CHAPTER EIGHT

Language – Many Mither Tongues

TAVISH SCOTT MSP, his advisor Andy Myles and I were standing in the chalky sunlight of a corridor in Daliburgh School on South Uist, 15 miles from the end of the Outer Hebridean island chain. It was the venue for Ceolas – Gaeldom’s annual knees-up with the Canadians of Cape Breton – and we were preparing to enter Angus Peter Campbell’s advanced Gaelic class. It was 2006 and Tavish (then Scottish Transport Minister) was keen to show he took Hebridean culture seriously through this fleeting immersion in the Gaelic language. And just as keen to rebut suggestions the (then) Executive was anti-cyclist by chumming me on the bike for 20 miles as part of a Radio Scotland series I was recording.1

‘So before we go in, what’s the festival and who is Angus?’

Tavish oriented himself impressively before every meeting or chat.

‘Angus Peter – don’t shorten it – is probably the spikiest poet in Gaeldom and the festival is a Hebridean/Canadian cultural love-in swapping songs, arguing about piping methods, drinking, and doing most of it in Gaelic…’

‘Right. How do I say hello in Gaelic?’

‘Ciamar a tha sibh (kimera ha sheeve). Only don’t say sibh to Angus Peter. It’s like vous in French or sie in German – it implies age and respect and he doesn’t like it.’

‘What?’

‘Try cimara tha thu (kimera ha oo). It’s more familiar.’

‘What?’

We knocked and went in. From the second that familiar hush descended – ten Gaels silenced by the mere presence of three English speakers – I knew we were dead meat.

Angus Peter had been kept waiting too long, the suspension of fluent Gaelic conversation was too irritating and being recorded too stifling to be tolerated for very long. Having said all that, I was still hoping for a little forbearance to stuff some words of Gaelic into an important islander’s head. It struck me then that without intending it, Gaels and Scots seem to effortlessly antagonise one another.

Try suggesting to a room of Scots struggling for belated, formal acceptance of their own ‘Mither Tongue’ that their forebears probably spoke Gaelic and that names like Scotstoun are proof – Scots speaking towns adrift in a sea of Gaelic – suggest it and stand well back. Some folk are fascinated, others mightily irritated by the sheer presumption of a minority linguistic community that will not learn its place. ‘Who dura who dura helicopter – Gaelic isn’t even a proper language,’ goes the familiar taunt.

In a calmer mood, any rational person will concede helicopter is a foreign word in English too – but somehow the occasional Greek borrowing doesn’t undermine the validity of the ‘world language’. Perhaps the real difficulty is that Gaelic sentences bear absolutely no resemblance to anything the average Scot can understand. Scotland’s ‘national’ greeting is famously ceud mìle fàilte – a hundred thousand welcomes. But few Scots can pronounce it with confidence. Complex rules also mean words like Mhairi are pronounced with a ‘v’ in certain circumstances to sound like Vairi. So without a grounding in Gaelic grammar, the average Scot cannot confidently pronounce a common girls’ name either. What does a majority population do when it tries to use a minority language and is instantly corrected? I’ll tell you what it does. It doesn’t like it. This is not spite – it’s human nature. I wonder how many Gaels would respond well to the notion that everything culturally significant originates in a language they cannot understand without effectively going back to school.

Of course, many have done just that – learning Gaelic at night school. I was one, until the combined effects of an overheated Perth High School, a long day and a long drive home from work in Glasgow meant I fell asleep consistently after 40 minutes – slumping (and possibly dribbling) on the next guy’s shoulder. That and a complete failure to do any of the homework meant that after nine weeks I did a Captain Oates and wandered off into the overheated corridors to stop slowing down the rest.

But during that short, steep learning curve, I did make some discoveries. Welsh, Irish and Scots Gaelic do not have words for yes and no. They simply use the verb employed by the questioner and that Gaelic language rule is present in the English.

Thus, ‘Did you go to church?’ is answered ‘I did’ or ‘I did not’ – yes and no are entirely missing. Irish comedy used to hinge on this practice, emphasis being delivered by repetition – ‘You will, you will, you will. You did, you did, you did.’

I was hugely intrigued and encouraged in my language struggle by these little discoveries – for another few weeks at least. I felt I actually had a tiny experience of Gaelic’s strange thinking – albeit secondhand through English. I could also see how Gaelic words like brog for shoe had crept to or from Scots along with briogais (pronounced breeks) for trousers. This cheered me up almost as much as learning years later that the Norwegian for cow is ku.

And yet, even in a few months, I could see that Gaelic isn’t just a bare translation of words – its vocabulary describes a different way of seeing the world. And that raises a new level of intrigue and difficulty for the learner. Take colours.

Gaelic names are applied to the spectrum in a subtly different way to English names. Gorm (blue) is the word used to describe the colour of grass but uaine also means green. Dearg (red) covers scarlet to orange. Ruadh is a reddish brown, donn is a dark brown. Liath (grey) can also cover light blue. Glas is a dark grey which also covers grey-green. It’s no wonder Gaels recommend immersion in learning centres like Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye. The language is at times so particular to the landscape of the islands, it’s hard to see how it could be learned and applied properly outside them.

But the night class experience did at least make me curious and sympathetic towards Gaelic. Usage of a language always does. When Brits go to Greece, the Greeks have the common sense, commercial savvy and confidence to let us stumble along in their language without correction, explanation, reference or historical lecture. That’s why people like the Greeks.

If Angus Peter Campbell could encourage repetition of a few similarly basic Gaelic phrases, I reasoned, an important mind might warm towards Gaelic as well. So despite the growing tension in Angus Peter’s Daliburgh classroom, I tried to coax a few beginner’s words from him to repeat and ram home during the course of the bike ride and radio broadcasts. He made a valiant attempt. Madainn mhath [matin vah] is simple enough – it sounds like the French word for morning, matin. Feasgar math [fesker ma] sounds like the day is starting to fester – which by the afternoon it generally is. Oidhche mhath [oyche va] is the one we have all heard Gaels use for goodnight– and the three give Scots a confident trio of greetings.

But Angus Peter – the dangerously honest soul that he is – simply could not pretend that these Anglophone greetings had any home in his Gaelic head.

