The Hamely Tongue

Several factors have in the past prevented the Ulster-Scots from taking a justifiable pride in their language and culture. Considering it was settlers from Ulster that gave Scotland her very name, attempts to portray the Scots element in the north-east corner of the island of Ireland as some kind of "Johnny-come-lately" offshoot of English imperialism at the time of the Plantation betray a total ignorance of history. There was actually a period during the history of these islands when the whole island of Ireland was viewed as one of the western isles of Scotland. Those academics and others who underplay the importance of the Scots input in Ulster quite simply fly in the face of the facts.

Similarly, there is a prevailing notion purveyed by some who like to think they know about language and history that Ulster-Scots is just "English talked funny". The vocabulary of Lowland Scots, and therefore ultimately of Ulster-Scots, is in fact largely the English that many centuries ago ceased to be current in England, so to that extent they are correct. However, in the unlikely event of a visit from Chaucer in this closing decade of the twentieth century, it is extremely doubtful that his conversation would be immediately understood.

The educational barriers to Ulster-Scots speech have largely been broken down. Modern obstacles to acceptance of the language are much more subtle. There is a heavy concentration of government funding on the study of Irish. There is even an argument which, boiled down, implies that the Ulster-Scots cannot be viewed as a distinct people because their community is subject to outside influence, which of course is utter twaddle. And, should Ulster-Scots survive all these proofs of its non-existence, it may then be analysed by "specialists" who do not come from the Ulster-Scots community and have no emotional ties to its language.

This is why it is such a delight to welcome Jim Fenton's book: by inference, his work is a reassertion of the right of the Ulster-Scots community to interpret their own culture for themselves. His roots are deep in the Ulster-Scots community, and his love for the language and people glows from every page. Mr Fenton is to be congratulated on the masterly result of all his years of dedicated effort. To obtain his material, Jim Fenton painstakingly noted examples of the speech of his "ain folk", "far-oot freens", and those with whom he was "acquent", together with the districts from which they came. He is obviously a man with a mission: he feels the urgency of recording the "expressive and often colourful language" associated with the old methods of agriculture and rural crafts that are now dying out. Even on the wider front, he has concluded that the southern boundary of Ulster- Scots mapped out by Gregg in 1964 has in places shifted northwards. It is to be hoped that if a sneaking feeling that Ulster-Scots is not quite "respectable" has been responsible for a conscious anglicisation of speech, the publication of Mr Fenton's work will renew a pride in the linguistic heritage and encourage a revival of its use.