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#So even if I was speaking at my broadest (i.e. when surrounded by relatives from West Lothian or living in Aberdeen too long)
the-busy-ghost · 2 years
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LOVED the Scots question on the census, HATED the identity crisis it gave me
#Of course I can understand and read it#Theoretically I *could* speak and write it but I don't do I#Because I would be putting on a voice that isn't natural to me (except in particular circumstances) even though it's my mother tongue#Still not entirely sure that a lot of what some people call 'Scots' actually counts as Scots#I mean people with broad Shetland or Aberdeen dialects count to me#But people who are just speaking basically English with a slight accent and an occasional 'aye' thrown in#To me are speaking Scots English#A descendant of both languages but not proper Scots#So even if I was speaking at my broadest (i.e. when surrounded by relatives from West Lothian or living in Aberdeen too long)#I'm not speaking Scots in my opinion#I'm speaking Scots English#But of course despite the fact I've swallowed spoken and written Scots since I was knee-high to a grasshopper#I have a very neutral accent#And that's all it is an accent not a full on dialect or language like Scots#Hence the identity crisis#I'm literally more likely actually use Old Scots- the kind they spoke in the sixteenth century- than to claim to speak modern Scots#But does that make Scots not one of my native languages just because I don't use it in my day to day conversation with say my dad#Who is an English speaker through and through#I'm getting off topic and I'm not a linguist but yeah#Essentially I've felt self-conscious about the way I talk since I was a child#And that's only increased by the fact that though I largely speak English in a very neutral accent#Scots is a completely natural language for me to listen to; read; or even theoretically write in#(though again writing would come hesitantly unless I had something to actually say)#But I almost never have to speak it#I COULD speak Scots but I don't#And if I did it could sound artificial unless I was talking to particular people or had something specific to say in Scots#At the same time I refuse to disown Scots that's one of my languages#But I still feel like a big huge Fake ticking the boxes- like someone's going to swoop down and club me for not being A Real Scots speaker#Probably understand the language a lot better than @AndyFromGlasgow whose Scottish tweets get hundreds of likes but that's at least used#Mind you maybe I should look at it this way- if I COULD speak French would it matter at all to the census whether I DID?
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