I wouldn’t say to my wife ‘good morning’ in Gaelic. I would say something like ‘there you are – how are you feeling today’ – and that isn’t madainn mhath. This isn’t real Gaelic. This is English Gaelic. Your ancestors have taken the words from our mouths. Now you are taking the time from our lives. Get out.

I was actually impressed by Angus Peter’s single-mindedness, unbiddable bluntness and complete lack of interest in our stumbling efforts at token Gaelic. But then, as one Gaelic proverb puts it, ‘if you want to be praised, die.’

Five minutes later we weren’t exactly dead, but out on our ears. Told kindly but firmly that Gaelic speakers had so little time together, we shouldn’t waste theirs with half-hearted learning efforts. Even if ‘we’ did include a government minister.

Back in the corridor, Tavish was completely unruffled and happily practised the Gaelic words for ferry, plane and bus. ‘John Farquhar Munro will be impressed.’2

It wasn’t the gentlest immersion into Gaelic, but my stranger’s curiosity about the language and culture grew during the next two weeks ‘in the saddle’.

Take names, for example. I was called Lesley after family pressure prompted my parents to go wild and name their firstborn after the winner of a local Beautiful Baby competition. A wee boy won. In Gaelic nothing is that random.

Some names are descriptive, like Catriona Ruadh (red-haired Catherine); patronymic like Màiri Sheumais (James’s Mary or Mary of James); occupational like Dòmhnall Cìobair (Donald the Shepherd) occupational and patronymic, like Màiri a Ghoba (Mary of the Blacksmith); geographic like Ràghnall a Bhràighe (Ronald of/from Braes); origin-based like Ruairidh Leòdhasach (Roderick of Lewis), or the whole shebang like Calum Dubh a Chlachain (Black haired Calum from Clachan).

Gaels have different ways of conceptualising objects as well. Many still talk about a trouser and a scissor in English because the objects in Gaelic are not thought of as plural. The Scots practice of pronouncing the word film more like ‘filum’ is because of a Gaelic rule which commonly inserts a vowel between certain consonants (hence the otherwise baffling pronunciation of BBC Al(a)ba and Ardnamur(a)chan). There’s a Gaelic origin, too, for the ‘continuing present’ in phrases like ‘are you wanting your tea?’ or ‘is he needing to go?’ rather than the more abrupt ‘do you want tea?’ and ‘does he need to go?’

Gaelic has probably also given Glaswegians the glottal stop, which results in words like Paterson being pronounced Pa-erson. In Gaelic, consonants like ‘g’, ‘m’ and ‘t’ are often silent. Thus the word for father, athair is pronounced ‘aher’ – as if no ‘t’ was present.

Such a wheen of grammatical rules imported from one language into another is technically called ‘macaronic.’ So perhaps Gaelic heritage explains the perceived grammatical ‘mistakes’ of modern working-class Glaswegians. And perhaps that’s a matter of considerable social importance. Tommy Sheridan’s political career may be over but his insistence on not allowing his speech to be ‘corrected’ for the official Holyrood record was a small victory for vast numbers of (publicly) silenced Glaswegians. How much more confidence might West Coast Scots speakers have if academic research had clearly established a formal link between Gaelic grammar and Glasgow patter? And who knows, in some obscure journal, perhaps it has.

In any case, Gaelic has long had its own separate battle to fight.

Gaels endured shocking treatment at the hands of Scots-speaking monarchs like King James VI. Official documents during his reign described Highlanders as ‘void of the knawledge and feir of God’ and prone to ‘all kynd of barbarous and bestile cruelties’. The Gaelic language, spoken fluently by James IV, became known in the time of James VI as ‘Erse’ or Irish, implying it was foreign in nature. The Scottish Parliament decided it had become a principal cause of the Highlanders’ stubborn refusal to be assimilated into the Lowland Scottish state and tried to abolish it.

In 1598 James VI authorised the ‘Gentleman Adventurers of Fife’ to civilise the ‘most barbarous Isle of Lewis… not by agreement but by extirpation of thame’. The Gentlemen were sent packing at first but finally prevailed in 1607. Two years later the Statutes of Iona were enacted, banning bards and other bearers of traditional culture, forcing clan chiefs to send their heirs to Lowland Scotland for education in English-speaking Protestant schools and providing support for Protestant ministers in Highland Parishes. So began a process ‘specifically aimed at the extirpation of the Gaelic language, the destruction of its traditional culture and the suppression of its bearers.’3

The Hanoverian clampdown after Culloden – banning Gaelic, wearing tartan and clan association – in many ways just tried to finish what Lowland Scots had already begun.

In his Hebridean tour of 1773, Dr Johnson remarked:

The clans retain little now of their original character… of what they had before the conquest of their country there remain only their language and their poverty. Their language is attacked on every side.4

Despite opinion polls demonstrating a steady 70–80 per cent support for Gaelic, a noisy minority still begrudges every penny spent. In a way it’s not surprising some ‘modern’ Scots are in two minds about the Gaels. If they could shear off the sorrow, sentimentality and nostalgia that has beset their society for generations, the Gaels could yet re-emerge as Scotland’s radicals – grasping that crown from their jumped up descendants, the Glaswegians. But radical is not how most Scots see the Gaels. Nor do they respect the Gaels stamina, feel guilt about their betrayal, or shame about their repression. The thing Scots identify most strongly about the Gaels is their sense of superiority.

Put bluntly, the values Gaels have espoused for centuries make the Scots wrong. Wrong to grab the deal from England 300 years ago. Wrong to put the removal of small comforts before ornamentation of the mind.5 Wrong to become materialist, wrong to become secular, wrong to become big, wrong to question the primacy of family and wrong to become remote from nature and spiritual lives.

Gaels know they should have led Scotland in a different direction (whether it would have been the ‘right’ direction is of course debatable.) But they couldn’t do it. And the great fear – the elephant in the room – is that in failing to lead with old values or develop new ones, Gaelic culture has collapsed inwards to stifle natives and deter incomers.

All this complex heritage leans heavily on young ‘tradition bearers’. Amazingly though, some have proved more than equal to the daunting task.

