0:15:50 > 0:15:57.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08One of my favourite Scots words is glaikit.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11I love the sound of glaikit. It's onomatopoeic.
0:16:11 > 0:16:16It sounds exactly as it means, which is a face empty of all intelligence.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20I guess the nearest English equivalent would be gormless.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23But glaikit is just a great word. Full of character.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29Poet and children's novelist Jackie Kay was raised in Glasgow
0:16:29 > 0:16:33and the words she heard as a child form an important part of her work.
0:16:37 > 0:16:41Scots language, for me, is a great cauldron full of riches.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43You can just dip into it and get different things
0:16:43 > 0:16:46and different flavours and tastes every time.
0:16:46 > 0:16:50If I was a cook, I would definitely be using the Scots language
0:16:50 > 0:16:53because you get a great, big boost in flavour.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55You get lots of character.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58You get a sense of uniqueness
0:16:58 > 0:17:00and a sense of time and place.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10I like the syntax and the use of repetition.
0:17:10 > 0:17:13My mum might say, "I'm not tired tired but I'm tired."
0:17:13 > 0:17:18"I'm not hungry hungry but I'm hungry." And I like that.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20I think of that as a Glasgow double.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22Somewhere between these two tireds or these two hungrys,
0:17:22 > 0:17:24you know exactly what she means.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32As a writer, I've always used Scots language in different ways
0:17:32 > 0:17:36and explored the way that you lose bits of your language
0:17:36 > 0:17:37when you move country.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41I live in England now and I have a kind of nostalgic relationship
0:17:41 > 0:17:44to some words that I don't get to hear any more.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46I only get to hear them when I go back to Glasgow.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55This poem's called Old Tongue
0:17:55 > 0:17:59and I wrote it for my partner who left Scotland, my ex-partner,
0:17:59 > 0:18:03who left Scotland when she was eight and went to live in England.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06It fascinates me when people leave a country,
0:18:06 > 0:18:11what they often most miss is the language they've left behind.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13Old Tongue.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16When I was eight, I was forced south.
0:18:16 > 0:18:18Not long after, when I opened
0:18:18 > 0:18:21my mouth, a strange thing happened.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24I lost my Scottish accent.
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Words fell off my tongue:
0:18:26 > 0:18:29eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit
0:18:29 > 0:18:32stumour, teuchter, heidbanger,
0:18:32 > 0:18:36so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39shut yer geggie or I'll gie you the malkie!
0:18:39 > 0:18:43My own vowels started to stretch like my bones
0:18:43 > 0:18:45and I turned my back on Scotland.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48Words disappeared in the dead of night,
0:18:48 > 0:18:52new words marched in: ghastly, awful,
0:18:52 > 0:18:57quite dreadful, scones said like stones.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00Pokey hats into ice cream cones.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04Oh where did all my words go
0:19:04 > 0:19:07my old words, my lost words?
0:19:07 > 0:19:10Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word,
0:19:10 > 0:19:12did you ever try and call it back
0:19:12 > 0:19:15like calling in the sea?
0:19:15 > 0:19:18If I could have found my words wandering,
0:19:18 > 0:19:20I swear I would have taken them in,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24swallowed them whole, knocked them back.
0:19:24 > 0:19:28Out in the English soil, my old words
0:19:28 > 0:19:30buried themselves.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33It made my mother's blood boil.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41I wanted them back; I wanted my old accent back,
0:19:41 > 0:19:47my old tongue. My dour soor Scottish tongue.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51Singsongy. I wanted to gie it laldie.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd