There is no need to be ashamed of the grammar of the Scots dialect

IT is a real shame that there is so little respect for Scots dialect grammar in Scotland (Letters, August 12, 10, 8 & 4). What we call “Standard English” was, after all, originally just a highstatus dialect based on the way people used to speak in the south of England around the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and at the court in London. It was introduced to Scotland via the Bible. Dialects are made up of both vocabulary and grammar. It is an odd development that people in Scotland appreciate Scots dialect vocabulary (words like scunner, glaikit and so on) but that they are made to feel ashamed of dialect grammar (like “I’ve went” or “I done it”).

I live in Switzerland where the German-Swiss speak the local dialect of their village, town or region, whenever they can. They write standard German from Germany, but have fiercely protected the right to use their dialects as a crucial part of their identity, even if incomers do not understand them.

Educated Germans who moved to Switzerland are shocked to find themselves listening to the Swiss speaking dialect in public, in business meetings, at the university and the court. The Swiss are fascinated, even shocked, to hear that in Scotland, dialect grammar is considered “wrong” and uneducated. If you take the pragmatic Swiss approach, if enough people in a region say “I’ve went”, then that is how the dialect is spoken there and there is nothing wrong with it. Margaret Oertig, Bettingerstrasse 89, 4125 Riehen, near Basel, Switzerland. I NOTE correspondence concerning deplorable usage in standard English. What about the student who told me last week that he was “dead pleased” to have achieved an A grade in his higher English? I told him that he could not possibly be.

Or the SQA marker who writes about how to boost grades in his subject? He uses headings asking: how do I “get” better marks. He also talks about the “best” of two options.

The purge needs to go higher up than the classroom. James M Arnold, Auchencrannog, Golf Course Road, Whiting Bay, Isle of Arran.