Mòd winning singer Arthur Cormack was the driving force behind the grassroots Fèisean movement which kicked off on Barra in 1981. Now the week-long, local volunteer-led festivals teach traditional instruments to local children through the medium of Gaelic all year round in 45 parts of Scotland. Indeed some fèisean like Aberdeen lie well beyond the conventional Gàdhealtachd. The Blas Music Festival across the Highland and Islands every September is also expanding, the traditional Gaelic Mòd with its more formal structures is still popular and BBC Alba has added a TV channel to the pivotal BBC Radio nan Gàidheal, which was set up in 1985 through the happy coincidence of Gaelic-taught Alasdair Milne as Director General of the BBC and Neil Fraser as head of Gaelic and then of Radio Scotland.

Indeed, in his obituary after Milne’s recent death, that other influential Gaelic-learner Brian Wilson – the founder of the bilingual West Highland Free Press, former mp and Minister for Gaelic – paid this tribute to Milne’s stubborn support for the Gaelic language and culture:

Alasdair Milne could have lived a very comfortable life within the BBC and done none of this. Indeed, when the knives were out for him in the 1980s, his commitments to Gaelic and piping were sneered at by those who wished to patronise him and portray a feckless misfit in the job of Director General. There was never the slightest chance of Milne being deterred by such prejudices. He not only had a fine sense of his own worth but the values and friendships associated with his cultural affinities represented a treasured dimension in his life. Away from the power struggles of the BBC, he loved the camaraderie of his sojourns to the West Highlands and Islands.6

It seems fitting that it took a Madras-born Scot to understand Britishness as something larger than Englishness writ large.

But Milne paid the price for his attempt to house the many different cultures and languages of a larger conception of Britishness within the one British Broadcasting Corporation – ‘enjoying the melancholy distinction of being the first Director General of the BBC to be dismissed from office’, and therefore the first not to receive a knighthood. It may be stretching the point somewhat, but more than a century earlier the same fate befell the Orcadian John Rae – the only notable Arctic explorer not to receive a knighthood. He was acknowledged by Canadians as the man who found the final link in the North-West passage during a search for the remains of Sir John Franklin’s expedition in 1845 but failed to master the language of diplomatic half-truths and straightforwardly reported evidence of cannibalism in the wreckage. Rae was effectively ostracised from horrified London society and blackballed by the English Establishment.7

This may seem to have little to do with the current state of Scots Gaelic – 65,000 speakers and dwindling.

But speakers of any tongue, like members of any cultural minority, quickly learn the ways of advancement and deter or encourage their children accordingly. Alasdair Milne was sufficiently thrawn to withstand monoglots, Establishment voices and little Englanders for a while, but many Gaelic speaking parents on the islands are less self-assured. So ironically, Glasgow is building a second Gaelic school, as research demonstrates better overall outcomes for bilingual children, while the Western Isles itself has Gaelic streams in almost all schools but not one single school that teaches all subjects through the medium of Gaelic. It’s a Catch 22 situation. Gaelic’s unequal chances of survival motivate language activists and doubting parents in almost equal measure.

The activists know any successful language needs the same ‘surround sound’ that English enjoys – popular use in the playground, school shop, walking home, arguing, fighting, chatting up and texting. But beyond the school gates, Gaelic isn’t a popular language within the communities young people frequent – the home, the internet, the secondary school and the TV.

Does that make Gaelic a ‘loser language’?

Well there isn’t much of a queue to have primary school children taught in Chinese languages instead – even though fluent speakers can probably expect jobs for life.

In fact, Gaelic is another language where fluency almost guarantees a good job in Scotland. Fluent graduates are in great demand in the media – so sought after that few trickle beyond the relatively high pay and bright lights of broadcasting, to the education system that is crying out for their specialist expertise.

And there’s the rub.

A few fluent Gaels have great scarcity value, and are unlikely to opt for teaching. But if they shun teaching, the language will become so marginal their own prestige jobs will dry up or appear economically unjustifiable.

And yet as long as Gaelic medium remains such a minority interest, objecting parents can’t be blamed for feeling wary. After all, if immersion in a second language was such a great educational opportunity, why wouldn’t the Scottish Government order compulsory immersion in primary schools everywhere? And of course Gaelic is not an easy language to master so non-speakers project this difficulty onto small, child-sized minds and wonder if the effort of learning Gaelic and English will simply exhaust them for all the other tough learning work that lies ahead.

These are all understandable concerns. But they have no grounding in fact.

Children under six can learn up to three languages easily. And their improved language skills make them better general communicators. Even boys. The Welsh have proved it.

Roughly a quarter of Welsh kids are in Welsh-medium schools learning everything from English to Maths and cookery in the Welsh language. In Gwynedd, 90 per cent of children are in Welsh medium primaries and incoming children are offered intensive Welsh courses at special centres before joining in local Welsh schools. In (generally) English speaking Rhondda, 40 per cent of kids are in Welsh primaries – almost all have non-Welsh speaking parents.

Their motives are simple. Parents know the Welsh schools get better results, view the language as an important asset for children in a competitive job market and buy the educationists’ line that learning two languages improves almost every aspect of linguistic ability. The fact Welsh medium schools also tend to possess enthusiastic teachers and a self-selecting group of parents who make sure the little darlings do their homework is icing on the Welsh cake.

Scots Gaelic today is where the Welsh were 40 years ago. A decade of rebellious activism by the Welsh Language Society brought the cash and control to establish Welsh medium education. And what they’ve achieved since then is astonishing.

In 2001, 184,000 kids aged 3–15 spoke Welsh – just 7,000 spoke Gaelic. Which puts Welsh well above language-group reproduction levels – and Gaelic well below.

Scotland’s Gaels must fight for their right to party – but be careful lest the sense of injustice that motivates them manages to alienate everyone else. Even in Wales, fluency peters out fast – at gcse and A level only six per cent and five per cent of students are fluent in Welsh. The figure drops to 1.6 per cent at university. In short, Welsh for Welsh speakers is a language more like French or German – not the native tongue of the hearth, or the heart. The biggest selling Welsh language book in 2007 shifted only 5,000 copies. Welsh, like Gaelic, will probably not survive the century because, according to Welsh veteran, Geraint H. Jenkins, ‘a language network is not a community. And a language which is not a community language will die’.

But then, we all die. It’s not a reason to rule out learning the big, beautiful, frustrating thing called Gaelic.

