Scots language: Encyclopedia II - Scots language - Language Change

Scots language - Language Change

After the Union of Scotland and England the issue of language became topical and foremost was the question of whether Scottish people should speak English or Scots. Gaelic was never considered an option; at the time it was mostly relegated to the Highlands and Islands. Scots became considered to have a substratal relationship to English as opposed to an adstratal relationship.

On one hand well-off Scots took to learning English through such activities as those of the Irishman Thomas Sheridan (father of Richard Sheridan) who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution. Charging a guinea at a time (about £65 in today's money), they were attended by over 300 men and he was made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh.

On the other hand the education system also became increasingly geared to teaching English though this was initially impaired by the teachers' and students' lack of knowledge of English pronunciation through lack of contact with English speakers. Aspects of English grammar and lexis could be accessed through printed texts. By the 1840s the Scottish Education Department's language policy was that Scots had no value "...it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as a suitable medium of education or culture". Students of course reverted back to Scots outside the classroom but the reversion was not complete. What occurred and has been occurring ever since is a process of language attrition whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from English, a process that has accelerated rapidly since wide-spread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after the Second World War. It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift . These processes are often erroneously referred to as language change, convergence or merger.

A rather more positive take on this is that rather than reject English culture the Scots mastered and conquered it, becoming bilingual and writing some of the greatest works of the time such as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in what was still a foreign language. However, most younger Scots today see a Scottish accent, that is, Scottish English, as a sufficient marker of their Scottishness and are generally not interested in retaining bilingualism in a language they consider old-fashioned, parochial, or simply uncool. Residual features of Scots (often regarded as slang) in the speech of the young urban working class are often derogatorily referred to as Ned speak.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Language Change", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki