Ulster Scots language Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Ulster Scots (and Ullans, an alternative name by which it is known) are recent terms for the varieties of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster in Ireland. Native speakers traditionally called it (Braid) Scots or Scotch. Ullans is a neologism merging Ulster and Lallans - the Scots for Lowlands - coined by the physician, amateur historian and politician Ian Adamson. The magazine of the Ulster-Scots Language Society is also named Ullans, ostensibly from "Ulster-Scots language in literature and native speech" but ultimately from the other acronym. Scots is closely related to the Germanic language English;
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2 Who speaks it 3 Legal status 4 "Heritage" 5 Literature 6 See also 7 External links |
Scots, mainly Gaelic-speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 1400s, but the largest numbers of Scots-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 Plantation, with the peak reached during the 1690s. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.
Scots in Ulster has been influenced by contact with Hiberno-English and Irish. Mid Ulster English, the dialect of most people in Ulster, including those in the two main cities, represents a cross-over area between Ulster Scots and Hiberno-English; it is currently encroaching on the Ulster Scots area, especially in the Belfast commuter belt, and may eventually consume it. Ulster Scots should not be confused with Scottish Gaelic or Irish, which are Celtic languages.
Although it is usually treated as a variety of the Scots language or, along with all Scots varieties, as a dialect of English, some claim it to be a language in its own right; only the first two views are represented among academic linguists, although at least one academic has argued for recognition on non-structural, apperceptional grounds. Some confuse English spoken with a very broad Scottish/North Antrim accent with Scots proper. As a result English-speakers familiar with the Scottish or Northern Irish accents of English find Scottish/North Antrim English easy to understand and, assuming this speech variety to be "broad" Scots, conclude that it is a dialect of English.
Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland. W. G. Lyttle, writing in Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco, uses the typically Scots forms kent and begood, now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream Anglic forms knew, knowed or knawed and begun. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Hiberno-English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct contact with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.
Today, Ulster Scots is purported by advocates to be spoken by about 100,000 people from both Nationalist and Unionist communities and in counties on both sides of the border. During the middle of the 20th century, the linguist R. J. Gregg established the geographical boundaries of Ulster's Scots-speaking areas based on information gathered from native speakers. The 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that 2% of Northern Ireland residents claimed to speak Ulster Scots, which would mean a total speech community of 30,000, not including Donegal. According to the 2001 census, the total number of Northern Ireland residents born in Scotland was 16,772. If there is the same proportion of Scots-speakers among them as believed in Scotland itself by the General Register Office in its 1996 study, i.e. 30%, the number of Scots-born Scots-speakers is 5,031. This would make those born in Scotland around 14% of Scots-speakers in the jurisdiction, or one in seven. Since Scots-born Scots-speakers may feel that they are being excluded from applying for jobs or accessing services advertised as "Ulster-Scots", a state-sponsored academic examination of the justifiability of such geographical qualification seems urgently needed. It is also notable that the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that Unionists were not any more likely to be speakers than Nationalists, calling into question the politically and confessionally tinged promotion of the variety by the Ulster-Scots Agency.
Ulster Scots is defined in legislation (The North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999) as: the variety of the Scots language which has traditionally been used in parts of Northern Ireland and in Donegal in Ireland [1].
The declaration made by the United Kingdom Government regarding the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages reads as follows: The United Kingdom declares, in accordance with Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Charter that it recognises that Scots and Ulster Scots meet the Charter's definition of a regional or minority language for the purposes of Part II of the Charter [1].
There is some debate whether this declaration recognises Ulster Scots as a separate language. Some argue that since the word "language" is in the singular, the charter recognises a single language given two names on a jurisdictional basis. Opponents of this view point out that the word "meet" is in the plural, and that the singular word "language" occurs as part of the phrase "definition of a ... language". However, the question would then arise of whether the charter declaration, which is not legally enforceable and was based on consultation with activists rather than academic linguists, amounts to a breach of the implemenation bodies legislation cited above, which has the status of a bilateral international treaty with the Irish Republic and may not be amended unilaterally. In any case, if Ulster Scots is structurally a form of Scots, even a right to separate development might not justify the act, since the gain in linguistic diversity effected thereby might be more than offset by the loss of speakers.