So something else is holding Gaelic back – maybe it’s best explained by a closer keek at its country cousin, Scots.

Anyone looking at the vast number of crabbit, sleekit, dreich and carnaptious emblazoned coffee cups and tea towels would think Scots must be in rude health. Likewise Burns Suppers celebrating drouthy neebors, wee sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beasties and auld lang syne. Those of us who live outside cities or in working-class urban communities can testify Scots is alive and kicking. But it’s rarely used by anyone in positions of authority – from newsreaders to politicians or judges. Indeed certain court authorities have ruled that use of the Scots word ‘aye’ is a form of contempt for the whole legal system.8

Compared to the levels of Scots spoken in the 18th century, the language is in decline. Nonetheless a 2009 survey conducted for the Scottish Government found 85 per cent of people living in Scotland think they speak Scots, 86 per cent think Scots is important for local identity and Scottish culture, 69 per cent use Scots when socialising with friends, 63 per cent when home with the family but only 31 per cent use it ‘out and about’ and just 25 per cent at work.9

The good news from this survey is that Scots is still a language of the hearth and the playground. The bad news is that Scots speakers (like Gaels) stop using the Mither Tongue when non-speakers might be present. That’s a puzzle. If the survey figures are correct, almost everyone speaks Scots. So why the self-censorship?

You can (almost) see why Gaels jump out of their own language when a non-speaker is present. Non-Gaels generally cannot understand a single word of Gaelic. Not so with Scots. And yet speakers evidently abandon Scots in public. If a whopping 85 per cent of Scots really do speak Scots, why haud back?

Perhaps it’s feared the 15 per cent non-speakers constitute a powerful minority – English-speaking ‘managers’ whose opinions and perceptions of being snubbed can make or break employment prospects just as surely as they did in the days of John Rae.

Evidently some Scots – like some Gaels – fear their language is perceived as a ‘loser’ language by the winners and have internalised those values. But most of our European neighbours speak several languages and dialects and simply switch between them as appropriate. Why is Scots never deemed appropriate in public?

The belief that one Scots dialect is incomprehensible to others is sometimes cited – but that also fails to ring true. Most Scots speakers understand one another perfectly well, savour local variations on the general theme and revel in exchanging vocabulary.

Perhaps occasional speakers fear they are not Scots enough, not the ‘real deal’ amongst those who speak Scots as an involuntary default. I know from living in North Fife that the fairmers, former lino workers, fishermen, quarry workers and aipple growers who populate the toons of the Tay Estuary do mair than slot pithy Scots words into English – they use Scots as their constant Mither Tongue.

They divide fowk (not people) intae lassies and laddies, tak their time with yin anither, coont the beasts and kye (not cattle) and are hugely entertained when speakers fae furth o the parish roll in and yaise their ain tongues.

By contrast, I speak Scots as I speak German – selectively. I generally don’t use either until the need arises and the situation seems right – ‘real’ Scots speakers don’t pick and choose because they can’t.

So are we all really in the same linguistic boat? Or do ‘part-time’ speakers of a ‘Step-Mither tongue’ feel inauthentic the minute they are up against the real McCoy?

Is watching Gary Tank Commander enough to claim ‘I understand Scots’– or is explaining ‘Tam O’ Shanter’ line by line a better benchmark? Is ‘gonnae no dae that’ guid Scots or bad English? Is Stanley Baxter’s Parliamo Glasgow slang? Is using aye not yes and scunnered not disgusted enough to qualify – and does reading the above prove that you read and I write Scots?

Hardly.

Without agreement on its vital signs, it’s no wonder there’s disagreement about the current health of Scots.

Billy Kay’s book The Mither Tongue is a comprehensive account of Scots and its publication was a landmark moment for the Scots language. Scots writer James Robertson said:

Never before had (Scots speakers) been told, on the BBC no less, that what they spoke – far from being ‘the language of the gutter’ or debased English – had an 800-year pedigree, two multi-volume dictionaries describing it, a vast and glorious literature, and a whole set of dialects of its own. This was a life-affirming, emotionally and intellectually liberating message, and it took courage and conviction to be the messenger.

In 2010 Billy Kay produced a radio programme, The Bonnie Broukit Bairn, to accompany a report on the Scots language for the Scottish Government. Huv a shufty. Even for native speakers, the Scots part of this text takes concentration:

The Bonnie Broukit Bairn spiers whit the future hauds for the mither tongue o ower a million an a hauf Scots fowk in the 21st centurie, fowk like you that micht speak the leid ilkae day, but hae nae kennin o ocht belangin the braw leiterature or gowden history o the langage. I wad be gleg tae haud forrit scrievin tae ye in Scots, but jalouse that maist o ye wad finnd it a sair chave tae follae whit I am threapin on aboot, as gey few Scots are leiterate in their ain leid... sae like Chris Guthrie in Sunset Song I’ll gae ower tae English... you wanted the words they’d known and used, forgotten in the far-off youngness of their lives, Scots words to tell to your heart, how they wrung it and held it, the toil of their days and unendingly their fight. And the next minute that passed from you, you were English, back to the English words so sharp and clean and true – for a while, for a while, till they slid so smooth from your throat you knew they could never say anything that was worth the saying at all.10

Without understanding every word many of us can say amen to the sentiment.

So if 85 per cent of people think they speak Scots, and if anthologies contain such a wealth of material, why did the census in 2011 need to link to an external website so Scots could hear samples of genuine speakers? A census question on ‘good health’ was also included but needed no further explanation. And yet the precise nature of ‘good health’ is as subjective as the definition of ‘Scots’.11

Nor would the census administrators define what they counted as fluency – did they mean Scots lite, Braid Scots or baith thegither? Mebbes aye – mebbes naw.

Few will recall what Cathy Jamieson was talking about when she uttered that memorable Scots phrase, but it caused instant hilarity in the Holyrood Chamber and beyond. After which everyone reverted to the Parliament’s usual brand of expression-free and humourless English.

And perhaps that’s precisely why Scots speakers use so little Scots language in public. Perhaps a nation wary of wearing its heart on its collective sleeve (for reasons of past persecution, snobbery and social judgement) is quite happy to keep its Mither Tongue for private use.

