Episode 1 Minding Our Language


Episode 1

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A couple of years ago,

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I made a TV programme called Tim McGarry's Ulster Scots Journey.

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People seemed to like it,

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though for some reason it was disgracefully overlooked for a Bafta.

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Discrimination!

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In the programme, I examined the long

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and close relationship between Scotland and Ulster.

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And despite having what I thought was an impeccable Papist background,

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I discovered that I had Ulster Scots ancestors

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just a couple of generations back.

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Yes, I'm proud to say that I am part Ulster Scot.

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That's the little part of me that hates paying for things

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and the part of me that, occasionally,

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wants to do a bit of work.

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Well, a mere two years later, I've decided to do that bit of work.

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In this programme, I'm going to examine perhaps the most

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controversial aspect of our Ulster Scots heritage -

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the Ulster Scots language.

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Some people may have a prejudice against Ulster Scots,

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but it's also true that we use Ulster Scots words

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and phrases without even thinking about them.

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You're rather thouither-lookin' today, Tim.

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He's no' as green as he's cabbage-lookin'.

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Your body's as lazy as sheugh water.

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She's a queer-eyed cooter on her.

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That's like a sharp nose from the cutter of a plough.

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She'd knock the eyes out of a flute... A hole, is that right?

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-That's a new one on me now!

-You see, I'm a fluent speaker, as you know.

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Your man's naething but a thaveless packel!

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LAUGHTER

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You know, it paints a picture!

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Another clean shirt will dae 'im.

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-Another clean shirt will dae 'im?

-Will do him.

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He's that ill, one more clean shirt and he's ready for the next world.

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But Ulster Scots also has another problem.

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Many people simply don't believe that it's a language at all.

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They see it as "merely" a dialect or just bad English

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or English with a Rab C Nesbitt accent.

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Well, I would say a lot of them folk

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dinnae ken ocht ava aboot what they're talking about.

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That's daft! It's nae English with Scots words thrown in.

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I mean, if you looked at it properly from our point of view,

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you could argue it's the same way -

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"Aye, English is just Scots with a few English words thrown intae it."

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And sometimes they don't even recognise it when they see it.

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If you saw this sign, what language would you think this is?

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Well, Heichbrae Airt means "the high hill"

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and is the Ulster Scots version of Tullyard Way.

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And the reason this sign isn't hanging where it should be

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is because someone thought that Heichbrae Airt was Irish.

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A majority of residents of Tullyard Way on the Loyalist Clonduff Estate

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had backed the idea of having Ulster Scots signs in the first place.

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Many of them supported a petition organised by local man Roy Adams.

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Tullyard Way is an Irish name, as most of the streets round here are

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and it was ironic that the people who took it down

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were supporting Irish.

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Now, you don't need me to "curry your yoghurt" to know that sometimes

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language in this part of the world can become, well,

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controversial or embroiled in our sectarian politics.

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Despite the best efforts of many Irish language

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and Ulster Scots speakers, both Irish and Ulster Scots

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are often seen as belonging to one side or the other.

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There is a perception that it only appeared in about 1998 and that,

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you know, A, that it's made up or B, that it is basically Protestants

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getting the same amount of money as the Irish speakers get.

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How do you answer that?

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That's really infuriating.

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It is very antagonistic for those of us who work in this sector.

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You know, Ulster Scots is a form of communication.

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You could go to a hurling match between Dunloy and Lochgiel

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and you'll hear some of the finest...

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I wouldn't recommend that, by the way!

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Well, you'll hear some of the finest Ulster Scots spoken naturally.

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The fact is that,

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although 99% of native speakers of Irish are Catholic,

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or certainly historically would have been Catholic,

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the degree of homogeneity

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simply isn't there in the Ulster Scots community.

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It's perhaps only two-thirds or three-quarters Protestant.

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There is no doubt, in my view, that Ulster Scots would be best served

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being promoted on the basis of arts, rather than history or politics.

