Newton Emerson lets rip on Ulster-Scots.
Irish News columnist Newton Emerson has launched a scathing attack on the Ulster-Scots agency and the Ulster-Scots ‘language’. Newton’s views on the subject are somewhat less charitable than my own.Wha’ A cannae unnerstaun at aw is but fur why tha magazine is screeved in tha Inglis leid an nae in guid oul braid scotch. Dae thems tha wurks fur tha bord nae knae tha thar nae daen nae favours for thems tha’ spake hamely at aw wi’ this way a’ wurkin?
A mane, cud they nae hae tryed fur t’ screev mure tha tha wan thang? Gie me a shoot yis boys yis an A’ll screeve yis up a thang nor twa!
What’s interesting about this isn’t the typical attack on Ulster Scots, but the very well-made comments about the public sector (ab)using buildings in prime business locations.
If we must subsidise buildings on Gt Victoria St as rate/tax payers, it would be better to do so on behalf of businesses in the services sector, not daft quangos which exist only to justify their own existence.
Besides, why is the Ulster-Scots Agency not in Ballymena? Seriously.
An honest question so don’t take my head off. Can someone tell me what is the the differnce between say, Cockney or Geordie and Ulster Scots in terms of their linguitic relationship with English?
Linguistic.
TOCHAIS
Yes, Ulster Scots derives from Scots, the language of medieval Scotland; whereas Geordie and Cockney derive from the language of medieval England (although actually Geordie is part of the Old Northumbrian dialect from which Scots also derives, so it’s very similar).
As such, Scots and English were separate administrative languages, and have separate literary heritages. Unfortunately, proponents of modern Ulster Scots have abandoned that heritage, hence the ridicule rightly heaped upon them.
The thing is as well, in recent decades/centuries Scots and English have merged, to the extent most people would see them as the same language, leaving the distinction you refer to all but meaningless.
“Is it true the Ulster Scots for Special Needs is “Wee dafties”? Bizarre or what?
Posted by Divine Mercy on Jan 12, 2009 @ 11:42 PM”
No it isn’t, though that hasn’t stopped the slur being repeated for several years now. We’ve long ago established this on slugger. Do keep up
Thanks, CD.
It could be ‘wee dafties’ if you want it to be as Ulster Scots is full of neologisms and lacks a truly definitive dictionary on the lines of either the 12-volume Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue or the 10-volume Scottish National Dictionary.
What’s sad about Ulster Scots is the insecure desire of the people who speak, or rather spiel it, to try and distinguish themselves from their catholic neighbour with their unique “language”.
Irish, or the gaelic language, would be promoted and used across many parts of Ireland even if Ireland was a unified country and there wasn’t a Unionist about the place. The same is true in Wales. They do not promote Welsh to annoy anyone, they do it because it’s been a living part of their culture for so long. Some Republicans in the north seem to use the Irish language as a cultural tool to bat Unionusts with. But the language should not be blamed for this.
Any sane person sees Ulster Scots for what it is. Unfortunately sanity in the political melting pot of NI is a slippery thing to keep hold of.
“What’s sad about Ulster Scots is the insecure desire of the people who speak, or rather spiel it, to try and distinguish themselves from their catholic neighbour with their unique “language”.”
…er- you won’t have read the history of the language movements of the British Isles then? How many Unionists were involved in the Gaelic league? Irish is on a life support mechanism in many parts of your country because its no longer relevant. I think that is actually very sad
People don’t need to identify themselves as non-British any more, especially if it meant they’d have to give up the foreign games. In fact of the old FF aims, Ireland isn’t Catholic, isn’t Gaelic, and isn’t free ( at least up here), and most people seem happy enough with that- makes me think most of them would really have been happy with Home Rule
“Some Republicans in the north seem to use the Irish language as a cultural tool to bat Unionusts with. But the language should not be blamed for this.”
Of course not. But the language activists most certainly can, if their response to a different culture is to deride it. All of the growing pains of the Ulster Scots movement, and many of its mistakes, are simply reruns of the Irish language movement in NI or the Welsh language movement in Wales- but noone seems to condemn them
Incidentally the U-S movement is proof that for every action there is an opposite reaction. Perhaps the strident demands of some Irish speakers is to blame for your preception iof insecurity? If irish had been left to the linguists and not ther politicians, who knows where it may have flourished
DARTH
Irish is on a life support mechanism in many parts of your country because its no longer relevant.
You might want to check out this modern Irish magazine…. based in Newry – http://www.nosmag.com The language seems very relevant to these guys.
All of the growing pains of the Ulster Scots movement, and many of its mistakes, are simply reruns of the Irish language movement in NI or the Welsh language movement in Wales- but noone seems to condemn them.
Totally incorrect. There a number of massive differences between the Gaelic/Welsh language movements and the Ulster Scots ‘movement’.
