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Johnstone's View 1st
February 2008
 Scotland's
culture and history is a complex thing at the best of
times. For those who have come to Scotland to live and
work, it must be doubly difficult to understand some of
the interactions which have evolved over the centuries.
Even I, born and bred in the Mearns, have always found it
difficult to understand the politics surrounding the Gaelic
language for example. All that taxpayers money supporting
Gaelic education and broadcasting while I, brought up as a
Scots speaker, appear to fall outside that particular loop.
I still believe however, that the Scots language is one of
the most impressive jewels in Scotland's cultural crown.
And so I come to the subject of Robert
Burns, a man with his roots very defiantly in the soil of
the Mearns where his grandfather farmed and his father was
born in the parish of Glenbervie, with many of his relatives
buried in the old churchyard there. Certainly the culture
that spawned the talented poet was Ayrshire dominated but
our claims to a local connection with the bard are something
we should rightly take pride in. Burns himself always
sought to represent the whole of Scottish culture and
history, except perhaps the Gaelic bit.
Last week was the height of the Burns Supper
season and the Scottish Parliament held its event, for
members and staff, on Wednesday evening. I was delighted
once again to ‘Address the Haggis’ and presiding officer
Alex Fergusson toasted the ‘Immortal Memory’.
It’s at this time of year we realise how
important the Scots language is and what a grave danger we
face if it is lost. Here in this county we can also claim
connection to another great writer in the Scots language,
Lewis Grassic Gibbon whose work has contributed massively to
the perception of Scots as a literary language. So what
would happen to the massive body of Scots literature if it
ceased to exist as a spoken language? We would still have
the books certainly, but what appears on the page is only a
fraction of what is contained in the spoken word. The
language, with its rhythms and its grammatical
peculiarities, lends itself to poetry like no other, so much
so that even straight prose sounds like poetry when read
aloud by a native speaker.
So what is this language that is the
second-class citizen when it comes to government support?
Some say it is not a language at all. Some accept that it
is different and then make the mistake of believing that the
clumsy, inarticulate version of English, which prevails in
our Scottish inner cities, is the Scots language. No, it is
most defiantly not.
The Scots language may be a cousin of
English, sharing much of its Northern European Germanic
roots but it has existed over the centuries in a quite pure
and separate form. It survived the industrial revolution to
be the spoken language of our factories, our shipyards and
our urbanised communities but like our industry, it has
become a victim of globalisation with our young people now
as likely to adopt the speech patterns from an American
sit-com or an Australian soap opera.
By the time I had become aware of the level
of threat, the language, in its purest form, had become
isolated in Scotland's fishing and farming communities. Now
they too are suffering the cultural upheaval which economic
change can propagate. In the berry-fields of Angus or the
fish processing factories of Aberdeenshire, the everyday
language is now more likely to be Polish.
So is government likely to be the saviour of
the Scots tongue? I would think it extremely unlikely. No
Scots language television station or Scots medium education
is planned, nor should they be. The supply of immigrant
labour has become essential to a whole range of Scottish
businesses and the flow of people can only increase in years
to come. As a true unionist, I believe that Scotland should
look to the future, not retreat into its past but I do worry
about what we might loose along the way.
Culture should always be the property of the
people rather than the state and the real saviour of the
language must also be the people. We must take more pride
in our cultural heritage and especially our literary
tradition. We must ensure that Scots literature remains
prominent in our schools and we must promote the use of
Scots in poetry and song wherever we can and where better
than a Burns Supper to start the great fight back. Fair fa’
yer honest sonsie face……………….
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