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Do you think more Unionists are slightly embarrassed?

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There's a bit of a cultural cringe about Ulster Scots?

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The most opposition I find when I go to different events

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and talk about Ulster Scots,

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the greatest opposition comes from Unionists.

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It is spoken in a very widespread way

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in places which aren't Protestant.

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If you go up around parts of Antrim, North Antrim

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and round into part of Londonderry, you will find people

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who are perceived as not Protestant speaking a beautiful,

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beautiful broad Ulster Scots. It's definitely not a divisive language.

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So you don't have to be a Unionist to appreciate Ulster Scots?

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Preferably not.

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If you get beyond the political stereotype,

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I think that these words and expressions and these books

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live in the countryside regardless of your background,

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regardless of your politics or your religion.

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They are words that you can hear virtually everywhere.

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Unity in a society doesn't come from uniformity,

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it comes from understanding diversity.

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No more than that I will say.

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Seamus Heaney said that from the start

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the tongue of Ulster Scots was in his ear.

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Not literally, obviously. That would be disgusting!

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So, where does Ulster Scots actually come from?

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I'm going to stick my neck out here and guess...Scotland?

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Basically, Ulster Scots is a version of the Scots language

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that came to Ulster in the early 17th century.

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But where did it all begin?

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I need to find out.

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So I'm going on a journey.

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I don't really want to, but it's actually a criminal offence now

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to make a TV documentary and not go on a journey. But I'm a home bird.

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I'm only going somewhere if it reminds me of Belfast.

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TRUMPETS SOUND

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HE SIGHS

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Call this a peace wall? HE SCOFFS

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Hadrian's Wall was built by the Romans to keep out

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the barbarians to the north.

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73 miles long and 15 feet high, it ran from coast to coast.

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Work started in 122 AD and was completed in just 14 years.

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To put that in perspective, that's about the same time as it takes

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the Housing Executive to fix your windaes.

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Now, I know what you're thinking.

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"Tim, this is all very interesting,

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"but what's it got to do with the Scots language?"

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Well, the Scots language, like most things in life,

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starts with the Romans.

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Because, although the wall has lasted nearly 2,000 years,

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the Romans didn't last so long.

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In 410 AD, the Roman legions left Britain.

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It was a bit like the European referendum debate in reverse.

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Instead of Britain leaving Europe, Europe left Britain.

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Yes, we finally got rid of those Italian scroungers coming over here,

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building walls and roads and baths and stuff...

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Anyway, the point is, when the Romans left,

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they opened the door to a new tidal wave of immigrants.

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And these new ones were a lot worse. They were the English.

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Or, as their ancestors were known, Saxons, Jutes and Angles.

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Within 100 years, they had taken over most of England from the Romans.

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One group carved out the kingdom of Northumbria.

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And they brought with them their own language, Anglish or Englisk,

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which originated in Denmark and the Low Countries.

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The truth is it is a language and it's Northumbrian in its origins.

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The Scots language, and to some extent English,

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received English derived from Northumbrian.

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So, is Scots merely a version of English or is it a distinct language?

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Well, Scots language activists will tell you that Scots grew

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and developed apart from its sister tongue, English,

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to such an extent that a distinct language evolved.

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As you know, I could talk to you for hours about orthography

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and pluricentric languages

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with significant asymmetric mutual intelligibility,

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but I won't.

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I'll get somebody else to do that.

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A lot of people would say it's a dialect, it's a version of English,

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it's too similar to English to deserve

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the name of a language, unlike, say, Scots Gaelic.

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Languages are related to one another so Norwegian and Danish,

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for example, Estonian and Finnish, Irish and Scots Gaelic.

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This is a normal thing with languages, so similarity

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to another language doesn't stop a language being a language.

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Of course it's a language.

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One of the reasons I think people laugh at it

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is that people think there's something intrinsically funny

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about speaking a language which is indigenous to this country

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and which is part of the Plantation.

