I’m surprised that Gaelic wasn’t yet. The closest language to English, Frysian, is already for aeons an official language.
The “dialect or language” debate lives here too for certain dialects. Also under historical linguists. The problems is the definition. For some it is a percentage has to be of a different influence then the other “main” language. Like how Frysian that is close to English misses the very big French influence in the Dutch language and has way less German and Hebrew influences than that latter too. I don’t know the exact number but it feels like 50% different word-wise. Where as Limburgs and other dialects seem like Scottish; a lot of the same words just pronounced different. But for some the definition of a language has more to do with a group with it’s own culture. So these “dialects” would be languages. In this regard every “bubble” of people often has a language.
A reason why there are so many fights over language/dialect is because preservation can be subsidised by the government. A language more then a dialect. And when something is a language it technically can be preserved more easily because translations are often mandatory.
I personally don’t really care. Languages are fluid; they come and go. But if people want to preserve them that’s also a beautiful thing and not hurting anyone. A lot of history is in any language/dialect. It shows the travels of people in history; just like our kitchen recipes and DNA. So good luck and thanks to the volunteers keeping Gaelic/Scottish alive to teach about those historical travels!
I’m surprised they weren’t already!
Historywoman in the mud
It isn’t mentioned in the article but does “official language” designation in Scotland include the requirement that all government communications must also be available in Scots?
Similar to French in Canada, Irish in Ireland etc.
Miorbhallach/Braw.
Unionists livid
We can always quote Bernard Cerquiglini who said the ‘English is just French pronounced badly’.
Great initiative, but will be difficult to define an official form of Scots given it varies so much across the country, so can’t see it having any practical impact
Does English even have status in law? I didn’t think we really did “official language” type structures in the UK.
UTTER WOKE NONSENSE
Kidding, nice to see Gaelic and Scots finally get the recognition they deserve.
Yass, now I’m bilingual. Better put that on the CV.
Glè mhath 👌
Deagh naidheachd, mu dheireadh thall!
Glè mhath
Does this mean they’ll now establish BBC Scots and Scots-medium education?
16 comments
Braw
I’m surprised that Gaelic wasn’t yet. The closest language to English, Frysian, is already for aeons an official language.
The “dialect or language” debate lives here too for certain dialects. Also under historical linguists. The problems is the definition. For some it is a percentage has to be of a different influence then the other “main” language. Like how Frysian that is close to English misses the very big French influence in the Dutch language and has way less German and Hebrew influences than that latter too. I don’t know the exact number but it feels like 50% different word-wise. Where as Limburgs and other dialects seem like Scottish; a lot of the same words just pronounced different. But for some the definition of a language has more to do with a group with it’s own culture. So these “dialects” would be languages. In this regard every “bubble” of people often has a language.
A reason why there are so many fights over language/dialect is because preservation can be subsidised by the government. A language more then a dialect. And when something is a language it technically can be preserved more easily because translations are often mandatory.
I personally don’t really care. Languages are fluid; they come and go. But if people want to preserve them that’s also a beautiful thing and not hurting anyone. A lot of history is in any language/dialect. It shows the travels of people in history; just like our kitchen recipes and DNA. So good luck and thanks to the volunteers keeping Gaelic/Scottish alive to teach about those historical travels!
I’m surprised they weren’t already!
Historywoman in the mud
It isn’t mentioned in the article but does “official language” designation in Scotland include the requirement that all government communications must also be available in Scots?
Similar to French in Canada, Irish in Ireland etc.
Miorbhallach/Braw.
Unionists livid
We can always quote Bernard Cerquiglini who said the ‘English is just French pronounced badly’.
Great initiative, but will be difficult to define an official form of Scots given it varies so much across the country, so can’t see it having any practical impact
Does English even have status in law? I didn’t think we really did “official language” type structures in the UK.
UTTER WOKE NONSENSE
Kidding, nice to see Gaelic and Scots finally get the recognition they deserve.
Yass, now I’m bilingual. Better put that on the CV.
Glè mhath 👌
Deagh naidheachd, mu dheireadh thall!
Glè mhath
Does this mean they’ll now establish BBC Scots and Scots-medium education?
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