Scots may be consciously saving their language for the private domain – for those rare, intimate domestic moments when we do have something worth saying. Maybe English does just fine for the dry, impersonal transactions of public life while Scots stays private to safeguard use, connection, community, family and intimacy and avoid dilution.

All the efforts of Scots language campaigners haven’t much changed that reality. So what would? In theory at least, if Scotland became independent tomorrow, Scots could be taught as a language with a formal grammar and vocabulary. After all, as the saying goes, ‘a language is a dialect with an army and navy’. It’s possible to give official status to Scots if the will is there.

But is it?

The Norwegian languages are an interesting case in point.

In 1814, Norway separated from Denmark, adopted its own constitution but was immediately forced into a new union of crowns with the Swedish King. The written language, Danish, was suddenly acceptable to create distance between Norway and Sweden. What followed linguistically may sound strangely familiar to modern Scots.

The ruling class spoke Dano-Norwegian and regarded it as the cultivated language, as opposed to the common tongue of workers, craftspeople and farmers who spoke with Norwegian dialects. These were generally considered vulgar speech or a weak attempt at speaking ‘standard’ Norwegian – ignoring the fact that ‘Norwegian’ had a separate evolution from a common ancestor, Old Norse.12

Upon independence in 1905 not just one but two official Norwegian written languages were recognised – Bokmål (used by the majority today) and Nynorsk (based on a synthesis of regional dialects).

That’s confusing enough – but a century on, many Norwegians also speak local dialects which can differ from both ‘official’ Norwegian languages as much as they differ from Danish.

And yet despite such strong regional variation within Norway, no-one suggests the effort to establish two written Norwegian languages was worthless. Far, far from it. In 1913, Olaf Bull’s crime novel Mit navn er Knoph (My name is Knoph) was the first piece of Norwegian literature to be translated into Danish – underlining the fact that the independent state of Norway now also had a separate language. After that, there was no turning back in the departure from Danish, but a vigorous debate began about Norwegian – more vigorously contested than the generally agreed path towards political independence.

Eventually, to resolve the issue, Norway’s 431 municipalities were asked to decide on their main language tradition. The result was an almost even split between Bokmål (161), Nynorsk (116) and ‘neutral’ (156) – though smaller municipality population size means Nynorsk is spoken by just 12 per cent of the Norwegian people. Now, children are educated in the chosen main language of each locality until the age of 13 when they have to learn both – and cheerfully use local dialect in everyday life.13

So what Norwegians write is still different from how many Norwegians speak. And whilst a century of political independence, compulsory education and Norwegian TV have succeeded in establishing Norwegian not Danish as the lingua franca, even these powerful forces haven’t been enough to eliminate strong local dialects from everyday speech.

This demonstrates the powerful impact of locality upon language even in a buoyant, nation building new Nordic state.14 And maybe this has resonance in Scotland where (at least) three linguistic currents are jostling for state recognition (English, Scots and Gaelic) together with a minor host of dialects.

Effectively, all the languages of Scandinavia plus Scots and English are part of a larger Germanic language family as you can see from the (admittedly rather crafted) Scots sentence in Figure 18. There’s a close proximity between many Scots words and the Norse languages (mus hus, braw and quine); there’s also a similarity amongst all the Norse languages (apart from the Finns) while the Gaelic languages are as different to English as Finnish is to the rest of Scandinavia.

In the light of this, the fact that Scots is like English doesn’t completely count against it. All Germanic languages have strong similarities. The fact there are so many dialects of Scots doesn’t have to be a minus factor either. Norwegian survives with two full languages and dozens of dialects.

So what does that mean for the future of Scots in a different political context?

It’s entirely possible citizens of an independent or highly devolved Scotland might learn Scots formally in school, continue to use their own dialect privately and use a more Scottified form of English in public. As the Norwegians have demonstrated, such a variety of ‘voices’ within one language is entirely possible. So would learning Scots be worth the candle?

Languages in Northern Europe

Scots  A quine and a moose are loose aboot the hoose on a braw bricht moonlicht nicht

Norwegian  En kvinne og en mus er løs om huset på en bra klar månelys natt

Swedish  Kvinna och en mus är lost om huset på en bra och tydig månbelysta natten

Danish  En kvinde og en mus er løst omkring huset på en god lys mane lyser nat

Dutch  Een vrouw en een muis sjin los over het huis op een goede helldere maannacht

German  Eine Frau und eine Maus sind locker über das Haus auf einem guten hellen Mondacht

Finnish  Tyttö ja hiiri ovat löysät noin talo kaunis, kirkas kuutamoyönä

Scots Gaelic  Tha boireannach agus luch ma sgaoil air feadh an taighe air oidhche bhrèagha ghealaich.

Figure 18: Languages in Northern Europe compared.

Might formality kill the spontaneity and privacy which has helped Scots survive, or could a single, state-taught and widely broadcast Scots demonstrate that local accents are just that – important but hardly damaging variations on the theme.

Certainly, Radio nan Gaideal helped establish one core Gaelic tongue by letting speakers hear one another in a formal, public way on a daily basis rather than once in a blue moon. Before that it was easier for Lewis Gaels to hear minor differences with Barra Gaels and pull up the linguistic and emotional drawbridge.

One core language could emerge from regular exposure to Scots in officialdom and broadcast media. It’s possible – but not very likely.

At the turn of the last century, when Norwegians made their historic linguistic break with Denmark and Sweden there were no films, broadcasters, tvs, radios or the internet encouraging the near universal penetration of English-speaking American culture. In 1905 it was relatively easy to make a linguistic change stick.

Now that may be impossible. Every language is being diluted by ‘loan words’ from English and according to David Crystal, the prominent American linguist, 90 per cent of the world’s 7,000 current languages will have ceased to exist by the year 2100.15

Mind you, such dire predictions can prompt energetic defence of small languages, instead of defeatist abandonment. The Nordic Council spoke recently of the ‘Scandinavian language’(singular), prompting speculation that future spelling reforms in Norway, Sweden and Denmark might result in the creation of one unified written language. But despite accountant logic, a unified ‘Scandish’ is a political non-starter and each Nordic nation is stubbornly determined to keep ploughing its own linguistic furrow with just a few million native speakers apiece, despite the duplication of publishing effort, diseconomies of scale and probability of confusion.

