Letter: Make yourself heard to save a language

Particularly, I was disturbed by the statement that "they feel that the softened language of the young - lacking the hard consonants and throat-clearing 'ch' sounds known as velar fricatives - is indicative of a whole generation grown soft".

So what did these "tough" people actually do for their language? Did they go on any protests? Did they campaign to get Scots/Doric recognised under the ECRML, or to get a question about it into the Census? Did they complain about any teacher who belted bairns just for speaking their own tongue?

When my wife and I wanted our wedding in North-East Doric (which is what we speak all the time) the Aberdeen registrar refused to allow the ceremony. His justification for this was that "registrars are not compelled to conduct ceremonies if they feel that unusual requests would detract from the solemnity of the occasion".

We stood our ground and re-planned our wedding, over the boundary in Aberdeenshire where the Ellon registrars could not have been more helpful. Ours was a delightful ceremony, just as we wanted. If that hadn't succeeded, though, the next step would have been legal action. We also made a formal complaint to the Registrar General for Scotland, and received an apology - although, to my knowledge, the chief registrar remained in his post.

People who abuse their position of authority, who treat our tongue as a joke, have long been a problem. Evidently we now see another problem: that of people who see our tongue as belonging to an exclusive "tough" elite who, in reality, have only stood back and meekly accepted what the "Establishment" has been doing to our language.

For a language to thrive, it has to be seen as belonging to all sorts of people. It also has to be taken seriously to the point that people are prepared to stand up for it.

Between these two totally opposite - but equally harmful - tendencies that we have seen here, what hope is there?

Colin Wilson, Aberdeen