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I presume the planters spoke Scots, but it's also the language,

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I presume, of the 1798 Rebellion.

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So, it's a revolutionary language, it's a radical language

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and certainly it's part of my make-up

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and I say that as a Muilleoir,

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but also someone that's very proud of this place

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and proud to be an Ulster man.

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In the case of Scots, it's a qualified "no"

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in that it isn't currently a language,

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but it may have been in the past and perhaps could be in the future

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if the political will were there to make it so.

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In the case of Ulster Scots, it's pretty much an unqualified "no",

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because regardless of the functional relationship of Ulster Scots

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with standard English, structurally it will always be a form of Scots.

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Basque, Catalan, Flemish, Dutch, Friesian,

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all the minority European languages

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and we tend to think of languages as belonging to a nation state

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and it doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.

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The Ruthwell Cross is a masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon art,

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dating from the eighth century.

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It was described as the greatest achievement of its date

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in the whole of Europe.

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The Saxons were pagans,

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but had been converted to Christianity by the seventh century.

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Apart from the magnificent carvings,

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what is also remarkable about this cross

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are the runes cut into it.

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These could be the oldest surviving text in early English

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in the entire world.

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What's even more surprising is that Ruthwell is in Scotland.

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By the seventh century, the kingdom of Northumbria

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was one of the most powerful in all of Anglo-Saxon Britain,

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establishing itself in southeastern Scotland,

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up as far as the Firth of Forth.

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Meanwhile, the Scotti, or Irish, expanded from the west

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into the north of Scotland,

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and their Irish-Gaelic language quickly overcame the Pictish areas.

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Northumbria became a beacon of learning, with its famous monastery

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at Lindisfarne, which was also responsible for creating

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some of our most precious works of art,

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such as the imaginatively named Lindisfarne Gospels.

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The trouble was that precious things also attracted the wrong sort.

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Vikings.

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The first Viking raid on England was in 793 AD on Lindisfarne.

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Within a few years, they had come to dominate most of Northumbria.

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Things changed in the year 1018, when the Battle of Carham

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established King Malcolm II's rule over all of Scotland.

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Scotland's borders now ran to the River Tweed,

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and English-speaking Saxons living north of that border

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were now part of Scotland.

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But here, the Firth of Forth, or "Scots' Water"

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became the unofficial border between Gaelic-speaking Scotland

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and the Scots on this side of the river,

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who spoke a Danish-influenced version of Anglo-Saxon.

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Trapped within a mainly Gaelic-speaking country,

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you'd have thought this Anglo-Saxon-speaking enclave

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might have soon disappeared, but it didn't.

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In fact, within 400 years,

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most Lowland Scots were speaking this new language,

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and the new language came to be known as Scots.

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So, what happened?

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Well, towns happened.

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The Scottish kings, copying their Norman counterparts to the south,

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started a process of urbanisation,

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and these new institutions, or "burghs" such as Edinburgh,

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used Anglo-Saxon terms like "craft, gild, toll, gate and wynd."

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Soon, towns like Edinburgh were trading with the Dutch, Flemish

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and Scandinavians whose language had more in common

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with English than Gaelic.

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But even Gaelic words were incorporated into

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this evolving language, adopting words such as "clan, loch, ceilidh."

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The language was also influenced by Latin and French.

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And so this Scottish Saxon tongue began to diverge

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from its southern English counterpart,

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and it would soon come to be known as Scots.

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# O flower of Scotland

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# When will we see your like again? #

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The Scottish kings weren't hostile to their English-speaking subjects,

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but up until the 1300s,

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Gaelic was still the prestige language of Scotland.

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If you wanted to get on, you spoke Gaelic or French, for some reason.

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But that all changed with the accession onto the throne

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of this man, Robert the Bruce.

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# Proud Edward's army

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# And sent him homeward

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# Tae think again... #

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It was Robert the Bruce who finally confirmed

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Scotland's independence from the English.

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His triumph here at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314

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also meant the continuation of the Scots language

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and its separate development north of the border.

