Billy Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "scots"

I’ll wrote a poem in Scots today while at work. It was one of those flashes of inspiration brought on by a work colleague. It’s quite fun when that happens. It is something I used do when I was younger, writing in Scots my first tongue as they say here. Though many see as no more than a regional accent these days. I find that sad as it is a language, the spoken word of the Lowlands of Scotland, used by my nation’s greatest poet, Robert Burns. Part of the problem lays in the past when it was discouraged in schools and the whole educational institution. Not much has changed really though it is now recognised by the government, but unlike Gaelic it gets little funding other than in January as it comes up Burns night. Because of this I have noticed over the years it has slowly begun to vanish as more English sneaks into what we say. I suppose this has been going on since more formal government educational systems took over from the parish Sunday school of centuries past. No more clearly is this seen than the beginning of the year or New Years when Burns is sang the World over.
Anyway I will need to type the poem into the computer and edit it before posting it on GoodReads.com which will be something for me to do this week end. I’m also working on another poem inspired by work. This time though it is in English so no need to go checking spelling or struggling with my word processor.
Why would I struggle with my first language I hear you ask? Well it is my first spoken and as I said above school don’t teach it. So we don’t learn how to write in it. You can only really learn it by going to college, something I never did. I taught myself when I was younger. It was a sort of lame rebellion of sorts, which didn’t last long and it has been a long time since then.
And I have more work to do on my kitchen, Magz is getting impatient to have it finished. :~)