The glaringly obvious one is that Irish and Welsh have actual language communities – thousands of people who speak their own language on a daily basis. Ulster Scots does not.
Another difference is that Irish and English are actually languages… Ulster Scots is quite interesting but it is certainly only a dialect and 98% of it can be understood by any native English speaker.
“..if their response to a different culture is to deride it..”
This reminds me that one of the problems in NI is that everybody, whether they consider themselves Irish or British or both, or whatever, share exactly the same linguistic culture – there is no “different culture” in Northern Ireland..
We all share the same culture and here’s the facts:
1. Everybody, whether catholic and protestant, speaks English.
2. Nobody, whether catholic or protestant, speaks Irish as a language continuously handed down from parent to child.
3. In parts of Northern Ireland there is a strong Scots influence on speech, in other parts there is relatively little Scots influence. Areas of strong Scots influence are as likey to be predominantly nationalist, and areas of little Scots influence are as likely to be prdominantly unionist.
There are two kinds of “language” people:
1. Those people who use Irish and Ulster Scots as a political football – USA, ILA, blah, blah, and blah. These people are concerned with politics and identity, both of which have no bearing on language as language is simply spoken communication between human beings – it can’t of it’s nature be nationalist or unionist. That’s why the fact we all speak English doesn’t define our identity or politics, or mark us out as being typical English people.
2. Those people who are genuinely interested in our unique linguistic diversity and are doing their bit to preserve or cultivate it. These people are all about language – I take my hat of to them.
Unfortunately onlookers can get confused and conclude that their is “different culture” going on here. There isn’t, it’s different politics.
Welsh is no more “relevant” in the 21st century than Irish, so what’s your point exactly? It’s very sad because English has such lingustic dominance in the world? Or rather, American English has such predominance in the world.
The Gaelic League didn’t INVENT the Irish language; it tried to promote its widespread RE-USE which had been in decline for so long. The Irish language was THE language of this island for the majority of its inhabitants for generations. A native language, not a dialect of English.
To compare Ulster Scots, which is nothing but an Ulster dialect of English, to the Irish or Welsh languages is delusional. Now you can defend it simply because Ulster Prods are the ones promoting it, or you can acknowledge the obvious truth of Newton Emerson’s article.
Whatever misuse of the Irish language Republican politicans have engaged in doesn’t detract from the sheer lunacy of any individuals trying to invent a new language from a dialect of English.
It’ll be very interesting to see, if and when the accounts for the Ulster Scots Agency and Foras na Gaeilge are published [they haven’t been published now for several years – the accounts for 2004-7 have yet to be made public – how much money is being spent on the ENGLISH language publication, Oot an Aboot. My guess is that a print run of 20,000 on heavy glossy paper with full colour could cost the guts of ÂŁ100,000. That’s a lot of money – more than a third of the annual budget of Lá Nua, an Irish language daily newspaper whose plug was pulled by Foras na Gaeilge before Christmas. Now we know where the money saved by the Foras is going – on expensive and wasteful ads in Ulster Scots magazines with little or no Ulster Scots content and translators to translate little read documents in English to little read documents to Irish.
Someone has to shout stop! I don’t normally heap praise on Newton Emerson but I think his column on this occasion hit the nail on the head. The way money is being spent on Ulster Scots and misspent on bureaucracy and waste in Irish is a scandal – yet no politician or no newspaper is willing to say the Emperors are wearing no clothes….
Surely someone can stick in an FOI request to get both sets of accounts?
No they can’t – apparently the Ulster Scots Agency and Foras na Gaeilge aren’t bound by the Freedom of Information Acts – north or south -as they are north south institutions. There is a code which they say they adhere to – but try getting the accounts from either and see how far it gets you. No other cross border body has delayed so long in publishing accounts.
One wonders why the delay in the case of the Language Body….
No it isn’t, though that hasn’t stopped the slur being repeated for several years now. We’ve long ago established this on slugger. Do keep up
Posted by darth rumsfeld on Jan 13, 2009 @ 11:35 AM
Why don’t you post in both English and Ulster Scots? By the way slugger is a proper noun. That means you use a capital letter.
Newton Emerson
“The survey of Ulster Scots (undertaken before the bureau’s â€downgrade’) commenced with an initial contact in 1992, began in earnest in 1995 and gave up in 1996 after failing to find a single “native speaker” in the whole of counties Antrim and Down.”
No such “survey” was ever conducted by EBLUL. The no native speaker claim came about from a report written by a person who was on the study visit.
Your argument is based on a non-existent survey. Please substantiate that this EBLUL survey and its results exists.
I was actively involved at that stage with US issues and would have been regularly in touch with EBLUL. EBLUL never mentioned or published such a survey. Check out the EBLUL web-site no mention of it there.
