Tongue twister

THE launch of the University of the Highlands and Islands deserves to be commemorated by a ceremony (23 August) in Inverness. But “English, Gaelic, Scots, Shetlandic and Orcadian” which it aims to promote is not a list of five languages, but three languages and two dialects of Scots, namely Shetlandic and Orcadian.

These dialects are two of the most distinctive forms, and among the most extensively and successfully developed for local literatures; but they are no more separate languages than other forms of Scots such as Buchan Doric or the dialects of the Borders or the East Neuk of Fife.

Derrick McClure

Rosehill Terrace

Aberdeen