From: A.Grant@ucs.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Accent and Dialect, the politics there
Date: 10 Nov 92 21:00:06 GMT
Organization: University of Cambridge

In article <1992Nov10.064324.23292@philmtl.philips.ca> ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn) writes:
>But Alisdair, you're still ignoring one of my basic points.  More important
>for _what_.  French and German may help you in the quantity department,
>Gaelic or Bengali or whatever may improve your life immeasurably in other
>ways.

For communicating, for getting closer to people from other countries.
For experiencing the world's great literature, theatre and films in their 
original languages. For getting a better job. For helping Britain's import/
export balance. Whatever your priority is.

It's all right for someone with a privileged background (you say below that
you had a 'good education', albeit in English; many people don't have a good 
education _at all_) that it would be 'nice' for Scottish children to learn 
Scots and Gaelic. Some people aren't that fortunate - they are already 
marginalised economically, and it happens that fluency in major world 
languages is one of the few skills which will continue to be heavily in
demand, everywhere in the world, not least in other parts of Britain.

>Instead, Scots was _suppressed_ at school, and when I started working, I
>had to live with the stigma of having a Scottish accent, even though it is
>a mild one.  But only in England of course, and within a certain strata in
>Scotland.  I still detect that subtle attitude here occasionally when
>dealing with Brits.

So everyone else should be subjected to this stigma too?  The reason Gaelic
(and Welsh) were suppressed in schools was because this was educational
policy, i.e. with the intention of benefiting the children themselves.
(You may want to build conspiracy theories about 'ethnic cleansing' into 
this; the truth is presumably something in between.)

>Don't get me wrong I don't dislike the English language, and I'm not sorry
>I had a good education in it.  I _am_ outraged that the local dialect was
>suppressed however, that school kids were made to feel inferior because
>they used words they were told were "wrong".

But why is Scotland special?  Should children be allowed to write essays
in Cockney rhyming slang?  

>Why the assumption that a basic Scots education institutionalises the
>Scots?  Are they incapable of encompassing English, French whatever, as
>well?

Possibly. When are you suggesting Scots should be taught - as a first,
second or third language? Bear in mind that most schools teach precisely
_one_ language to everyone (other than that which is used for teaching), 
and that others are for highly-motivated students only.

>>The only interpretation I can find is that Alasdair is an extremely
>>"successful" product of the dialect-is-unworthy-speak-only-RP education
>>system that most of us have endured, and that he actually feels scorn for
>>the language.

On the contrary, I think it's tragic that Scots and Gaelic aren't viable
languages, and that teaching them at the expense of French, German, Latin or 
Japanese, out of nothing more than a vague feeling of lost roots by
the previous generation, would be a serious disservice to the next one.

Teaching them as part of a programme to revitalise Scotland in general, and
instil a new sense of national identity, is something else altogether. But
it could all too easily turn into a form of escapism. If the Welsh experience
is anything to go by, language issues divert energy that ought to go into
a serious look at economic problems.
--
Alasdair Grant
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:15327 soc.culture.canada:8347