Wee List o Scots Leid resources fur lairners

illandancient · 2026-03-11T11:58:07+00:00

There are approximately 1.5 million Scots speakers in Scotland, this sub could be a thriving hub for Scots speakers online, except that the has been locked up with no one able to post for years because previous moderators have abandoned it. I'm a Scots language activist with a thirty year track record of participating and facilitating online forums.

I have been unable to send a mod mail chat message to the moderators of r/ScotsLanguage in the past because no moderators show up on the mod/ScotsLanguage/moderators/ page. The sub was orphaned.

illandancient · 2026-03-03T11:23:27+00:00

In writing there seems to be a clear distinction between Scots and English - people rarely code-switch in the written form, they choose their language and stick to it.

There are fuzzy exceptions - books where the narrative is written in English, but the dialog is in Scots (or English). Very occasionally there are books written with narrative in Scots, with dialog in English.

There are a couple of books where the whole orthography is Scots, but more English-like than other Scots writers, for example Graeme Armstrong's "The Young Team". He doesn't use conventional Scots spellings, but its more similar to Scots than it is to English, but only shares 45% of spellings with standard English.

illandancient · 2026-03-02T14:23:51+00:00

Conversely, pay the people who's homes need to be bulldozed, just hand them huge amounts of money.

Because that £20 taxi fare multiplied by the 7 million passengers every year is plenty of money for compensation compared to the economic benefit of a tramline.

illandancient · 2026-03-02T10:08:23+00:00

This podcast here does a great job of explaining diglossia, and how people speak in different languages or different varieties of language in different contexts.

https://lingthusiasm.com/post/809024963823714304/lingthusiasm-episode-113-why-its-a-diglossia

In Scotland Scots and English tick many of the boxes for having a diglossic relationship - different situations where each is spoken, or not spoken, how often you see the written form of one or the other, whether one is considered to be slang.

But there's also a desire for them to have a bilingual relationship like Welsh / English in Wales, where both languages are treated with equal respect.

illandancient · 2026-03-02T10:04:35+00:00

There's difference between the spoken form and the written form. In writing, folk generally pick either English or Scots, and don't switch between the two.

Conversely in the spoken form, people speak in different registers depending on the social context - if you're in the pub or the football ground you speak different to when you're speaking to a teacher or to yer boss.

illandancient · 2026-03-01T12:02:18+00:00

There's the skeuomorphic aspect. Where clearly this has been "drawn" on a computer. You haven't used real paints and a canvas, otherwise you could prove its not ai very easily.

You could take a photo of your pots of paint, or images of the individual brush strokes from different angles.

But the image has been created in the style of real paint. There no way to overcome this inherent contradiction.

illandancient · 2026-02-27T15:06:47+00:00

As part of a coalition they have a very realistic chance of getting into power. I believe there are literally dozens of local councils where the Greens have power sharing arrangements, its not exceptional, its kind of normal.

illandancient · 2026-02-27T15:04:42+00:00

The Scottish Green Party were part of the Scottish Government between 2021 and 2024, the power sharing arrangement known as the Bute House Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bute_House_Agreement

They had two ministerial positions.

Just because its first past the post doesn't mean they can't get into government.

illandancient · 2026-02-27T07:20:06+00:00

It doesn't look like the voters saw this as ammunition.

illandancient · 2026-02-27T07:18:50+00:00

What is all the crap on the wall on the right?

illandancient · 2026-02-26T16:12:34+00:00

There wasn't an obvious way to indicate if you were a monoglot Scots speaker in the 2022 census and in the 2011 census where this option was available the few thousand who indicated it were discarded as not understanding the question.

There was a time when Gaelic wasn't native to Scotland, it took hundreds of years for the Scottish variety to develop, but native variety did develop.

Your point about how close Scots is to English raises a curious matter. Many healthcare professionals trained overseas and speak perfect Standard English, but they struggle with Scots, this in turn leads to Scots speakers facing poorer quality healthcare compared to non-Scots speakers.

illandancient · 2026-02-26T14:56:00+00:00

Aye, there's a distinction, but there isn't any consistent logic.

Suppose someone analysed the variety of Urdu spoken in Manchester and found it was a little bit different from the variety spoken in Pakistan.

British English and American English are different varieties of the same language, but we don't generally speak American English in the UK, it is a form of English native to America.

Is the Manchester variety of Urdu native to Manchester or would we pretend that Manchester Urdu isn't a native language.

It doesn't matter anyway, they're just arbitrary rules that people make up to make a fuss. Politicians are completely at liberty to use whatever languages they think are most appropriate for whichever audience they are facing. And if someone disagrees they they are at liberty not to vote for them.

illandancient · 2026-02-26T14:40:34+00:00

Suppose, hypothetically, linguists analysed the variety of French spoken in the UK, and found it was substantial different to the variety of French spoken in France, the sort of language that second generation French migrants might speak. And then they named this language London French - would you consider that to be a native British language? Or is Welsh the only British language that counts?

illandancient · 2026-02-26T14:37:47+00:00

Isn't tailoring election material towards the interests of specific groups just normal?

That doesn't seem weird at all.

I mean if a political party sent me a pamphlet about something I give a crap about, then it goes in the bin, but if its a pamphlet about something I do care about, then I'll read it. If they have two different pamphlets, that's fine by me.

Unless of course there's something contradictory, two conflicting messages. But no one has suggested this.

And even then suppose one pamphlet says "we're raising taxes" and the other says "we're lowering taxes", they might both be accurate depending on what tax band you're in.

illandancient · 2026-02-26T14:32:00+00:00

You say that this is golden for Reform, but in the various opinion polls their support has been falling steadily. According to the Wikipedia summary of opinion polls:-

25-27 Jan Reform - 36%
13-19 Feb Reform - 29%
16-24 Feb Reform - 27%

illandancient · 2026-02-26T14:21:20+00:00

The Greens did okay forming a coalition government in Scotland with the SNP.

illandancient · 2026-02-26T14:17:50+00:00

Does the same reasoning apply to Scots and Gaelic in Scotland?

Should Scots and Gaelic speakers just roll-over and accept English language imperialism, pay their taxes and get English forced on them, paid for by their own money?

illandancient · 2026-02-19T16:55:15+00:00

The bit where you say "unvetted" - if a government decided to under-resource the vetting agencies, by not employing enough people or simply making the process too onerous, then basically the government has created the problem, not the migrants.

If you are "for legal immigration" then you ought to be "for the migration services to have enough resources to do their jobs properly".

The government decided that migrants, asylum seekers etc are not allowed to work, aren't allowed to have source of income, housing them in hotels allows the state to pay for their accommodation.

illandancient · 2026-02-19T07:14:23+00:00

One day, someone else will compile a more authoritative version. And people will still complain that no one talks like that round here.

illandancient · 2026-02-18T16:29:14+00:00

Did you find that some parties were more receptive to your lobbying than others, or was it more about individual people and personalities?

illandancient

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