Scots leid has official status
Read an auld Scots rhyme to celebrate
The Scots leid - or language - was given official status in Scotland this week. Folk musician Iona Fyfe tweeted in Scots to celebrate this news - but she then suffered a barrage of abuse from angry men who dispute that Scots is a language. They regard it simply as bad English.
Fyfe is not alone - the Scots poet Len Pennie who now presents BBC Radio Scotland’s excellent “The Arts Mix” on weekday afternoons - also got trolled on X for promoting Scots there.
When Jamie Saxt, the King of Scotland set off down to London with his nobles to take the throne of England in 1603, Scots was the language of the court, drama, literature and the law as well as of the common folk. But from then on, it gradually lost its status. Over centuries, from the tawse to spellchecker, authority has smacked it down.
“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy”
It doesn’t seem that the Scottish Languages Bill is going to provide many resources for Scots - most of the funding is for Gaelic. But there is a saying that “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy” - so perhaps official recognition, even by a devolved Parliament, will make some positive difference.
The Guid Scots Tongue
My grandfather Robert Kemp was a scholar of Scots who wrote several plays in it. He had most success with his adaptations of the great French playwright Moliere, and of the sole surviving medieval masterpiece of the Scots theatre The Three Estates. Kemp’s version was the hit of the Edinburgh festivals of 1948 and 49. I have made that available online.
One of my ongoing projects is to create a book about Scots from Robert’s writing - in particular, from a radio series he made for BBC Radio Scotland called ‘The Guid Scos tongue”. Here is a flavour of it.
A wee Scottish Morpheus
In the show, the protagonist Jean, a legal secretary studying Scots, goes around the country to learn the language in various settings. In one episode, she visits a school where she hears the original version of the nursery rhyme Wee Willie Winkie. The dominie scorns the watered-down version rendered in English books as “Are all the children in their beds? For its past eight o clock.”
Robert muses that: “Wee Willie Winkie is...the eternal sandman, Morpheus himself hoveran abune the tiled ruifs and craw-stepped gables o an auld Scots burgh.”
Here is the auld sang:
Some Scots terms in the poem
“Thrums” - the ends of a weaver’s yarn - I think it means the cat was purring.
“Waukrife” - wakeful
“Airn” - iron
A “kennawhat” - je ne sais quoi - I know not what
“Wamblin off a body’s knee” - fidgeting on a lap,
‘Ruggin at the cat’s lug” - pullin at the cat’s ear - rug is to pull, as rax is to reach.’
The wean was ‘in a creel’ - a creel can be a basket but the expression ‘in a creel’ can also mean in a state of confusion, or even out of your senses. (Perhaps as in the English phrase ‘in a spin’)
The Dominie recites:
Wee Willie Winkie
Rins through the toun
Up the stair and doon the stair,
In his nicht goun,
Tirlin at the window
Crying at the lock,
‘Are the weans in their bed,
For it’s noo ten o clock.
Hey, Willie Winkie
Are you comin ben?
The cat’s singin grey thrums
To the sleepin hen,
The dog’s speldered on the floor,
And disna gie a cheep,
But here’s the waukrife laddie
That winna faa asleep.
Onything but sleep, ye rogue
Glowein like the mune,
Rattlin in an airn jug
Wi an airn spoon -
Rumblan, tumblin roonaboot
Crawan like a cock,
Skirlan like a kennawhat
Waukenan sleepan fouk
Hey Willie Winkie
The wean’s in a creel
Wamblin aff a body’s knee
Like a very eel,
Ruggin at the cat’s lug
Ravellin aa her thrums,
Hey Willie Winkie!...
See, here he comes!
And the wean’s asleep - suddenly. Morpheus has caught him.
In this episode, the dominie also meditates on how his world is changing. He bemoans what he sees as the growing habit of celebrating Guy Fawkes Night, an alien festival.
“Guy Fawkes tried to blaw up the House O Commons mair that a hunder years after the the Union o the Parliaments. I whiles think they wad shaw mair sense a history if they crouned hm wi roses!
“It’s a changed. We kent our history frae the stories o Wallace and Bruce and the Covenant. We didna tak it frae the papers and the cinema. And when we thocht lang, we didna run down to the paper shoppie for a comic, we got some o the aulder bodies to sing us a sang.”
Let’s keep singing the auld sangs. Scots isnae deid, nor daft, nor tae be dunted aside wi a scoff or a spellchecker. And here’s a toast tae Iona Fyfe an aa the ither Scots scrievers apikking up for oor mither tongue, noo an official leid.
An aside - the BBC replied to my earlier post “The BBC is Stealing from Scotland”. I have publised their response in full at the foot of the piece which you can find here.
I used to think Scots was simply poor English but for anyone interested in and who can possibly speak a second or third language (maybe more), Scots is clearly based on English plus many other words from Scandinavia, Northern and Southern Europe. It also is clearly linked to medieval or middle English. It's really not rocket science.