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Perhaps more importantly, the Scottish Crown now passed

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to three Lowland families -

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the Bruces, then the Balliols, and finally, the Stuarts.

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What that meant was that in the Highlands,

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people continued to speak Gaelic,

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but the new kings were Lowlanders, and their language was Scots.

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Scotland's capital moved south from Perth to Edinburgh,

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a long-standing Scots-speaking area.

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From this time in the late 1300s

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comes the first surviving literary text in Scots,

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John Barbour's epic poem The Brus.

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The Brus is so valuable they keep it under lock and key.

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Imagine not trusting people from Northern Ireland.

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It's spelt B-R-U-S, but it is about Robert the Bruce.

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Robert the Bruce, yes.

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It's very much about King Robert the Bruce

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and his struggle for power within Scotland,

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and his struggle for independence for Scotland as a whole.

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It is one of only two manuscripts of one of the earliest examples

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we have of substantial Scots writing,

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substantial text written in early Scots.

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It is already different from the English written at the time.

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The country was at war with England when this was written.

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The king had Anglophile leanings, and many Scots were against that.

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This is why things like The Brus

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and also the later epic The Wallace became very popular again.

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So, there's a nationalist hue to it.

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It's about Bannockburn and uniting Scotland,

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it's about driving the English out, there's certainly that feel to it.

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Yes, definitely.

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If I was to put this under my arm and leave the library,

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what would the fine be per day for this?

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I don't know if you could put it like this,

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you might lose your liberty!

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Right, it's like that, hear that?

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By the late 14th and early 15th century,

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Scots had supplanted Gaelic and French

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to become the language of the royal court.

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In 1424, King James I of Scotland wrote The Kingis Quair,

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"The King's Book".

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He wrote it in Scots.

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It was, in Scotland, the language of the court, in early modern Scotland.

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The saying was you spoke Scots to your king, French to your lady,

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and Gaelic to your God.

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English didn't get a look in!

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It was in the late Renaissance that Scots language enthusiasts

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believe that written Scots reached its literary high watermark.

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There was an explosion of creative activity,

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with Stirling Castle at its epicentre.

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Stirling Castle was the favoured hang-out of the Stuarts.

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Writers such as Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas,

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and David Lyndsay, through to Alexander Montgomerie,

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made a group of outstanding writers

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who are known collectively as the Makars.

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The Makars were sort of court poets to the Scottish court

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of the 15th and early 16th century.

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The Makars brought Scots poetry to new heights,

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drawing on such influences as Dante and Chaucer.

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Sadly, however, much of their work was later lost or destroyed.

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One of the greatest of these Makars was Blind Harry,

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who wrote The Wallace, which takes as its subject

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that other hero of Scottish independence, William Wallace.

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And a bit like Mel Gibson's film, it is a wee bit inaccurate.

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But also like Mel's film, it was hugely popular,

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and it elevated Wallace to the status of national martyr.

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And as we've seen,

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John Barbour's The Brus glorified the struggles of Robert the Bruce.

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So, it is clear to see that the early writers in Scots

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identified themselves closely with the cause of Scottish freedom.

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There's a slight irony here in that Ulster Scots

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is perceived to come from a Unionist background.

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Over here, is Scots part of the nationalist revival?

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If you found someone in Scotland who was hostile to the Scots language,

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who regarded it either as a historical anomaly,

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or an artificial creation,

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they would probably be of a Unionist disposition.

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There are people quite capable of saying

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the cultural argument for Scots, the existential argument for Scots,

0:18:430:18:46

but dinna ging along with the desire for independence.

0:18:460:18:50

To folk like me, that doesn't make sense.

0:18:500:18:53

The only way to save the Scots language is to be independent

0:18:530:18:55

and to be proud of it.

0:18:550:18:56

I dinna see how we can be proud of ourselves

0:18:560:18:59

if we're nae proud of ourselves. Put it that way.