If EBLUL had conducted such work why does it continue to allow Ulster-Scots to be part of its structures?
The only survey conducted in Northern Ireland about US was a question included in the NILT survey in 1999. In it 2% of people said they spoke Ulster-Scots.
http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/1999/Community_Relations/USPKULST.html
6% of respondents said they knew people who did speak it
http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/1999/Community_Relations/KNSPKULS.html
(The corresponding figures for Irish were 14% and 33%)
The noteworthy part of those who say they are speakers is the age profile. It is significantly skewed to older age groups which is what you’d expect to find for a lesser used language. 1% of respondents in the 18-34 age bracket, 2% of respondents in the 35-64 age bracket and 4% of repsondents in 65%. Although such surveys are of limited value as they are self-certifying.
The Hansard of the Dail is written in English, not in Irish. The main RTE channels are in English. TG4, the Gaelic channel, is watched by a tiny band of language enthusiasts who enjoy Westerns with subtitles.
So much for the thriving Irish culture of the South.
Here in the North we have public money being squandered on language gimmicks, both Irish and Ulster-Scots, when the working language of the country is English. If people want to preserve ancient languages, fine, let them form cultural Societies for the purpose. But public money should not be wasted on such past-times. Public money should be spent on necessities like health, education, pensions, etc.
Newton Emerson should have criticised both camps. The folly of Bearbra de Broon squandering half a million pounds of the health budget on translation services should not be forgotten.
2. Nobody, whether catholic or protestant, speaks Irish as a language continuously handed down from parent to child.
Ummmm….I do. So do my siblings. And my daughters. And my neighbours. And a lot of my friends and their friends.
I have absolutely no problem with the Ulster Scots movement. Not the Lord Laird/Nelson McCausland types, but the genuine activists/enthusiasts in the north. People like Jim Fenton, who has worked quietly for years to preserve the old words and phrases from (mainly) Antrim (It took him 30 years and 3 editions of his book, the Hamely Tongue, before he was satisfied that he had recorded all that was left of the language in Antrim)
Sally Young, who I met last year. I was struck by how seriously she and her colleagues take the translation of the Bible, constantly checking and re-checking their sources and phrases. And all of it in Sally’s house, all done on a voluntary basis.
Willie McAvoy and Wille Cromie, from Ards, have been compiling taped interviews in ‘Greba’, or ‘Grey Abbey’ Scots for years. Willie McAvoy, as far as I know, was one of the founders of the US Agency.
These people remind me of Irish language enthusiasts from years ago. People who worked on the language for the love of it, not for any pay cheque, or even for thanks. It’s the people who are most vocal on the subject, McCausland etc, who don’t even claim to speak it, who should be silenced here.
As for Oot ‘n Aboot – I don’t think it does the US movement many favours having a magazine, which is supposedly about Ulster Scots, but written mainly in English, however it should be pointed out that, unlike Irish, there is no standardised form of written US, so it’s difficult to write anything without someone pointing out that it’s spelled incorrectly (according to them), or that the terms used are not the ones used, for example, in Ards, or Rathboe, or north Antrim.
“Ummmm….I do. So do my siblings. And my daughters. And my neighbours. And a lot of my friends and their friends.”
You misunderstood what I said, which is that no Irish speaker in Northern Ireland, or maybe more accurately, no Irish speaker whose family originates in the geographical area of Northern Ireland speaks Irish as result of a language continuosly handed down, over generations, in an unbroken fashion from parent to child.
There have always been Irish speakers in northern Ireland, both Catholic and some Protestants. But “native” speakers died out some time last century, by which time their offspring were monoglot English speakers – there are no exceptions to this in Northern Ireland.
“Why don’t you post in both English and Ulster Scots? By the way slugger is a proper noun. That means you use a capital letter.”
Er.. dear pedant
Either “you should use” or ” one uses”. “You use” is the resort of the illiterate.
I don’t post in Ulster Scots because I don’t write it, though I am a capable speaker. I can speak Italian too, but I can’t write in that language. If that’s your best point, best hurry back to the kindergarten and resume your place at the bottom of the sandpit. Ulster McNulty is one example of how to debate rigorously but courteously, if you need a role model.
I do see your point Ulster McNulty, however, does the fact that my parents learned Irish, then raised us speaking Irish as our first language, not make me a native speaker? My children even more so, as they are, technically, third generation Irish speakers? How many generations does it take to count as a native Irish speaker, or is it an impossibility for me or my children, or their children, because the line is broken before my parents?
I’m not trying to be pedantic, it’s just that a lecturer I had once told me more or less the same thing – I wasn’t a native speaker because I didn’t come from a long line of speakers, though, his final argument – that I didn’t come from Donegal, was a bit lame.