Scots tongue minority is a richt scunner

Peelie-wally. Dreich. Oxsters. Scunnered. To some, they’re a foreign tongue; to 1.5 million Scots speakers they illustrate the richness and colour of the largest minority language in the UK.

Scots can lay claim to that title, despite it not being officially learned, taught or standardised in any way.

Officially recognised as an indigenous language of Scotland in its own right, it includes everything from Doric and Dundonian to Mearns , Orcadian , Glaswegian and everything in between.

However, the mither tongue is still dismissed by some as nothing more than a slovenly version of English, and there are worries its long-term fate is on a shoogly peg.

Grimmest predictions have 90% of the world’s languages dying out by the end of this century, and Scots is among those classed as “vulnerable” by Unesco.

Alistair Heather, a Scots writer and TV presenter from Angus, is on a oneman mission to encourage Scots to reclaim their native tongue.

“Linguists have never questioned if it ’s a language, artists and writers have never questioned if it ’s a language, and educators at the highest level have never questioned it. It’s just that we’ve got ourselves in a total fankle (tangle-mess) about Scottish stuff not being considered valuable,” he says.

“Over time, Scottish history became a minor part of British history, Scottish literature became a very minor part of English literature, and Scots language – by the same process – became seen as a minor part of the English language.”

Alistair, 30, saw it for himself when, fresh out of school, he found himself working in a call centre in Dundee, and was mystified to see the call handlers policing each other ’s speech.

“They’d say ‘dinnae speak oar y!’ ( common), even though it was just Dundee folk speaking to other Dundee folk at the end of the telephone,” he said.

“We were self-policing because we had been telt oor language isnae right, it was seen as working class to be speaking Scots, or that you were nae educated.”

This stereotype persists today. English is seen as superior, meanwhile Scots remains the butt of the joke and, for some, the language of teuchters (someone who lives in rural countryside).

While Scots language activists like Billy Kay have been campaigning for years for more recognition of the language, Alistair is taking a more ground -up approach.

Alongside writing articles and appearing on TV documentaries, he has made numerous visits to Peterhead Prison to work within mate sand encourage them to be proud of their native tongue.

He said: “Gaelic has been brought to its knees because people stopped speaking it – we can’t let Scots go the same way.”

Scotland’s youth appear to have undergone a cultural shift, though, with personalities like Lewis Cap al di proudly pro claiming their Scottishness to the masses.

LANGUAGE: Scots are being encouraged to reclaim their mither tongue with pride.