulster?Author(s): Gavin FalconerSource: Fortnight, No. 424 (Apr., 2004), p. 12Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25561143 .

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Fortnight APRIL 2004 |

Gav,in Falconer cultt- re

ULSTER SCOTS OR SCOTS IN ULSTER? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines cant as 'language peculiar to a class, profession, sect, etc.'. In the English of Ireland, two distinct examples are used by Travellers. Scotland has another form of Traveller cant, the beautiful result of loanwords from half a dozen languages picked up on the journeys of centuries.

Another, less aesthetic, form of Scots-based cant can be seen on the website of the Ulster-Scots Agency. If there is a class, profession or sect behind that, it is those who maintain that Ulster Scots is an independent language.

Sceptics who write off Scots as English are missing a trick, not least because

Northern Ireland activists mix linguistics and politics in far more obvious ways. Scots has elements of both language and dialect, and pressing for a binary judgment is like asking whether grey is best described as black or white, with little possibility of winning the argument either way. There are some facts on which nearly all academics

will agree, however: * Before 1560, Scots was either a language

separate from English or on a trajectory to become one.

* After the introduction of an English Bible in 1560 and the Union of the Crowns in 1603, that trajectory was reversed.

* Though now functioning as a dialect, with elaboration and codification Scots could easily attain language status.

* Ulster Scots is part of the same linguistic system as Scots in Scotland.

The charge of Ulster Scots being "a DIY language for Orangemen" has a grain of truth. In the effort to gain language status,

Ulster Scots campaigners, mainly from the unionist side of the political spectrum, adopted an anachronistic combination of

mutually irreconcilable orthographies to write a language which fused ancient Scots vocabulary with modern Hiberno-English word order and outright invention. Though the result differed from any attested form of Scots, whether in Scotland or Ulster, its use was perhaps understandable in the circumstances.

OBFUSCATION Why the obfuscation continued after Scots

in Scotland and Ulster was declared a

language by the cross-border bodies

legislation, however, is difficult to fathom. Since promotion of Scots as a language had been conceded, it would have been sensible to represent it in a form accessible to

speakers and the many people who enjoy Scots language poetry and song. One reason that did not happen was that

Northern Ireland activists wanted Ulster Scots recognised as an independent language, despite its differing from Scots in

Scotland only in the same way as Hiberno English differs from English in England - only less so. Since perhaps 95% of Scots speakers are in Scotland, such a declaration, if supported by the adoption of the activists' cipher as a written standard,

would also reduce the utility and survival chances of Ulster Scots by the same figure, conceivably forcing Scots speakers in Ulster to resort to English to write to people in their ancestors' village in Scotland.

The reasons for wanting a split, in the face of both linguistics and basic unionist sentiment, can only be guessed at. They

may include a reluctance to accept interference from Britain, a feeling that Scottish activists are too nationalist, a pragmatic inkling that funding is more likely if separate from Scotland, where the issue is not so politically charged, and, I suspect, a rather idiosyncratic interpretation of the Old Testament, another famous case of one people being taken out of another.

What is astonishing is that civil servants have apparently accepted the activists' demands, choosing, when publicly challenged, no longer to deny their interpretation that it recognised Ulster Scots as a language separate from Scots in Scotland under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. If true, that happened without widespread consultation with ordinary speakers, who call their language "Scots" or "Scotch", or academics, who find the idea of Ulster Scots being a language risible. As the cross border bodies legislation passed in parallel by the UK and Ireland has the status of an international treaty, changing tack on such a fundamental point also constitutes a serious breach of trust with the Irish

Government, which defines Scots in Ulster only as "a variety of the Scots language" -

perhaps even an illegal breach. Indeed, declaring Ulster Scots in Northern Ireland separate from Scots in Scotland means that

Donegal and Scotland speak the same language while Antrim is separate from both.

ADVERTISEMENTS There is also the question of whether job advertisements requiring knowledge of "the Ulster-Scots language" will survive a legal review on equality grounds, since they imply that the 95% of Scots speakers in

Scotland - from the same state and

speaking the same language - need not

apply because their accent does not fit. One matter not in doubt is that the last

board of the Ulster-Scots Agency acted in contravention of the statutory instrument which set it up, referring to Ulster Scots as a language on numerous occasions on the agency website, including in its mission statement, with copious amounts of the

gibberish described above to prove it. Given that spending money in such a way is as likely to kill Ulster Scots as save it, one

wonders how that could stand up to scrutiny from the Public Accounts

Committee. Of course, the individuals concerned cannot be blamed for everything. Uniquely among cross-border bodies, all the Northern members, then as now, are not merely from one tradition but sponsored by one party, since the SDLP nominated only to the Irish side of the language body. Treating the agency as separate from Foras na Gaeilge, on the other hand, would ensure that both Scots and Irish were seen as cross-community resources and that their promotion drew on the talents of all.

It remains to be seen what will become of Scots in Ulster. Action now could see it move away from the monstrous unicum of the present, an object of head-shaking and derision. On the other hand, our tongue could simply go on being subject to the cheap thrills of further abuse and indignity - another kittens' wedding from a cabinet of curiosities called Ulster.

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