In fact, he asked me this in Russian (I said ah'd learned Russian). Ah'm no sure whit wing o the Scoats mafia he belangs tae. Thur's the folk that speak Doric or Ayrshire. Thur's the wans that ur 'learnin Scoats' witivir that might be. They fling words lik 'leid' and 'ailblins' intae the mix on paper - but ur they usin them in daily life, eh? Thur's the academics that cin quote the linguistic jargon bit ony in English. Thur's the wans that want linguistic purity an cin tell the rest o us whit's up wi oor langwidge but no whit right langwidge is, because thur's nae sich thing. Maybe there's an erse wing in Scoats. The guy ah'm talkin aboot definitely belangs there.
This happened oan the Scots Language page oan Facebook. Don't ask me how they canny huv the name o the page in Scoats - it's therr page, therr choice. Anyhow, here's the news: ah speak Scoats. This, folks, is ma Scoats. Ah grew up speakin lik this. Ah still speak it tae ma close faimly - jist ma generation - the weans huv maistly loast their Scoats - and tae ma pals. It's a miracle how ah still speak Scoats. It wizny written doon. Whit ah'm writin is in an orthography ah've made up masel. It was despised when ah wiz a wean. Teachers an the poasher bits o ma faimly made me understaun early oan that folk that wanted tae get oan in life didny talk like this.
Thur's somy us huv a split personality whur Scoats is concerned. At school, ah remember we hud a teacher - lookin back, she must've been a student oan teachin practice. She tried tae teach us Scoats.
'Who knows the word lum?' she asked us. Well, we aw did. It wiz a word we used in the hoose. But we'd been tellt words fae the hoose wurny fur school - lik 'aye' an 'naw' an 'gonny'. So we said nuthin. 'Come along now,' (or sumthin lik that) she said, 'You must know some Scots.' Well, we did. As well as the Scoats we spoke in the hoose, thur wiz the annual Burns competition. Ah lived in Govan an we aw hud tae learn poems - different wans ivry year - and recite them in class and then in the school hall in front o the rest o the weans, and then the best wur picked tae recite again in the toon hall. Ask me aboot the wee cooerin timorous beastie - it's lik pressin a button - ah'm aff lik a train. Ah cid dae ye The Braw Wooer as well even noo. Same wi Holy Wullie's Prayer. Sure, naebdy tellt us this wiz Ayrshire Scoats an if they hud it widda meant nothin. This wiz jist a way o expressin yersel that wiz oors.
Ah remember huvin tae read Scoats ballads in secondary school but ah remember mair comin acroass Tam Leonard's poems when ah wiz at university. Whit an eye-opener. He wrote the way ah spoke, even though he seems tae be despised on the Scots Language page. Then thur wiz the Satire o the Three Estates that we staged in the Drama department at Glasgow University. Scoats hud a history - who knew? An thur wur plenty other writers: Edwin Muir, Edwin Morgan, Willie MacIlvanney. Glad tae see his books makin a comeback, by the way.
Thur's plenty tae celebrate here. An the last census shows thur's 1.7million Scoats speakers in the country. So whit dae we dae? Build on the good news? Nut at all. We argue aboot whit Scoats is and whether your Scoats is purer than mine, forgettin the auld adage: use it or lose it.
Scoats willny survive this century withoot help, so get it intae the education system by hook or by crook, promote it in everyday life, get it some respect - whitivir it looks and soons lik an wherivir it's spoken, Scoats is a treasure. If oor generation disny dae it, the langwidge is deid.
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