Why? The loss of language matters in ways that go beyond mere words. It may damage the way we are able to think. According to French linguist Claude Hagege:

Languages are not simply a collection of words. They are living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture. When a language becomes extinct, the culture in which it lived is lost too. What native speakers lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of families. It’s also the way they express their humour, their love, their life.

Paul Lewis, the editor of Ethnologue – a global database of languages – goes further. If people begin to think of their language as useless, he argues, they see their cultural identity as useless as well, leading to social disruption, depression, suicide and drug use:

And as parents no longer transmit language to their children, the connection between children and grandparents is broken and traditional values are lost. There is a social and cultural ache that remains, where people realise they have lost something.

In short, when a language dies, a way of thinking dies with it. So what ‘way of thinking’ does Scots represent?

This is just my own view.

Two summers back I was cycling along one of those long inner-Highland glens that might once have been crowded but now contains only fenced-off pockets of densely packed Sitka spruce and wider hummocky stretches of heather moorland and boggy grass sweeping down to a silent, hydro dam-created loch. After three hours cycling along the rough hydro road with only a family of deer for company, I was getting used to having the place to myself.

And then, ahead, I spotted two figures – a man struggling to lift a large rucksack hampered by his over-excited dog. Realising our paths would cross in less than a minute, my mind jumped into language autopilot, sifting fast through ideas and corresponding phrases to match this reality with something appropriate.

I came within earshot.

‘I see your dug’s not trained for heavy lifting then…’

‘Aye but you should see him bang in the tent pegs.’

Only a few seconds elapsed as I swooped past. The walker had no idea what I was going to say. Neither did I. But he was ready to devote all his mental energy to respond in the event of a worthwhile prompt. Mate and checkmate. Point and counterpoint. Serve and volley. One stranger momentarily echoing the path of another like a verbal starling murmur.

No further exchange was needed. I wouldn’t recognise the walker again and he doesn’t know my name. But the joy of that short spontaneous exchange stayed with me for hours, days – evidently years. Language was playfully deployed around a randomly chosen image – not just wordplay, but mindplay. In my experience this playfulness and desire to connect is hard-wired to Scots and hard for non-Scots to reproduce even if they can use words like dreich or glaikit correctly.

Now of course, this cannot be substantiated. Not even remotely.

Even though this kind of exchange has occurred hundreds or thousands of times in my lifetime – to equal delight – it’s an entirely private, intimate and perhaps imagined experience. So few column inches have ever been written about the way Scots speak or think compared to the languages of English and Gaelic, or the better-funded country cousin that is Ulster Scots. An exception is the brilliant and popular writer Des Dillon, who’s discussed the place of metaphor in Scots speech many times. Des wrote Me and Ma Gal, Singing I’m No a Billy He’s a Tim and countless other books and plays. He also wrote for BBC Scotland’s River City until a dispute arose about the authenticity of the dialogue. What is Scots for Des? Scots is metaphor.

What’s he like? That classic Glaswegianism is not just the prompt to heap characterising adjectives upon an unknown head. It’s a credo. A way of life. What is he like? What are people like? Describe them. Put some effort into it. Colour up the world for a minute. Raise the game. Engage with me. Connect.

In my 20s I went out with an exceptionally tall, gruff-looking Glasgwegian who had been in a Tongs gang during his teens. Nights out in those days began with a few ‘accidental’ jostles at spit and sawdust pubs like Curlers, His Nibs and the Rubaiyat. The whole point seemed to be an assertion of pecking order. Frank was at the top. Despite the slightly strained circumstances of those macho exchanges, I was always struck by the humour and metaphor.

‘Good leaves up there, big man?’

‘Weather changing anytime soon?’

The fact of his height was never commented on directly. That would be beyond boring. The fact was taken as read and conversation was built around it, leaning against it, pointing to it. I think that’s called ‘added value’ in the leaden world such ways of thinking seek to escape.

I think also of a porter in BBC Scotland called Tommy – a capable, wiry, quiet man responsible for shifting scenery, props and instruments around Queen Margaret Drive. I used to work in the Victorian ‘old building’ – once the college that first allowed Scotswomen to take medical degrees, then a mortuary during the war and finally offices for radio programmes. The access balcony overlooked a large central atrium and a special entrance reserved for the BBC Controller and Head of Radio. It was always tempting to throw paper darts over the side.

One day Tommy was walking along the top carrying a bundle of mail. Someone opened the grand glass front door and the sudden release of air swooped in and round the letters, carrying one over the top and down the stairs. Instantly, Tommy tucked the rest under his arm, sailed down the bannisters with the skill of a man who clearly did this regularly in private moments, and caught the letter before it reached the ground.

He glanced up and smiled.

‘Airmail.’

Tommy was Scots to his bootstraps. The premium placed on verbal and physical dexterity, the spontaneous confidence, the shared secret, the mot juste, the random moment harvested for all its performance possibilities.

This is all Scots – a language performed with metaphor, wit and physical flourish to entertain those guaranteed to understand it. Scots speakers use their language like a password or code. Native speakers don’t intend Scots to be fully shared, codified, formally taught or embodied in public life. A few words on coasters and mugs for tourists and posh Scots are fine. But if Scots speakers lose the intimacy of their language they risk losing its greatest benefit. Scots currently separates the wheat from the chaff. It links and empowers those who place a very high value on local connection, physical place, family history and cultural identity and holds at a distance those who don’t – and that generally means everyone in a position of formal authority.

In an unfair non-local society like Scotland, settling for linguistic control of private space makes sense. But surely, some day, we are hoping for better?

What would happen if the voice of ‘authority’ changed to use the Scots speakers’ own register? It would be a truly epic transformation.

Until then we could aim for more Scots speaking broadcasters, wider official use and some parity of esteem between Gaelic, Scots, English and recognition of the languages spoken by Scotland’s ethnic minorities. Looked at differently, all these languages, their many dialects and accompanying world views, represent an incredible resource happed up in one carnaptious country.

Scots could choose to celebrate that diversity instead of falling into suspicion and competition.

Any chance? In my mother’s home patch of Caithness there have long been rumblings about Gaelic road signs on the grounds that the county has a Norse speaking heritage not a Gaelic one.

