The following extracts from "Ulster-Scots: A Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language" by Philip Robinson (Published for The Ulster-Scots Language Society by The Ullans Press, 1997), are provided by permission of Philip Robinson and The Ulster-Scots Language Society. Copyright: Philip Robinson, 1997. All rights reserved. No part of these extracts may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Ulster-Scots Language Society.

0.1 The Ulster-Scots language today

Ulster-Scots or ‘Ullans’ is a close relative of the language called Scots. The Scots language in Scotland is sometimes called ‘Lallans’, from ‘Lowland Scots’. The 1787 Belfast edition of Robert Burns Poems (his first edition was published in Kilmarnock in 1786) had a glossary which defined the word Lallans as 'the Lowland Scotch tongue’. Ulster-Scots, however, is usually known to its native speakers as ‘Scotch’ or ‘Braid Scotch’. Despite the existence of a rich literary tradition extending back for centuries, Ulster-Scots is today a highly stigmatised language which many speakers are reluctant to use either in public situations or in ‘educated’ company. The absence of any recognition of the language in formal education has virtually obliterated the literary tradition, and nowadays very few native speakers are also competent in the written language. Furthermore, native speakers increasingly abandon the spoken language as they pursue education and careers. Popular awareness of its eroded status and of the differences with Lowland Scots often elicits the description ‘broken Scotch’.

Ulster-Scots is a west Germanic language which is derived from, and has its closest linguistic parallels with, Lowland Scots or Lallans. Indeed, Ulster-Scots has been described as a ‘variant’ of Scots, and as such has been accommodated within the coverage of the Scottish National Dictionary programme. However, many Scots language academics have observed that Ulster-Scots differs from its sister tongue: Ulster-Scots has its own range of dialects, along with its own distinctive literary tradition, vocabulary, and grammar; all of which differ in some respects from Lallans. In simple terms, the relationship between Ulster-Scots and Lallans could be compared to the relative positions of Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

The Scots language itself, at times indistinguishable in literary form from Ulster-Scots, is derived from Old Northumbrian or northern forms of Anglo-Saxon. The Anglian dialects north of the Humber had become differentiated from the Anglo-Saxon dialects of other parts of southern Britain by the Viking period beginning in the late 18^th century. These differences were accentuated by Old Norse influence when at its height in the Danelaw of north Britain. Following the stabilisation of the Scottish Border in the 13^th century, Scots became a distinctive, national language of government and literature, spreading from a core area between the Tweed and Forth, before establishing itself firmly in Ulster during the early 1600s.

It has been estimated, in the absence of census data, that around 100,000 people in the Ulster-Scots areas are capable of speaking both Ulster-English and Ulster-Scots. Many more people might claim some knowledge of the language or wish to identify with the language and culture, but perhaps as few as 15,000 people are monoglot (‘one language’) speakers who use Ulster-Scots all the time regardless of social contact. The number of people with literary competence in the language is now every small and, furthermore, those that do read and write Ullans tend not to be the monoglot speakers. The vernacular language has been retreating for some years to the advantage of Ulster-English (that is, what are called Mid-Ulster dialects of Hiberno-English) and, of course, it has been subject to erosion by the spread of urban speech and of ‘Standard English’. Thirty years ago the late Brendan Adams, Dialect Archivist at the Ulster Folk Museum, estimated that there were then about 170,000 Ulster-Scots speakers in those areas where ‘where Ulster-Scots has survived as the rural speech’. Adams also claimed that virtually all speakers of Ulster-Scots were ‘bi-dialectal, using the regional form of Standard English as an alternative ... according to their audience.’

The ‘core areas’ of Ulster-Scots survival were mapped by Professor R J Gregg in the 1960s and his findings published in 1972. His work confirms that north, mid and south-east Antrim, north-east Londonderry, north-east Down, and east Donegal represent the heartland of the language. Elsewhere in Ulster the vernacular tongue, although markedly influenced by Scots, is arguably closer to the English dialects of north-west England than to the Scots of west and south-west Scotland.

The Ulster-Scots Language Society was formed in 1992 to ‘encourage an interest in traditional Ulster-Scots literature, whether it be prose, poetry or drama; to support the use of the Ulster-Scots tongue in present-day speech and education; and to encourage the Ulster-Scots tradition in music, dance, song, ballads and story-telling.’ According to its published aims the Society wishes to ‘re-establish the dignity of Ulster-Scots as a language with an important part to play in our cultural heritage’. It publishes the magazine Ullans, and the news letter Kintra Sennicht.

Recognising the parallel situation of Frisian as another language once stigmatised as ‘vulgar dialect’ in the Netherlands but now recognised as a historical tongue, the USLS decided in 1993 to establish an Ulster-Scots Academy, on the model of the Frisian Academy. It is under the auspices of the Ulster-Scots Academy that this grammar has been published, following the publication in 1995 of James Fenton’s dictionary of Ulster-Scots in Country Antrim – The Hamely Tongue (Ulster-Scots Academic Press). Over the last 50 years, since its foundation, the Frisian Academy has published grammars, translated classics, compiled dictionaries of Old and Modern Frisian, produced teaching resources and a Frisian Bible, and supported an energetic programme of scientific and popular publications, including newspapers, magazines and children’s materials. Increasingly, Frisian is used in public and school life, although its lower status in relation to Dutch was reflected in a recent survey which revealed that still only about 12% of native Frisian speakers in Friesland can read and write in Frisian. Frisian is, however, now used alongside Dutch in most Friesland primary schools. The future development of the Scots language in Scotland and Ulster may well follow a similar pattern, now that both tongues have been given international recognition through their adoption by the European Bureau of Lesser-Used Languages.