Chamber and committees

That is an extremely important point, which begs a further question. You spoke earlier about getting the detail of the bill correct. What precisely did you mean by that? What requires to be changed in the bill to ensure that the different aspects of Norn are protected and not subsumed under a standardised category of “Scots”?

I am very grateful for that answer. To be clear, in the bòrd’s view, the section of the bill concerning the areas of linguistic significance is lacking in that it places too much on the local authorities and ignores the local community. Is that a fair reflection?

Thank you.

I want to pursue the issue of the areas of linguistic significance, which I asked the previous witnesses about. Given that the designation of an area as an area of linguistic significance is a local authority choice and that we have heard about how little resource there is in local authorities generally, with no additional funding coming, as you mentioned earlier, is there a risk that local authorities will not avail themselves of the new designation process?

In response to Ruth Maguire, you suggested that there are already areas of linguistic significance—they are just not capitalised, as it were. If that is right, and if, as you were discussing with Willie Rennie, there are not many things that the bill demands be done in relation to an area that is designated as an area of linguistic significance, does the bill give any meaningful new powers to the local authorities over what they can already do in a—non-capitalised—area of linguistic significance?

It has been noted.

I have a brief question based on what Bill Kidd asked about. The 2005 act set up Bòrd na Gàidhlig and gave it responsibility for promoting Gaelic. It seems clear that the bòrd has done that with a great deal of passion and commitment. However, 20 years on from that, the situation has been described as a “crisis”, as the policy has not been matched by funding and, perhaps, Government support. Scots does not even get a board. What will be the impact of that if establishing a Gaelic board still leads to a crisis 20 years on?

I understand. Forgive me for pressing the point. You have just mentioned people wanting to learn Scots and to teach it. My initial question was based on the anecdote that you gave earlier, when you said that you had been reading, on the train, about a teacher who had learned what we might call Glaswegian Scots, but who was now teaching and responding to Doric, which the teacher reported would be rather different. How does a provider—whether it be the OU or anyone else—structure a course in Scots, when what Scots means in one part of Scotland is arguably completely different from what it means in another?

Sure.

This is specifically on the same line of questioning, so I will stick with Dr Warnecke, if I may.

Dr Warnecke, your submission discusses how the Scottish languages strategy needs to provide a

“detailed description of what Scots is”,

and of the dialects that are spoken and where. Do you have any indication of whether that is happening, or would it be better to include that in the bill, such that there is clarity about what is being taught and what resources might be needed?

I was interested in your earlier anecdote about the teacher with a knowledge of Scots. Earlier, you spoke about the course that is being run by the Open University. You said that 150 people are enrolled on it: 120 are on it just now, and 30 are already signed up for the future.