This grumbling resentment flared in Wick over the decision to hold the Gaelic Mód in Caithness for the first time during the summer of 2010. Councillors welcomed the income-generating potential of the festival but also argued for a local Gaelic sign ban. Such hostility and double standards prompted fears of a boycott.

A small group of Wickers opted instead to try and ‘lance the boil’ with a public debate about the place of Gaelic in local culture. I chaired it, a hundred people attended and the event contained a rewarding mixture of light, heat, anger and humour – exactly what one would expect during a genuine exchange about loved language traditions. The Gaels present accepted they weren’t the only ones whose native tongue had all but been beaten out of their parents’ generation at school in the name of ‘advancement’. These days, after centuries of marginalisation, Gaels at least know their inner voice is a recognised language.

Dialects of Scots are more vulnerable to being ‘corrected’ as ‘bad English,’ even though they carry culture in the same way (if not to the same extent) as the ‘full-blown’ languages around them.

Just as Gaelic expresses its seaborne origins with five words for the colour blue, for example, the Caithness dialect has a small stack of words for sulking, moodiness and intransigence – thrawn, jugend, cussed and pirn being my mother’s favourites.

There were, however, no pirns at the debate – and the Gaels were not the only learners.

Caithnessians learned Gaelic had indeed been spoken locally until the last century and many place names thought to be Norse had Gaelic origins – and sometimes both.

Trosk, for example, is a Caithness word (often used by my mother to describe the pirning faces of her children) which is closest to glaikit in Scots or slack-jawed and idle in English. In fact, torsk means Cod in both Gaelic and Norwegian – what the Caithnessians have done is apply a playful and expressive spin to that ‘proper’ word and find a new way to tease their grumpy offspring. The sudden laughter that followed ‘trosk’s’ unravelling was overdue recognition of a precious language tradition which would have conservation status if human ecology ranked as highly as plant and animal protection in Scotland.

It reminded me also of the raucous laughter on Colin Campbell cds – another talented man unknown or at least uncelebrated beyond the Highlands. This guitar-strumming farmer has the uncanny knack of perfectly mimicking any Highland accent and two record shops in Inverness used to have entire walls lined with his cassettes and cds – most recorded before live, local audiences. His skill is to jump with pinpoint verbal precision between imaginary local radio stations – Radio Auchnagatt, Bettyhill, Caithness and Back on Lewis are my favourites. Some of the material is hilarious (the recipe for Curried Guga à la Back involving 100 yards of rope and running shoes is a classic) but regardless of quality the audience reaction is always the same. You can hear people almost dying with laughter in the background, gulping painfully for breath, wheezing as if a chronic asthma attack had begun at the same time as a coughing fit – shrieking as if they had been physically assaulted. Not the polite laughter of the mildly amused but the convulsive snorting of the utterly astonished.

Listening to Colin Campbell in full flow is like hearing a linguistic high priest performing an act of mass validation. Each community he mimics – often just ten or 20 miles from the next – is being recognised in the public domain for possibly the very first time.

That’s powerful and empowering stuff – the sort of cultural validation that’s tickled the conceit and reinforced the identity of Central Belt Scots for decades. Other parts of Scotland need it too.

This kind of ultra-local knowledge, accent and mannerisms matter disproportionately because culture and language in Scotland have done all the community-building performed – or at least shared – with structures of local democracy in better functioning countries. In Scotland, language does most of the heavy lifting. That’s why dialect and establishing connection matter so much.

Perhaps the most Scottish phrase in use throughout the country today is ‘see you later’ – exchanged every waking moment by people who will almost certainly never see each other later or indeed ever again. Even in a corner shop 300 miles from home, the illusion of inclusion in a never-ending conversation or relationship must be maintained. We are all kin. We are all Jock Tamson’s bairns. When conversation picks up spontaneously like this between complete strangers the sense of immediate connection can feel good.

English friends however, often feel uncomfortable and excluded when the Scottish ‘mission to connect’ kicks in. If Glasgow taxi drivers ask where they come from, fearing anti-English remarks they try to change the subject. Wrong. Scottishness is all about connection and respect for roots. The only difficulty arises with folk who seem distant and rootless. For Scots that’s like gaun oot minus yer kegs.

But ‘rootless’ is how evasive southerners can appear. Folk attached to something beyond place, origin or background – folk attached to ‘mere’ money or random happenstance and happy to let that thin pedigree speak for them.

Scots on the other hand, need to connect. It’s a primal urge. Scots must know more about place, background, accent, belonging, identity and stories about home – wherever home may be. What puts the average Scot in a fankle is not different home stories but people who won’t or can’t trade in that verbal currency – in whatever accent or language they authentically possess. Guarded, wary or defensive folk are such a disappointment – they spoil connection, the art at which Scots truly excel. Almost without exception in my experience, the average Scottish taxi driver loves nothing better than the challenge of finding an aunty, friend or former workmate who lives in your neck of the woods. It’s an extension of ‘the knowledge’. But it can’t happen unless a connection is made. This quest for belonging and connectedness underpins almost every aspect of Scottish behaviour and also the way Scots and Gaelic are used in the looming presence of their Big Brother and ultimately perhaps their nemesis, Standard English. The desire to connect is the essence of Scottish culture but thanks to the dominance of English in the public arena, real connection can very often only be made outside it in Scots or Gaelic.

I knew so much about my last Glasgow taxi driver and his 91-year-old mother that I could identify him in a jiffy after leaving a mobile phone in his cab. For Scots that’s normal – though for non-Celts who don’t understand the game it probably feels more like the Spanish Inquisition. Scots have to find a point of connection to relax. Perhaps that comes from the days when survival depended upon quickly establishing a common bond (or detecting ill will) amongst fellow workers or neighbours. Whatever the reason, involuntary inclusion is never far away on a night out in Scotland. At a pantomime in the Dundee Rep – the nearest thing to a global front room – I was working my way through an ice cream during the interval when I felt a tap on the shoulder. The older woman sitting behind me – at the end of a family grouping that took up the whole row – held a large poly bag in front of me and shook it. Clearly this was the designated family rubbish bag being shoogled by the family matriarch. With 12 assorted bairns along the row, one more in front hardly caused a conceptual problem. I duly finished the ice cream and chucked lid and carton in the communal poke. It felt good to be included. For just a second she was the universal mother and I was anybody’s daughter. No words were even exchanged.

