Letter: Tongue-tied

Andrew Gray writes an interesting letter (27 December) on the origins of our language, but it's usually unwise to be too dogmatic about such things.

Our Scots heritage is one of many different languages and dialects. The dominant language of any country, of its law and its administration is normally considered to be the language of its upper class and court. Thus since we know the languages of our kings of Scotland, we have our answer.

Macbeth was the last king of "Scotland" whose court spoke Gaelic. We must put "Scotland" in quotes because it wasn't yet our Scotland. North of the Moray Firth and south of the Forth the lands were ruled by Viking kings and their language was Norse.

After Macbeth, Malcolm Canmore III became the first to rule Scotland south of the Forth. And as he'd lived among Saxons and married the Saxon princess Margaret, Malcolm let his wife do the talking and the language of the Scottish court became German, or as we say nowadays, Old English.

Malcolm and Margaret's son, David I, had been brought up in the English court as a hostage, and so when he became king the dominant language of both Scottish and English courts then changed again and became French.

It is impossible to do justice to the complexities of our language in a letter, but there are many books on how the lower-class English tongue eventually turned tables on the Norman French of the British royal courts. But one thing we can be dogmatic about, it was the wonderful facility of our mother tongue that won us over, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with our national pride.

ROBERT VEITCH

Paisley Drive

Edinburgh