0:18:590:19:01

Let me put the Unionist argument, then,

0:19:010:19:04

which is that this is cultural separatism.

0:19:040:19:06

This is a part of saying, "We're different from England,

0:19:060:19:08

"we deserve to be separate because we're culturally separate."

0:19:080:19:12

Scotland doesn't have to validate a national identity.

0:19:120:19:15

It's one of the strongest national identities in the world.

0:19:150:19:17

If the question in Scottish politics is, "Is Scotland a nation?"

0:19:170:19:21

then you'll get 98% of people saying yes.

0:19:210:19:24

You don't have to be a Scottish nationalist to believe

0:19:240:19:27

in nourishing and flourishing the Scottish culture and language.

0:19:270:19:30

But it would be the case, I suspect,

0:19:300:19:32

that most Scottish nationalists would think that was a good idea.

0:19:320:19:35

The Makar period is said to have reached its pinnacle

0:19:360:19:39

with Gavin Douglas's Eneados, his version of Virgil's Aeneid,

0:19:390:19:43

the first translation of an ancient text into an Anglic language.

0:19:430:19:47

It was published in the year 1513.

0:19:470:19:50

But that year was also a disastrous year for Scotland,

0:19:540:19:58

and the start of the decline of the Scots language.

0:19:580:20:01

In 1513, a Scottish army invaded England to aid France,

0:20:010:20:05

which was being attacked by Henry VIII.

0:20:050:20:07

Despite being outnumbered,

0:20:090:20:11

the English annihilated the Scottish army.

0:20:110:20:14

King James IV died on the battlefield.

0:20:140:20:17

He was the last monarch in the British Isles to do so.

0:20:170:20:20

The power vacuum in Scotland led to massive political instability,

0:20:250:20:29

which the Tudor monarchs were only too happy to exploit.

0:20:290:20:32

And then along came the Reformation.

0:20:320:20:34

In 1560, encouraged by Protestant England,

0:20:340:20:38

and spurred by the fiery preaching of John Knox,

0:20:380:20:41

the Church of Scotland broke with the Church of Rome.

0:20:410:20:44

Parliament abolished the Catholic Mass,

0:20:440:20:46

and the country officially became Calvinist.

0:20:460:20:49

Scotland, now newly Calvinist, needed a Bible.

0:20:500:20:54

There was no approved Scots version, so the Scottish Calvinists

0:20:540:20:57

used an English translation of the Geneva Bible.

0:20:570:21:00

The preachers probably had to paraphrase it into Scots

0:21:000:21:03

so that their congregations could understand why they would soon be

0:21:030:21:07

cast into the fiery depths of hell, but the text was in English.

0:21:070:21:11

This lays claim to being the house where John Knox lived.

0:21:120:21:16

Wouldn't have been much craic, living with John Knox, would it?

0:21:160:21:19

Apparently, Knox's daughter committed the terrible sin

0:21:190:21:23

of coming down late for breakfast one morning.

0:21:230:21:26

Knox pointed an accusing finger at her and shouted,

0:21:260:21:29

"Spawn of the devil!".

0:21:290:21:31

To which she replied, "Good morning, father."

0:21:310:21:35

Yes, "fun-loving" and "easy-going" aren't exactly phrases

0:21:350:21:39

we associate with 16th century Scottish Protestantism.

0:21:390:21:42

It was all a bit stern and hostile to artistic works.

0:21:420:21:46

Now, most Scots literature at the time

0:21:460:21:49

tended to be Catholic in content and artistic in nature,

0:21:490:21:52

which is why Knox described the Scots language as the "language of Popery."

0:21:520:21:57

Mind you, you'd have thought John Knox would have ended up

0:21:590:22:02

somewhere better than this.

0:22:020:22:04

I mean, buried in a car park?!

0:22:040:22:05

But, it wasn't all one-way traffic.

0:22:060:22:09

I mean, what did you do when you were 17?

0:22:090:22:11

King James VI of Scotland wrote a book, "Reulis and Cautelis".

