by Billy Kay
Mainstream Publishing, £9.99
In ilka generation this last three hunner year there's aye been folk gleg tae murn the daith - 'no langsyne' or 'no lang noo' - o Scots, and as aften as no they hae been writers that themsels made guid ui
se o Scots in their ain wark. In 1775 Henry Mackenzie peenged, 'Tis pity that the Language.will probably soon become so antiquated as not to be understood.' Robert Louis Stevenson, introducin the Scots poems in his 1887 collection Underwoods, thocht it 'a dying language': 'The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite forgotten; and Burns's Ayrshire, and Dr MacDonald's Aberdeen-awa', and Scott's brave, metropolitan utterance will all be equally the ghosts of speech.' And in 2002, William McIlvanney, author o Docherty, a novel reamin-fou wi Scots, wis taen ower wi the same heavy dooms. Scrievin in this blaud aboot a muckle Lottery award tae Itchy Coo, a new Scots language imprent for scuils - and I'll no be blate, I wis yin o its co-foonders - McIlvanney wrote: 'I suppose this project.might re-introduce some Scottish words into temporary currency. But any serious rehabilitation of the Scots language? Forget it.'
The umquhile George Bruce yince lichtlied aw this morbidity in his poem 'Urn Burial (RIP Scots Tongue)' in which the ess o the deid are blawn awa by 'a fuff o wind', and '"She's jinkit again,/ the bitch!"/ said the man wi the spade.' For, despite the evendoun dule o its freens, and the best ettles o its faes, Scots jist winna stey streekit in the lair that has been howkit for it.
As onybody involved in defendin a dounhauden, negleckit or itherweys hinnert language will tell ye, it's no hard tae be disjaskit. The history o Scots sin the 17th century looks like yin lang dwyne, interrupit atweenwhiles wi literary revivals. But a language's literature's no ayewis the richt meisure o its weel-bein on the street.
Anither problem lies in the common ruits and swatches Scots shares wi English - the cause o endless disputes anent its richt status. Naebody wid threap that French and English are the same because they share, but soond itherweys, wurds like 'situation' and 'cascade' - but the socio-political relationship atween English and Scots has resultit in words like 'hoose' and 'faither' bein thocht naethin mair nor dialect variations.
This is aw aboot political perception. Billy Kay, in a new edition o his study Scots: The Mither Tongue, quotes the German philologist Manfred Görlach, whae reckons Scots stauns at mair lenth frae English nor Slovak frae Czech, Croatian frae Serbian, or Norwegian frae Swedish. Kay presents a walth o evidence o the sindry and kenspeckle vocabulary, syntax and grammar o Scots. The book's first prentin, noo twenty year syne, itsel follaed on frae his radio and television programmes. In thae days, Kay wis the kent face o Scots, and wis sairly miscawed by some for pleadin its cause. For ithers, hooiver, his wark chynged their wey o thinkin: naebody had iver tellt them afore, let alane on the BBC, that whit they spoke wisna jist no the 'language o the sheuch' or mankit English, but had an eicht-hunner-year strynd, twa multi-volume dictionars descrivin it, a great and glorious literature, and a haill set o dialects o its ain.
This wis a life-upheezin, emotionally and intellectually liberatin message, that needit baith sowl and smeddum on the pairt o the messenger. It's ironic, syne, that, even as his book is reissued, anither series on Scots gaes oot on BBC2 that Kay, for aw that, wisna speirit tae contribute til. Nae danger tae the BBC for commissionin the new series, for the dour truth is that the arguments for Scots as something biggit in tae the larach o oor daily national life and historic culture still hae tae be made. But whit wid be mair welcome wid be regular programmes - dramas, documentaries, sitcoms, chat shows - no aboot but in Scots.
Since 1986 muckle has chynged on the political, educational and social landscape, and Kay has had tae rewrite a puckle sections o his book. He opens wi a birsie attack on the sweirtness o politicians in post-devolution Scotland tae tak positive action on behaulf o a language uised, accordin tae the government's ain coont, by some 1.6 million fowk. If the parliament in Embro is tae be aboot onythin, he argues, shairly it has tae be aboot recognisin and uphaudin a national language - as, richtly, has happened wi Gaelic, spoken by 60,000 fowk or thereawa. Lettin alane ongaun nerra-heiditness agin Scots, Kay jalouses a financial reason for this sweirtness: if Gaelic education and braidcastin cost ten million pund and mair a year, hoo muckle micht like treatment for Scots cost?
Maybe the Executive should think on the potential bill as a lang-term investment in the future o the 'best wee country in the warld': nurturing sel-confidence, cawin the feet frae the notion o the 'inarticulate Scot', and, as the example o Gaelic shaws, giein a heeze tae economic activity, no least in the field o cultural tourism. Efter aw, the warld's sang o freenship, 'Auld Lang Syne', is composed in Scots.
Of coorse there'll aye be grunds for pessimism. In some airts o the country vocabulary loss gangs on wi nae devaul, and mony bairns are sair pit tae it tae soond the velar fricative 'ch' in 'loch' or the 'wh' in 'wheesht'. Yet in ither airts young people still hae a hantle Scots vocabulary and - a vital sign in ony language - are ekin new wurds tae the auld. The politics micht be taiglesome, but twenty year syne ye'd hae been warslin tae find a politician that even awned the existence o Scots. Noo, government ministers publicly state their commitment tae it, even if eneuch siller tae bigg a sustained Scots language policy hasna yet been furthset. The Executive's Culture Report commits tae the 'promotion and development of the Scots language' and promises tae speir oot 'how best to meet our obligations for [its] development in the light of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages'. The European context is garrin politicians tak Scots seriously, and, thanks tae devolution, the issue winna gang awa.
Nor, tae, will the language. Whitiver wey ye define it, its existence can nae langer be denied - no, at least, by onybody wi a perr o lugs on the Forfar bus, or in a hospital, supermercat, scuil or sports centre; nor by onybody watchin Still Game or Liz Lochhead's Tartuffe, luggin in tae traditional folk music or Off the Ball, or readin the poetry o Christine De Luca or the fiction o Irvine Welsh.
Sae, is Kay an optimist? He shairly couldna hae republished his book if he wisna. Whit will happen tae Scots in the 21st century, he asks. 'To begin with, we shall see a continuation of the process of recent decades: rapid erosion in some airts, thrawn survival in other airts.' But, he gaes on, 'in aw the airts, the structure of the dialects of Scots survives and can thrive again if the political, cultural and financial will is there to normalise the language.' The new political set-up maks this possible, and the experience o a project like Itchy Coo (some 80,000 books sellt in three and a hauf years) pruves the hert-hunger that folk hae for their ain tung and culture, if gien hauf a chance tae access them. Scots: The Mither Tongue is a timeous, throu-gaun, stuffy and raucle entry pynt tae that process.
