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Ulster Scots, also known as 'Ullans', 'Hiberno-Scots', or 'Scots-Irish', refers to the variety of Scots (sometimes referred to as ''Lowland Scots'') spoken in parts of the province of Ulster, which spans the six counties of Northern Ireland and three of the Republic of Ireland.
Native speakers traditionally called it simply 'Scots', 'Braid Scots' or 'Scotch' (see Scotch) - as did James Orr in ''The Irish Cottier's Death and Burial'': ''"To quat braid Scotch, a task that foils their art; For while they join his converse, vain though shy, They monie a lang learn'd word misca' an' misapply''".
'Ullans' is a portmanteau neologism merging ''Ulster'' and ''Lallans'' - the Scots for ''Lowlands'' - coined by the physician, amateur historian and politician Dr Ian Adamson. The magazine of the Ulster-Scots Language Society is also named ''Ullans'', ostensibly from "'U'lster-Scots 'l'anguage in 'l'iterature 'a'nd 'n'ative 's'peech" but ultimately from the other contraction. The German linguist Manfred Görlach differentiates between the term "Ulster Scots" (the historical spoken variety) and "Ullans" (the revived literary variety).
'Hiberno-Scots', unlike "Ulster Scots", refers only to a linguistic tradition; it also mirrors "Hiberno-English". The novelist William Carleton refers in his author's preface to the first edition of his ''Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry'' (vol. 1, 1st series, Dublin, 1830) to "Scoto-Hibernic jargon". The linguist James Milroy used the term "Hiberno-Scots" as early as the 1980s.

Contents

History

Linguistic status

Legal status

Speaker Population

Pronunciation

Literature

Language planning

Promotion

Notes

See also

External links

History

Main articles: History of the Scots language

Scots, mainly Gaelic-speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 15th century, but large numbers of Scots-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 Plantation, with the peak reached during the 1690s.^[2] In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.^[3]
Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland.^[4] W G Lyttle, writing in ''Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco'', uses the typically Scots forms ''kent'' and ''begood'', now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream Anglic forms ''knew'', ''knowed'' or ''knawed'' and ''begun''. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Mid Ulster English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct contact with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.
Scots in Ulster has been influenced by contact with Hiberno-English, Mid Ulster English and Irish. Mid Ulster English, the dialect of most people in Ulster, including those in the two main cities of Belfast and Derry, represents a cross-over area between Ulster Scots and Hiberno-English; it is currently encroaching on the Ulster Scots area, especially in the Belfast commuter belt, and may eventually consume it. Ulster Scots should not be confused with Scottish Gaelic or Irish, which are Celtic languages.

Linguistic status

Although it is usually treated as a variety of the Scots language or, along with all Scots varieties, as a dialect of English, some claim it to be a language in its own right; only the first two views are represented among academic linguists, although at least one academic (with a notable bias - he is President of the Ulster-Scots Language Society^[5]), Michael Montgomery (2004: 131) has argued for recognition on non-structural, apperceptional grounds. Dr. Caroline Macafee, the editor of ''The Concise Ulster Dictionary'', has said that "Ulster Scots is [...] clearly a dialect of Central Scots (Mid Scots).", while Aodán Mac Póilin has said that "The case for Ulster-Scots being a distinct language, made at a time when the status of Scots itself was insecure, is so bizarre that it is unlikely to have been a linguistic argument." Using the criteria on ''Ausbau'' languages developed by the German linguist Heinz Kloss, Ulster Scots could qualify only as a ''Spielart'' or 'national dialect' of Scots (cf. British and American English), since it does not dispose over the ''Mindestabstand'', or 'minimum divergence' necessary to achieve language status through standardisation and codification. Of the four peripheral varieties of Scots - the others being Insular, Northern and Southern Scots - Ulster Scots is the only one whose traditional written form is commonly indistinguishable from the main Central Scots variety. The deliberately mispelling "Ulster Scotch" is often used within Northern Ireland by those satirising the promotion of the "language" [4].
Some confuse English spoken with a very broad Ulster Scottish accent with Scots proper. This is because English-speakers familiar with the Scottish or Northern Irish accents of English find Scottish or Ulster English easy to understand and often assume this speech variety to be "broad" Scots.

