Letter: We Scots have to mind all our languages

Like Crawford Mackie (Letters, 15 October), the use of Braid Scots is pleasing to me, though in my case it is in writing. His stoical acceptance of the low profile of the language is also shared by myself.

But we are both wrong. The Gaelic community is right to insist on political and financial support. About 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide and it is guessed that half will have gone by the end of the century.

Scots and Gaelic should not be among the losses. An opportunity to make clear the position of the Scots language will arise at the next Census, when a question of acknowledging the language, as spoken, read or written, is included.

All speakers, readers and writers from whichever dialect of Scots should respond, and allow a balance to be achieved between the advancement of both Gaelic and Scots.

IAIN WD FORDE

Main Street

Scotlandwell, Kinross-shire

I WAS not surprised that the government was not prepared to pay Crawford Mackie to speak what he describes as Broad Scots.

However, official support for Gaelic in Scottish education is not a good reason for denigrating Scots.

Before going to school, I heard little else but Scots at home, and I do not believe any good educational purpose was achieved by representing Scots at school as an incorrect form of English it was the purpose of education to discourage or "correct".

A distinction has to be made between education and deracination for political purposes. Scots was the state language of Scotland until the Treaty of Union in 1707, and Gaelic is the ancient language of the Scottish kingdom.

In a violent world endangered by social breakdown, resulting from the loss of any sense of morality rooted in any community identity, both Scots and Gaelic are of increasing global and national significance.

(DR) DAVID PURVES

Strathalmond Road

Edinburgh