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.

The only type of Ulster-Scots literature which is reasonably well-known today is the poetry of 200 years ago. However, these poems often seem like imitation Scots because of the frequent use of words such as sic (such), gif (if) and unco (very). Although most people would instantly recognise these as Scots words, they are not used in Ulster-Scots speech today. Many people assume that, therefore, they were used only by Burns's imitators as a literary device, and were not part of the poet’s everyday speech. Yet, these same weaver poets always protested that the language they used was their own native tongue – and were often offended by suggestions that it was artificial Scotch.

There is no doubt that the vocabulary – and presumably also the grammar – of Ulster-Scots has gradually become less distinctive. As each generation passes, slowly but surely, the proportion of uniquely Scots words that makes up Ulster-Scots speech has been declining and contracting. The discovery of  ‘archaic’ words in the literary tradition can give some clue to the rate of decline in any one particular area. Take, for example, the Ballycarry area of east Antrim. Today this district (the home territory of the author) is on the edge of the Ulster-Scots speaking area, and fewer and fewer people there speak the tongue of their ancestors. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs for this parish (Templecorran) in the 1830s stated of the local population:

“Their accent idioms and phraseology are strictly and disagreeably Scottish partaking only of the broad and coarse accent and dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland.”

A generation earlier, the most celebrated of all the Ulster-Scots poets (James Orr, the ‘Bard of Ballycarry’, 1777-1816), was using his Ulster-Scots tongue to dramatic effect. Orr displayed a confidence in his Scots tongue that characterised the renaissance of Scots vernacular writing in the Burns era. His poetry contains many words which would not be used in or around Ballycarry today. Nevertheless, although it can be demonstrated that these words were indeed part of his own local vocabulary, it is the repeated use of words such as ilka, unco, gif and sic by Orr (and also by almost all of his contemporary Ulster-Scots poets), that appear most ‘artificial’ to the modern eye. Some examples of the use of gif ('if ') from Orr’s work of 200 years ago give a good impression of how common this single feature was:

I ledge we’d fen gif  fairly quat o
we’d lieve, gif they wha bake cud brew thee
Losh! ‘twad be fine gif ilka youth ay
gif thou’d withdraw for ae camping
but, conscience! gif the auld delft nipple
gif she wham ye court were like ane I’ll no name
gif Chanticliers ta’en frae the roost whare he craw’t
gif folk becam’ obligin’, atween an’ day
gif folk like you, think somethin o’ me
an’ gif they notice us
atween an May, gif bowls row right
gif ye had pass’d his door, ye’d either heard
gif that’s na done, whate’er ilk loun.

Orr, of course, was not alone among the Ulster-Scots poets in his regular use of gif, unco, ilk, sic, etc. However, the questions is, were these words part of Ballycarry speech in the late 1790s Fortunately, we can go back yet another 200 years to find Ulster-Scots letters from the same district. Isobel Haldane, wife of Archibald Edmonstone at Ballycarry, wrote a number of letters in her only tongue – Scots – in the early 1600s. Like other contemporary Ulster-Scots documents, her letters reveal that words like gif, unco, sic, ilka, etc were in regular use – and in a context where their use in speech must also be assumed. Some examples of Isobel Haldane’s use of gif circa 1630 (at Ballycarry) include:

Ye will wrestle with it, ye say, giff I will
And giff my outward actions hes nocht bein ansuerable
It mycht be sa, bot to you, giff it was sa, it was far be my dessing
Giff God hes nocht giffin me ane wardly wyse hairt
Quhatever I be, giff it had bein Gods will I wald ye had the hairt
to me
I that man spend suld have keipit house to us all giff I war able
and giff I wad nocht in everything doon as ye thocht fitt
and giff myne be best
and giff it was wrang
bot giff ye think your credit canocht stand without hingins

The purpose of this book is not to describe the last remnants of a fast-disappearing tongue, but to attempt some sort of retrospective reconstruction which is based on both the literary record and the modern spoken forms. No ‘lesser-used’ language revival movement can re-introduce older words or grammatical forms without criticism – especially if these new forms are unknown to native speakers. With Ulster-Scots, it is not enough to show that such innovations are used in Scottish-Scots, or that they were used in Scots literature. In this book, ‘archaic’ forms (which are no longer in use by native speakers) are identified as such in the text or in the glossary. Great care has been taken, nevertheless, to use only archaic forms that are well attested in the Ulster-Scots literary record.

It would be hard to imagine nowadays a notice in the Belfast Newsletter similar to one which appeared in that paper in 1756 – when a runaway apprentice from Newtownards in North Down was described as recognisable outside his home area because he "speaks the Scotch tongue". In 1777, the Hibernian Magazine said of Newtownards: “The language spoken here is a broad Scotch hardly to be understood by strangers.” Similarly, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s describe the Scots tongue in other parts of County Antrim besides the Ballycarry district mentioned earlier in this section. In these cases the tone of the descriptions also reveals that prejudice against Ulster-Scots is nothing new:

Parish of Ballintoy (north Antrim)

“They are all the descendants of the Scottish settlers of the 16^th century, as may be inferred from their very broad Scotch dialect and accent."

