Letter: Talk out of turn

Joyce McMillan mentions the use of Italian, Urdu and Arabic by new MSPs taking the oath in the Holyrood parliament, "alongside English, Gaelic, Scots and Doric" (Perspective, 20 May).

I wish someone would knock on the head once and for all this nonsense about so-called Doric being one of the languages of Scotland. People in Aberdeenshire speak their local varieties of Scots just as other Scots all over lowland Scotland do.

I grew up in the East Neuk of Fife hearing and using words and expressions that I have never come across elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was still Scots. The Fifers, being modest folk, would not claim to speak "Fifian".

HARRY D WATSON

Braehead Grove

Edinburgh