SQA Subject Blog - Scottish Studies and Scots Language BlogTraditional Arts and Culture Scotland (TRACS) aims to promote the traditional arts of storytelling, music, song, and dance. It recently launched the Gifting Every Child initiative, which provides an introduction to these areas. There are a wealth of resources available, and it’s worth taking some time to look through these.
Some stories are written in both Scots and English, which …
The Scottish Government recently launched a Scots Language Twitter account. This account follows the launch of their Scots Language Policy in September, and features both tweets in Scots, and about Scots issues.
As a follow up to the Scots Language Policy, there is an Action Plan being developed which builds on the commitments in the Policy. You can read about …
Researchers at McMaster University have produced an interactive map recording word usage on Twitter. The map shows how often various words were used, from Northern England up to the Central Belt. You can sort for dozens of different words, and it gives a clear picture of where these are used, along with a rating for how well-defined the split is between Scotland and England.
While the map is intended to show differences between Scotland and England, you can also see marked differences internally in Scotland, with words from different varieties of Scots. For example, the difference …
The National newspaper will be publishing a weekly Scots language column. The first one was circulated on the 7th of January, and can be viewed here. The columns are written by Matthew Fitt, an established author and translator into Scots.
Along with his body of written work, Mr Fitt has been promoting Scots in schools for a long time. He …
Scientists at Dartmouth University have developed software to aid the study of pronunciation across different regions. The DARLA project is a speech-to-text software development which makes distinctions between pronunciations across different dialects.
Using this software, it should be possible to build up an accurate picture of the ways in which pronunciation varies across regions. Theoretically, it should be possible to …
Yesterday I attended a launch event for the Historical Thesaurus of Scots. This project aims to be the first complete, historical thesaurus for Scots, cataloguing words from the complete written history of Scots. It is available online, and draws on the Dictionary of the Scots Language.
The first phase was launched yesterday, drawing together Scots words for sports and games, and the weather; two areas which are rich in lexical variety.
The Thesaurus is an excellent resource for creative writing, …
Hello and welcome to the new Scottish Studies and Scots Language blog. We’ll be using it to keep you up to date with all the issues, developments and events relating to the Scottish Studies and Scottish Languages awards.
It’s good to be able to begin by telling you about the very successful Support Network Event we held for Scottish Studies …
All the latest news, information and updates relating to the Awards for Scottish Studies and Scots Language.