Exposed to ridicule
The magnificent, centuries-old tradition of literature in Scots is still very much alive.
J DERRICK McCLURE
Rosehill Terrace
Aberdeen
Allan Massie suggests that "if the Union had come later, we might now be in the position of educated Neapolitans, Venetians or Sicilians, who switch easily between their native dialects and Italian".
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Hide AdAfter the Union, and especially after the Jacobite rebellion, Scots was heavily stigmatised, as was Gaelic, and its decline was accelerated.
Scots has remained stigmatised, and in Edinburgh I am not free to speak Scots the way I spoke Twi in Ghana, where it was rare to en-counter a negative reaction that seemed to say, "Does this man think I can’t speak English?"
JOHN STEWART
East Barnton Gardens
Edinburgh