Legal status

:''For the status of Scots in general see Scots language#Status.''
Ulster Scots is defined in legislation (The North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999) as: ''the variety of the Scots language which has traditionally been used in parts of Northern Ireland and in Donegal in Ireland'' [5].
The declaration made by the United Kingdom Government regarding the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages reads as follows [6]:
The definition from the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999 above was used in the 1 July 2005 Second Periodical Report by the United Kingdom to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe outlining how the UK meets its obligations under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[7]
The Good Friday Agreement (which does not refer to Ulster Scots as a "language") also recognises Ulster Scots as ''"part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland"'', and the Implementation Agreement established the cross-border Ulster-Scots Agency (''Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch''), whose mission statement is ''to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots people.''
It will be noted that this is slightly different from the organisation's legal remit to promote Ulster Scots as a "variety of the Scots language".
An example contribution in Ulster Scots made by Jim Shannon in the Transitional Assembly follows [8]:
Without the eccentric spelling (recently coined pseudophonetic spellings often used by enthusiasts), but using the same dialect words and forms, this passage reads:

Speaker Population

During the middle of the 20th century, the linguist R. J. Gregg established the geographical boundaries of Ulster's Scots-speaking areas based on information gathered from native speakers. The 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that 2% of Northern Ireland residents claimed to speak Ulster Scots, which would mean a total speech community of approximately 30,000 in the territory, which does not include County Donegal. Some have claimed that Ulster Scots is spoken by up to 100,000 people.^[6]

Pronunciation

Main articles: Scots language#Pronunciation

Literature

In Ulster Scots-speaking areas there was traditionally a considerable demand for the work of Scottish poets, often in locally printed editions. Alexander Montgomerie's ''The Cherrie and the Slae'' in 1700, shortly over a decade later an edition of poems by Sir David Lindsay, nine printings of Allan Ramsay's ''The Gentle shepherd'' between 1743 and 1793, and an edition of Robert Burns' poetry in 1787, the same year as the Edinburgh edition, followed by reprints in 1789, 1793 and 1800. Among other Scottish poets published in Ulster were James Hogg and Robert Tannahill.
This was complemented by Ulster ''rhyming weaver'' poetry, of which, some 60 to 70 volumes were published between 1750 and 1850, the peak being in the decades 1810 to 1840. These weaver poets looked to Scotland for their cultural and literary models and were not simple imitators but clearly inheritors of the same literary tradition following the same poetic and orthographic practices; it is not always immediately possible to distinguish traditional Scots writing from Scotland and Ulster. Among the ''rhyming weavers'' were James Campbell (1758-1818), James Orr (1770-1816), Thomas Beggs (1749-1847), David Herbison (1800-1880), Hugh Porter (1780-1839) and Andrew McKenzie (1780-1839). Scots was also used in the narrative by Ulster novelists such as W. G. Lyttle (1844-1896). Scots regularly appeared in Ulster newspaper columns.

Language planning

By the early part of the 20th century the literary tradition was almost extinct.^[2] The Ulster Scots revival from the 1980s onwards has moved away from the traditional Scots orthographic practices, preferring instead to develop Ulster Scots as an autonomous written variety that's "common denominator is to be as different to English, and occasionally Scots, as possible." This hotchpotch of obsolete words, neologisms, redundant 16th and 17th century spelling conventions and and "erratic spelling which sometimes reflects everyday Ulster Scots speech rather than the conventions of either modern or historic Scots." The resulting pastiche "is also often incomprehensible to the native speaker."^[8]
The introduction of standard educational materials in schools for the teaching of Ulster Scots is likely to formalise ongoing discussions about the future direction of language planning.

Promotion

In recent years a movement has been under way to change the perception of Ulster Scots. The Ulster Scots Agency actively promote Ulster Scots. The Belfast-based Irish language newspaper ''Lá'' ran a column in a revivalist version of Ulster Scots that was at least partly tongue-in-cheek.
Speaking at a seminar on 9 September 2004, Ian Sloan of the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) accepted that the 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey "did not significantly indicate that unionists or nationalists were relatively any more or less likely to speak Ulster Scots, although in absolute terms there were more unionists who spoke Ulster Scots than nationalists".

Notes

1. ''Fowkgates'' is a neologism, the traditional Scots word being ''cultur'' [1] (Cf. ''pictur'' [2]). The Scots for leisure is ''leisur''(''e'') [], ''aisedom'' (''easedom'' [3]) being semantically different.
2. Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 572
3. Adams 1977: 57
4. Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 585
5. Ulster Scots Agency Website - Ulster-Scots Language Society
6. http://www.geocities.com/athens/9479/eire.html
7. Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 572
8. Language, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland by Aodan Mac Poilin

See also

★ Scots language

★ Ulster

★ Ulster-Scots

★ Ulster Irish

★ Dictionary of the Scots Language

★ History of the Scots language

★ Languages in the United Kingdom

★ W.F. Marshall

★ Mid-Ulster English

External links

★ listen to an Ulster Scots accent

★ The Ulster-Scots Agency (Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch)

★ (Language, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland)

★ Aw Ae Oo (Scots in Scotland and Ulster)

★ Aw Ae Wey (Written Scots in Scotland and Ulster)

★ Ulster Scots voices (BBC site)

★ Pronunciation of Ulster Scots

★ Ullans

★ Ulster-Scots Research Council and Ullans-L e-mail list

★ Ulster-Scots Online

★ The Dictionary of the Scots Language

★ Scots Online

★ website promoting Ullans to the Gaelic community of Ireland.

★ essay which discusses some problems of the Ulster-Scots project