Oor Cultur

I came across an interesting little book in my local library a few weeks ago on the Ulster Scots language which I must getting around to readi0 ng some of these days.

In skimming through it though I chanced upon a little quiz about the language or rather the fluency that one has in it. Moreover, it distinguished between Ulster English and Ulster Scots which many people don’t bother to differentiate.

Anyway, as I would have expected I just about fall into the category of Ulster Scots speaker although I could understand perfectly just about all of the Ulster Scots in the little test. It was as I expected in that I never really heard it spoken other than by my granny and, of course, by those in the country area where I spent the summer throughout my youth.

What I thought was particularly interesting about the test though wasn’t where I fell but that many of the words I’d have plonked squarely in the remit of the Ulster Scots language, the book considered more of a part of Ulster English. Somehow, I suspect that there’d be a whole lot of debate about that if/when the Ulster Scots language gets a higher profile here. Certainly, I’d say that many people who the test would classify as merely Ulster English speakers would consider themselves very much as Ulster Scots speakers.

Just picked this up from the Scots Language Centre…

Yorkisland Arts and Heritage Association, in Northern Ireland, is calling for singers, instrumentalists, poets and story tellers under the age of 25 to perform through the medium of the Scots dialect of Ulster. Entrants can perform either solo or in a group of up to four. Entry to the competition, called Ulster-Scots Talent, is free and will provide winning performers the chance to perform in the media. The competition will take place during 28-31 August 2009 and those interested should contact yorkisland@hotmail.com

That’s a sign that I saw in the St Patrick’s Centre in Downpatrick at the weekend as part of their trilingual Irish/English/Ulster Scots signage policy.

The first thought that came to mind on seeing it was “isn’t that ridiculous looking?”. If I were a Welsh speaker on seeing an equivalent sign with Welsh in it I’m sure that their first thought would be more like “at last” but then Welsh is a whole lot more supported within Wales than Ulster Scots currently is in Northern Ireland.

My second thought was: well, yes it does look ridiculous, but you know it shouldn’t. The problem with Ulster Scots is that the vast majority of us only every heard it from our grannies, never learned to spell it and, until quite recently, didn’t even think of it as a separate language. So, whilst it may well look ridiculous to me at the moment that’s because I’ve really never had the chance to see it written and at last that is starting to change.

One big plus point that we have is that there are still native speakers of the language around so it’s “just” the matter of writing it all down that needs to be covered. That’ll not be easy but at least the prononciation will remain authentic rather than needing to be guessed as happens in the case of some languages that need to rebuild a pool of native speakers as would need to be done for Manx (the last native speaker died in 1974) or Cornish or for that matter. Although Cornish is now spoken as a native language by a small number of people they didn’t learn it from their parents as the last of the continuous line of native speakers died out in the 1700s.

Sure, it’ll take a while before we don’t look at a sign like that and think that it looks ridiculous but at least we’ve made a small start down that route. Perhaps yin day ah’ll nay ha a problem wi writin tha blog in it too.