Parish of Armoy (north Antrim)

“They seem to be almost exclusively of Scottish extradition…. The inhabitants towards the more mountainous parts are very uncouth and ignorant.”

Parish of Ahoghill (mid Antrim)

“The inhabitants much resemble the Scots in their habits, customs and dialect. They are rather dogged, obstinate and blunt.”

Parish of Grange of Shilvoden (Antrim)

“The inhabitants display disagreeable Scottish manners.”

Parish of Mallusk (east Antrim)

“Their dialect, accent and customs are strictly Scottish, and among the old people are many homely and pretty old saws and proverbs. They are rather rough and blunt.”

Parish of Carnmoney (east Antrim)

“Their accent is peculiarly, and among old people disagreeably strong and broad. Their idioms and saws are strictly Scottish.”

A single one of these references is couched in sympathetic terms:

Parish of Drumtullagh (north Antrim)

“The Scotch language is spoken in great purity.”

. . . . .

Not many years ago, gathering round the hearth of a home deep in the Ulster-Scots countryside, a small group met to discuss how the Ulster-Scots language might be saved from extinction. There was talk of forming a Society, of asking for Government support, and so on. But, inevitably, the discussion turned to ‘crack’.

“Hae ye ever heerd tell o the nummer four gettin caa’d fivver?”

“Na, no in Antrim oniehoo, its aye fower wi iz.”

“Ach, the used fivver roon Greba, well”.

Such exchanges about Ulster Scots words are not unusual, but this one opened a debate on how the ‘whole language’ might be taught. How, for example would you translate an ordinary English sentence into Ulster-Scots? And so the collogue decided to tackle a simple sentence: “That floor needs cleaning today.” The first stage was a word-for-word attempt:

“Thon flare needs cleaned theday.”

But there were protests – ‘we wudnae say that, it wud be mair like’:

‘Thon flare needs a guid clean theday.”

Not to be outdone, another body added – ‘ye wudnae say “needs”. It shud be' :“Thon flare cud dae wi a guid clean theday.”

Most agreed, and then tried to say the Ulster-Scots version as it was part of natural conversation. Written down it looked strange and unnatural. But how would such a sentence be constructed in the most natural Ulster-Scots speech? The suggestions were revealing:

“Dae wi a guid clean, thon flare, sae it cud.”

“See thon flare, dae wi a guid clean theday sae she cud.”

The need for an Ulster-Scots grammar was recognised, and the idea for this book was born,

--oooOooo--

ULSTER-SCOTS POETRY, 1729-1920

The following list represents the best-known collections of traditional Ulster-Scots poetry, mostly published between 1750 and 1900. The individual poets – 20 or so on this list – are cited throughout this book when literary examples are given, but referenced only by the poet’s surname. The home location of each of these writers is superimposed on the map showing the Ulster-Scots speaking areas (figure 1).

Many of the books containing Ulster-Scots poetry also printed ‘subscriber lists’ – that is lists of personal names with the home towns or townlands of individuals who had pre-paid a subscription/order for the book. Over 8000 names are contained in these subscribers lists, the overwhelming majority of which were located in the same areas of Ulster as remain Ulster-Scots speaking today (apart from the numerous ‘subscribers’ listed for Belfast).

The only significant collections of the works of these early poets that have been reprinted in recent years (and once again made accessible to the public) are the following :

The Country Rhymes of Hugh Porter, The Bard of Moneyslane, c,1780, ed Amber Adams and J R R Adams, Vol. 1 The Folk Poets of Ulster, Pretani Press, 1992

The Country Rhymes of James Orr, The Bard of Ballycarry, 1770-1816, ed. Philip Robinson Vol. 11 The Folk Poets of Ulster, Pretani Press, 1992

The Country Rhymes of Samuel Thomson, The Bard of Carngranny, 1766-1816, ed. Ernest McA Scott and Philip Robinson, Vol. III The Folk Poets of Ulster, Pretani Press, 1992

Webs of Fancy: Poems of David Herbison, the Bard of Dunclug, ed. Ivan Herbison, Dunclug Press, 1980

For a general account of these poets, with a select anthology, the standard work is John Hewitt’s Rhyming Weavers and other country poets of Antrim and Down, Blackstaff Press, 1974.

Click here to view Map of Ulster-Scots Areas in Ulster

Note on Figure 1 (see map):  The Ulster-Scots speaking areas were mapped by Prof R J Gregg in 1960 - 1963, [1] and the boundary for County Antrim confirmed by James Fenton's The Hamely Tongue, 1995.
The Ulster-Scots cultural zone was mapped by P S Robinson in 1974, [2]  and published in 1984, and represents the areas where (a) the majority of Protestants are Presbyterian (rather than Anglican), and (b) the majority of people with 'non-Irish' surnames have Scottish rather than English surnames.

  [1]Gregg, R J, 'The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in Ulster' in M F Wakelin, ed.  Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles (London, 1972).
  [2] Robinson, P S, The Plantation of Ulster: British Settlement in an Irish landscape, 1600-1670 (Dublin, 1984).