Scots verbal mauling was a richt scunner

Sir, – During a Holyrood debate on the Gaelic and Scots languages last week the SNP’S Emma Harper stuttered a scripted contribution in “Scots”, including the bewildering sentence “the Scots leid is a michtie important pairt o Scotland’s cultural heirship, kythin in sang, poems and leeterature, and in ilkaday yaise in wir communities forby”, which turned the farcical into the unintelligible – a verbal mangling that would have made Constable Crabtree of Allo Allo’s “grittest hoots” album.

Not one single participant in the debate highlighted her inability to actually speak the language she was touting.

Neither I, nor anyone I know, have ever heard a normal Scot talk like this.

Surely in these days of inclusion and desire for more immigration and social mobility, this weird, middleclass amalgam of regional accents and dialects puts barriers in front of them.

As Goad is ma wutniss ah’m fair scunnert.

Allan Sutherland. Willow Row, Stonehaven.