This constant fleeting connection with strangers is what I miss during long trips to the Nordic nations. Only the Irish have anything like the same deep-seated need to connect and (however momentarily) to entertain.

If ‘having the crack’16 with like-minded, expansive, mischievous people ever became an Olympic sport, we’d win. Scotland’s linguistic tradition is a fabulous weave more complex than any tartan. Just as culturally precious, just as socially important, but far, far more neglected.

The gap between public and private language describes the mental health of a nation. The Irish have next to no gap – their formal ‘front of house’ register hardly differs from their informal ‘round the kitchen table’ patter. Indeed, I remember the BBC’s Ireland correspondent raising eyebrows on Radio Scotland when he once described Charles Haughey (affectionately) as ‘a foxy auld whore’ (rhyming with poor). I remember too the opening concert of Celtic Connections led by the Irish pianist and composer Michael O’Sullivan whose relaxed register didn’t change throughout an event in which he introduced senior fellow musicians, the audience and kids in his orchestra.

That audible ‘level playing field’ was the reason I used to insist on using the Christian names of all guests on radio programmes regardless of status and the same Scots words like glaikit or heid bummer whether Gordon Brown was on the line (rare) or a phone caller from Auchtermuchty.

But in general, there is no level linguistic playing field in Scottish public life. And that encourages everyone to stay at their pre-prescribed place in the pecking order.

So most Scots still default to a ‘posher’ or grammatically correct version of themselves each time they perform in public or connect with authority. As a result there’s hesitation at almost every turn – especially at formal events. Who dares to risk sounding stupid by asking a question? Who dares talk in public without a written speech or weeks of preparation? Who dares perform without a formal debating structure or a wee dram?

Moments of genuine cultural confidence are funnier, more authentic and more spontaneous than that.

I was in Belfast when Northern Ireland beat England 1–0 in 2005, ending 78 years of away wins by the ‘Auld Enemy’. Expecting post-match trouble, the authorities had cancelled buses forcing everyone to walk back to the city centre. The mood was frisky (and I was the only woman I could see in that massive crowd of marching men) when they mysteriously started to sing ‘Away in a Manger’. After the line, ‘the stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay’, the last two words were punched home over and over again. He lay. He lay. He lay. Why? Because David Healey had scored that all-important single goal. Clever. The post-match mood was transformed – thanks to smart thinking by the Northern Ireland football authorities who had given fans their own permanent Kop-style area at Windsor Park in return for some witty, non-sectarian singing. That’s the kind of deal Scotland could usefully repeat – instead we have a range of chants that can’t be used and a criminal sanction for anyone who crosses the line. The law can censor what’s offensive. It can’t create a funny, robust but non-offensive Scots register.

Fans could. Politicians could raise their game and use the Scots they have. Broadcasters could do much, much more. The BBC’s mission is to reflect nation onto nation. Without reflecting the full range of authentic Scots speech in news and documentaries as well as comedy and drama, broadcasters are widening the gap between public and private language, and denting confidence as surely as rbs going pear-shaped or the national team failing to qualify for the World Cup – all over again.

In fact, beyond football, the risk of being judged by the way they speak is too high for many Scotsmen. Safer not to. So another problem with language is the unequal use of it. The Clint Eastwood approach is most favoured by powerful men (hostile stare and total silence) with women deployed as the chirpy mediators. And that’s part of a bigger gender divide that harms language… and Scottish culture.

—

1  The 13-part BBC series On the Bike prompted a book: Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides (Luath 2008), from which this little exchange is an extract.

2  John Farquhar Munro was a Liberal Democrat Gaelic speaking Highland MSP until 2011.

3  K. MacKinnon, Gaelic – A past and Future Prospect (Edinburgh: The Saltire Society, 1991).

4  Samuel Johnson and John Boswell,  Journey to the Hebrides (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1996).

5  In his celebrated Journey to the Hebrides, Samuel Johnson observed that ‘Scots… have attained the liberal without the manual arts. They have excelled in ornamental knowledge [but]… have wanted not only the elegancies but [also] the conveniences of common life’.

6  West Highland Free Press 2013: http://www.whfp.com/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=1148.

7  K. McGoogan, Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002).

8  In December 1993, a witness in a Scottish court who had answered ‘aye’ to confirm he was the person summoned was told by the Sheriff that he must answer either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. When his name was read again and he was asked to confirm it, he answered ‘aye’ again, and was imprisoned for 90 minutes for contempt of court. On his release he said ‘I genuinely thought I was answering him’. The Times, 11/12/1993.

9  http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/06105123/1.

10  Carl MacDougall’s book Scots: The Language of the People followed soon afterwards with 50 writers, covering more than 800 years, including Edwin Morgan, Tom Leonard, Adam McNaughtan and Kathleen Jamie, William Dunbar, Robert Burns, James Hogg, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hugh MacDiarmid, John Galt, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Robert McLellan, Allan Ramsay, Hamish Henderson, Marion Angus, Robert Fergusson, Robert Tannahill, Neil Munro, Robert Garioch and William Soutar.

11  The results of the first census question asked about the Scots language in 2011 are due to be published later in 2013.

12  Developed by linguist Ivar Aasen from the 1840s, Nynorsk – then known as Landsmaal – was recognised on an equal footing to the adapted Danish (Riksmål) in 1885, and for use in primary schools in 1892. In 1929 Landsmaal became Nynorsk and Riksmål became Bokmål. So the two had equal status with Danish before formal independence in 1905.

13  Despite this linguistic democracy, though, Bokmål is by far the majority written and spoken language – of 4,549 state publications in 2000 8per cent were in Nynorsk, and 92 per cent in Bokmål and the largest national newspapers (Aftenposten, Dagbladet and VG) are published in Bokmål or Riksmål.

14  On August 13 1905, the Norwegians had an independence referendum. 368,211 voted in favour of separation from Sweden with just 184 against.

15  D. Crystal, Language Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

16  I’m grateful to Cailean MacLean for patiently explaining the more commonly spelled craic is in fact Irish.