The Good Friday Agreement (which does not refer to Ulster Scots as a "language") also recognises Ulster Scots as "part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland", and established the cross-border Ulster-Scots Agency (Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch) whose mission statement is to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots people.
It will be noted that this is slightly different from the organisation's legal remit to promote Ulster Scots as a variety of the Scots language.
In recent years a movement has been under way to change the perception of Ulster Scots. At one time it was derided as "poor English", but many of its speakers now take pride in the way they speak and in the wider Ulster-Scots heritage of which it forms part.
Many Nationalists and Republicans in Northern Ireland have derided Ulster Scots as a 'DIY language for Orangemen', arguing that it is a reaction by Unionists and Loyalists to the promotion of the Irish language in Northern Ireland. There are some parallels with the Ebonics controversy in the United States. Although the Belfast-based Irish language newspaper Lá ran a column in a revivalist version of Ulster Scots, it was at least partly tongue-in-cheek. The board and staff of the Ulster-Scots Agency include numerous members of the loyal orders. Some parts of the Ulster-Scots movement have personal and, through British Israelism, philosophical links with the defunct Protestant paramilitary group Tara, an organisation that remained legal throughout its existence.
In the Scots-speaking areas of Ulster there was traditionally a considerable demand for the work of Scottish poets, often in locally printed editions. Alexander Montgomerie's the The Cherrie and the Slae in 1700, shortly over a decade later an edition of poems by Sir David Lindsay, nine printings of Allan Ramsay's The Gentle shepherd between 1743 and 1793, and an edition of Robert Burns' poetry in 1787, the same year as the Edinburgh edition, followed by reprints in 1789, 1793 and 1800. Among other Scottish poets published in Ulster were James Hogg and Robert Tannahill.
This was complemented by Ulster rhyming weaver poetry, of which, some 60 to 70 volumes were published between 1750 and 1850, the peak being in the decades 1810 to 1840. These weaver poets looked to Scotland for their cultural and literary models and were not simple imitators but clearly inheritors of the same literary tradition following the same poetic and orthographic practices; it is not always immediately possible to distinguish traditional Scots writing from Scotland and Ulster. Among the rhyming weavers were James Cambell (1758-1818), James Orr (1770-1816), Thomas Beggs (1749-1847), David Herbison (1800-1880), Hugh Porter (1780-1839) and Andrew McKenzie (1780-1839). Scots was also used in the narrative by Ulster novelists such as W. G. Lyttle (1844-1896). Scots also regularly appeared in Ulster newspaper columns.
By the early part of the 20th century this tradition was almost extinct. The Ulster Scots revival from the 1980s onwards has moved away from the previous tradition and Modern Scots orthographic practice, preferring instead to develop Ulster Scots as an autonomous written variety separate from Scots in Scotland, incidentally reducing the language's written comprehensibility to Scots-speakers, including those native to Ulster itself.
Current trends include: adapting the writing system to one based more on the sound values of standard English; often mixing Ulster English and Scots forms; adopting archaic Scots orthographic features; borrowing from phonetic notation; creating independent neologisms; misusing words, or using them in new ways, depending on point of view; and adopting non-standard features of English. Whether this is a sign of vitality or of decay is a matter of sometimes heated debate. Recently the transactional value of publicly commissioned translations has been questioned.
The introduction of standard educational materials in schools for the teaching of Ulster Scots is likely to formalise ongoing discussions about the future direction of language planning.
This is an Article on Ulster Scots language. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Ulster Scots language How it evolved
Who speaks it
Legal status
"Heritage"
Literature
See also
External links