I hiv lived in an affa big hoose on ‘e brae. ‘e gairden be ‘e maist big ‘un ye deen saa. Ayont ‘e toon o Torphins. I hiv gaen tae school ‘ere. Tyaave wi me brither an sester. Me faither nea be in hoose an affa lot. I be feart he nea bade wi eens. I noo ken ma mirther an faither hiv nea bidden tae gither onyroad.
Disclaimer: I do not speak this language well, nor does this text have anything to do with the rest of the post.
For all of you who did not understand the following paragraph, dinna ye worry. It was written in Doric, a Scots dialects spoken in the Northeastern part of Scotland. As it is part of the Scots language, it is considered by the European Council as a regional minority language (RML). And for those of you wondering how a Dutch girl got to speaking Doric, well, it’s simply because I lived in Scotland. Five years I spent in a Scottish primary school, primarily learning English, but I also got hints of different types of Scottish along the way. My favourite memory of Scots is learning how to sing ‘Auld McDonald’.
However, Scotland is not primarily known for it’s distinct language, it is rather the accent which is world renown. Personally, it is only the Scottish accent which I speak (but now only as a party nowadays). In schools there isn’t really an infrastructure through which to learn Gaelic or any other type of minority language that might exist. Partly, this is because of Scotland’s history within the United Kingdom.
While the Welsh were able to preserve their language, the Scottish were not so lucky. Trudgill (2000) shows even uses this situation as an example. However, the reasoning behind the effective repression of the Scots languages is not extensively explained. Nowhere does there seem to be a clear answer on why some languages dwindle under repressive policies and others do not. Could it be the lack of standardisation between different forms of the same language? Does it depend on the use of the oppressor language (for lack of better term) as a lingua franca? What about a willingness from the people themselves to continue using their own language? Or is it about how formal education is organised?
Formal education seems to be an important factor in keeping a language alive. Wright (2007) shows with several examples that when a community wants to expand the use of their RML they try to make sure it can be used as a language of education. However, problems arise here. Where no formal education existed before or was lost, it was difficult to standardise the RML in such a way that would make all speakers happy. In the case of Ladin, an artificial standard was created by a linguist. Then again, Wright (2007) shows that this is also difficult to accept because it is not truly the RML.
In the Scottish case, there is little to no formal education in anything other than English. Unlike in Ireland where Gaelic is a mandatory subject or in Wales where some schools are almost exclusively in Welsh, Scotland teaches its RMLs as additional subjects or through poetry and songs. In primary schools at least. However, despite the fact that there is very little formal education, Scots dialects and RMLs are still being spoken. The first paragraph of this post was written with the help of the book Teach Yourself Doric aimed at helping people learn a RML in a fun way. I remember farmers in the region where I lived speaking something which was barely mutually intelligible with English. Road signs were written in multiple languages. I clearly remember one sign at the stables we went to every week which said: Cacannae doen the brae (careful going down the hill). For the longest time, that, a single poem by Robert Burns, and Auld McDonald were the only Scottish I spoke. The exact poem has faded from my memory now, but other Robert Burns poems will stay with me.
Even if Scottish RMLs are still being spoken, there are not many policies in place to protect them. Scottish people themselves don’t always see the need to keep these RMLs around either. A Danny McShane from Aberdeen, even commented on a newspaper article about dying languages, saying:
The utility of a single global language, spoken by everyone as their mother tongue, would surely outweigh any loss of cultural heritage. The proliferation of Scots Gaelic bilingual signs in areas without Gaelic speakers (Aberdeenshire?!) is eccentric to say the least. Let languages die their natural deaths -there are plenty left.
I believe this also shows a difference between the urban and rural communities. Danny mentions that no one speaks Gaelic in Aberdeenshire. Aberdeenshire is where I used to live, between green and purple hills, and the farmers who I could hardly understand. There it still made sense to have the signs in Gaelic as well, while in Aberdeen there didn’t seem a soul who spoke anything other than English. It, therefore, doesn’t surprise me that it is often in rural communities that RMLs survive, without neighbouring cities realising how prominent they really are.
Ay, I ken that Scots probably will not survive as a RML, but as long as it is preserved so that Scottish poetry and fairy-tales can remain, not all is lost.
Photo by Marcel Dutu on Unsplash