0:22:120:22:16

"Rules and Cautions" - basically a guide to writing poetry in Scots.

0:22:160:22:21

Mind you, he was a king - probably got somebody to write it for him.

0:22:210:22:25

But, when King James VI of Scotland

0:22:250:22:28

became the King James I of England and Scotland,

0:22:280:22:31

he issued the new King James Bible,

0:22:310:22:35

which was, of course, in English.

0:22:350:22:37

The key thing was the union of crowns,

0:22:370:22:39

because it moved the court from Scotland,

0:22:390:22:41

where Scots was spoken, to London, where English was spoken.

0:22:410:22:46

Although the early court commentators of James I,

0:22:460:22:49

as he became, James VI to Scotland,

0:22:490:22:52

were complaining that they could not understand the Scots courtiers

0:22:520:22:55

who had come down to London, so obviously that was a crucial thing.

0:22:550:22:59

Yes, the royal court was now in London and its language was English.

0:22:590:23:03

Scots quickly became displaced as the language of government

0:23:030:23:07

and commerce and literature.

0:23:070:23:09

In our neck of the woods,

0:23:090:23:11

James is probably most famous for the Plantation.

0:23:110:23:14

Scots settlers poured into Ulster, but the indigenous population

0:23:140:23:18

would also affect how the Scots language developed in Ulster.

0:23:180:23:21

Ulster was the most Gaelic part of Ireland.

0:23:210:23:24

There was an awful lot of Gaelic still spoken here at that time,

0:23:240:23:27

and that was going to absorb into the everyday parlance

0:23:270:23:31

of the people that came here.

0:23:310:23:32

Also, you had existent Elizabethan English,

0:23:320:23:35

and hangovers of Norman French as well,

0:23:350:23:38

so all these things go into a melting pot,

0:23:380:23:39

and a lot of these different words and phrases

0:23:390:23:42

have got absorbed to make Ulster Scots

0:23:420:23:44

subtly different in pronunciation and vocabulary,

0:23:440:23:47

from modern-day Scots in different parts of Scotland.

0:23:470:23:50

-So there are bits of Irish in there as well?

-Aye.

0:23:500:23:52

If I said, "Haud yer wheesht",

0:23:520:23:54

"wheesht" or "whisht" is from a Gaelic derivative.

0:23:540:23:57

Also, "I was into clabber" -

0:23:570:23:58

"clabber" is from the Irish "clabair" for mud,

0:23:580:24:02

and that has been absorbed into Ulster Scots terminology.

0:24:020:24:05

There is a rule in local TV.

0:24:050:24:07

If you're making a documentary about history, culture,

0:24:070:24:10

art or literature, well, you will end up in the Linen Hall Library,

0:24:100:24:15

even if you don't want to. And the reason is simple -

0:24:150:24:18

the Linen Hall has everything.

0:24:180:24:21

Where's the largest collection of Ulster Scots literature?

0:24:210:24:24

No, it is not a trick question. It is here.

0:24:240:24:28

Scots language literature was being printed in Belfast,

0:24:280:24:32

and was being imported during the 1600s and 1700s.

0:24:320:24:36

The 17th century in Ulster was a turbulent time for those settlers.

0:24:360:24:41

There was a lot of instability,

0:24:410:24:43

so there's not as much written material available.

0:24:430:24:45

There's the Ulster Miscellany.

0:24:450:24:47

It contains a whole variety of poems and prose and riddles

0:24:470:24:51

and verse, and different things, nearly all anonymous.

0:24:510:24:53

At the back of it are nine poems,

0:24:530:24:55

which have come to be known as the Scotch Poems from Donegal.

0:24:550:24:59

# The English steel we could... #

0:24:590:25:03

By the end of the 17th century,

0:25:030:25:05

it was clear that Scots was under pressure.

0:25:050:25:08

In Scotland, Scots was commonly spoken by 70%

0:25:080:25:11

of the non-Gaelic speaking population.

0:25:110:25:14

However, the written and printed word was almost universally in English.

0:25:140:25:18

# A parcel o' rogues in a nation... #

0:25:180:25:23

On May 1, 1707, in this very hall, the Scots Parliament

0:25:250:25:31

voted itself out of existence and instead joined with England

0:25:310:25:35

and Wales to form the United Kingdom.

0:25:350:25:38

Parliament was now in London.

0:25:380:25:40

From the very outset, the new Scottish MPs were mocked

0:25:400:25:43

by their English counterparts for their use of the Scots language.

0:25:430:25:48

300 years on and Alex Salmond has exacted a little revenge.

0:25:480:25:53

In the House of Commons, you're not allowed to insult somebody

0:25:530:25:56

personally, so if you called somebody a thieving, slimy rogue,

0:25:560:26:00

you'd be upbraided by the speaker immediately.

0:26:000:26:03

If you call him a "sleekit scunner",

0:26:030:26:06

then it has two great virtues.

0:26:060:26:08

Firstly, you get off with it,

0:26:080:26:10

in terms of parliamentary protocol.

0:26:100:26:13

Secondly, it also has a great virtue in that the minister concerned

0:26:130:26:16

knows he is being insulted, he's just not quite sure to what extent.

0:26:160:26:20

The English translation of sleekit scunner would be "a slimy emetic,"

0:26:200:26:24

a walking emetic, and Hansard writers would send me down a note

0:26:240:26:27

saying, "What is 'sleekit'?"

0:26:270:26:29

I'd put "slimy, untrustworthy".

0:26:290:26:31

"What is 'scunner'?" "Sick-making, odious",

0:26:310:26:35

and send it back up again,

0:26:350:26:37

so they'd have the translation, and they'd put "Scots usage".

0:26:370:26:40

One expert in the Scots language writing about the significance

0:26:400:26:44

of 1707 stated that, to the extent that Scots is a provincial dialect,

0:26:440:26:49

it only became so once Scotland began to think of itself

0:26:490:26:53

as a province, rather than a nation.

0:26:530:26:56

After 1707, the Scottish elite turned to English.

0:26:560:27:01

In 1754, the Select Society - sounds a bit like the Bullingdon Club -

0:27:010:27:06

was formed in Edinburgh to promote the use of English.

0:27:060:27:10

Many at the head of the Scottish Enlightenment, such as David Hume

0:27:100:27:14

and Adam Smith, sought to eradicate the use of Scots from their writing.

0:27:140:27:18

Books were written designed to,

0:27:180:27:20

"Correct improprieties of Scots speech and writing."

0:27:200:27:24

These efforts drove Scots away from its position as a national language.

0:27:240:27:28

But the language clung on.

0:27:280:27:31

It continued to be spoken and written in regional varieties

0:27:310:27:34

in large parts of the country, but it was clearly under pressure.

0:27:340:27:38

What I love about Northern Ireland is that there will be people

0:27:400:27:43

watching this at home thinking, "Hmm, a fella from Sinn Fein

0:27:430:27:47

"and Alex Salmond support the Ulster Scots?

0:27:470:27:50

"Damn! I'll have to pretend to like it now!"

0:27:500:27:53

And there'll be other people thinking,

0:27:530:27:55

"Hmm, a fella from Sinn Fein and Alex Salmond?

0:27:550:27:58

"That has put me off my Ulster Scots."

0:27:580:28:01

But take the politics out of it.

0:28:010:28:03

You have got to admit that Scots has legitimate linguistic roots,

0:28:030:28:07

and a literature going back seven centuries to The Brus.

0:28:070:28:11

In the second part of Minding Our Language,

0:28:110:28:13

we'll take a close look at the Scots and Ulster Scots literature,

0:28:130:28:17

and we'll find out why Ballycarry needs an airport.

0:28:170:28:21

And, how Moneyreagh pre-dated Ashley Madison.

0:28:210:28:25

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