Wings Over Scotland

They are now just sending out any sound bite loaded with stale carrots , hoping voters still believe.
Well more and more don’t, let’s hope Alba and ISP rising to challenge every seat.

It’s Alex Salmond I feel sorry for most at this point.

Could have been worse. At least they haven’t chosen either Fatima Joji or Rhiannon Spear as candidates.

Did he say what he’s going to do with the mandate. Put them to bed like all the other mandates. What an utter sham. There was never a problem getting an Indy mandate. There was just never any plan to successfully use them. Crazy….

The link between the SNP and the Independence movement has been broken for many months. They are trying desperately to re-establish that link. Hence their resurrection of the 2015 Stronger for Scotland marketing campaign. Unfortunately for them. they got rid of the activists, then members, then party commitee checks and balance, then their selection criteria and finally any decency and respect for the electorate. Another wee recap 2015. 49.9% of the vote 56 out of 59 MPs. I am thinking no SNP seat is safe at the next GE. Revised prediction 4 SNP MPs.

Life is hard . Its even harder if you’re stupid. Humza your days are numbered, as weakest link.

I’ve been trying to find the quote by Thatcher along the lines that all the SNP had to do to achieve independence was to return a majority of Scottish MPs to Westminster, I think it was in the 1980s but I can’t find it. 29 MPs is a majority of Scottish MPs, but what needs to go in the manifesto is that this would be sufficient for the snp to declare independence the next day, not simply to continue intermittent grovelling. Do I think they will put that in their manifesto ? Let me think . . . . .

Backs to the wall, perhaps ?; a final throw of the dice to see how many of the less-well-informed punters we can tuck up for one last time ? I have limited sympathy as a supporter of the Union.

The phrase from the Old Testament most appropriate to the SNP is not the writing on the wall, but rather, the years that the locusts have eaten. That is, 2015 to 2023.

” The very last shred of credibility has left the building, readers. ”

It’s away to search for Kirsty Non-White He/Him’s bewildered genitals .

Maybe they mean 29 Seats , y’know ,the cars ?

Aye that’ll be it , if they can collect 29 of those wee Spanish motors , drive them defiantly round n round , say ….Piccadilly Circus , WM waving * trans * flags oot the windae , wae Maggie Chapman tied to the roof-rack like a Green exocet – we’re laffin’. The Brit deep-fried State will be powerless to resist, tellin’ ye , just watch

29 ” Vehicles To Independence ” goatae be better than just the one , right ? Especially if that one is totally fucked .

If you wondered if they treat their voters like idiots, you have just had it confirmed. Beyond doubt!!

The Short Money from 29 seats at Westminster plus losing Holyrood Constituency seats BUT then D’Hondt kicks in and gives them a batch of list seats. They will scream “Both Votes SNP” and then settle in for another session at the trough.
They are confident on keeping control of Holyrood with their fellow Cultists the Greens..
I’ve made my mind up to vote Tory (Argyll & Bute). I just want the treacherous bastards in the SNP out….Brendan O’Hara represents them here (Tories are second in the seat)

Fuck them.

Until “both votes SNP” my understanding of d’Hondt was that you weren’t able to vote for the same party twice. So I didn’t always use my list vote. That would probably make more sense. Daft system if a clever guy like me can’t understand it.

I’m making an election banner.

For Independence
Don’t Vote

About time

I now see the SNP as a rabbit that some farmer has shot. Laying on the ground, life extinct, leg kicking, solely because of quickly diminishing electrical impulses, as brain activity ceases.

I’m just ready to go to my bed and I decided to take a quick look at Wings over Scotland. The articles this guy produces are exemplary, detailed, researched, one after the other, and I don’t know he has the energy to do it. Thankfully, the site pile-on crew must have retired even earlier than me tonight as it’s rarely I ever go right through the comments from top to bottom and don’t come across a single one that I find objectionable. Not one. I wonder how long it will last?

Interesting to note that Kate Forbes will miss the SNP conference . Apparently, according to “ the times” she will be in the USA ?? fulfilling “ long-standing engagements” ?? Not that I will be voting again for her neighbouring “ colleague” MP anyway who withdrew his support for her in the leadership “ election “??

Eh!!! Humza wouldn’t say anything so dumb.

Johnlm – See you tomorrow John. I’m just off to sleep.

George – If you had elected Kate Forbes then a family crisis for her would have been a relatively hum-drum affair. Missing a ferry or having bad tooth-ache, something like that. No-one would have been discussing the Gaza strip. Here they were, all thinking the Free Church was too radical. I think we have the wrong team in Bute House.

For the source of who is behind these site R Sole “names”,,, look no further than prize prick UKIPPER John Main. .

Looks like the just entered the horse in the Grand National now that it’s dead and if it comes in first, second or third we will enter it in the Derby.

Remember and bolt the door Humza!

We will always be asking ourselves WHY ALEX WHY, WHY DID YOU LEAVE AND LET MI5 TAKE OVER.

George – GRR debate showed Holyrood up as not fit to govern. That was the way I saw it at the time. My old party were just as bad as the SNP and individuals were removed from their jobs for standing up against the Party. The Tories took a far more sensible approach and allowed each member to follow his/her own conscience. Humza missed the vote too. I wouldn’t hold that against her as I think she is all the Nationalist movement have in terms of Leadership or potential Leadership. She can think on her feet and was asked some tough questions during the Leadership debate about her religious beliefs that the other two weren’t asked and she did well. She wouldn’t be sitting on the Bute House sofa just now giving the world her view on Hamas.

See how many times you hear or read the word “unprovoked”…

caityjohnstone.medium.com/theyre-repeating-the-word-unprovoked-again-this-time-in-defense-of-israel-2984786b1ef8

The quip from Chomsky made me laugh…

“Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise, they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”

Anyone using the word ‘unprovoked’ is a liar (or incredibly ignorant). Yet you will hear it everywhere.

Why wait previous posters say. Why wait to implement your plan when you already have a majority of 44 MPs.

Welcome then to the mandate squandering SNP. Why wait indeed Humza when you can defer and defer and defer till you don’t have a mandate. Defer in fact to you only have a handful of MPs or maybe none for that is where the SNP are headed at the next election.

But that is in fact now a good thing. Folks now know what the SNP are, that they are an ipso facto unionist independence blocking party of politicos in the paid service of the British establishment. And knowing that the new independence securing front will arrive. And that as we now knows requires the removal of the SNP.

And that is why Humza waits. They didn’t call him the Continuity Candidate for nothing

I’m going crazy as I see myself in 1984 or North Korean news coverage.
TV and Radio and newspapers Jewish perspective only.
We know Question Time is as corrupt as you can get but a man representing the Jewish faith
No one representing the Palestinians.
A member of the audience was throughout trying to take up comments from the Jewish representative kept shouting out and kept his hand in the air until they were ready to eject him. Can’t have a perspective from the other side here mate.

I condemn All these deaths and I condemn the one sided reporting.
Everyone seems terrified to say Palestinian live matter too.

News reports from Israel, families affected interviews all Israeli, US envoys to Israel, EU leaders to Israel, US and U.K. military support including weapons to Israel, which country was given the nuclear bomb- you guessed it.

2 wrongs never make a Wright and Israel blowing up hundreds of residential apartment blocks with innocent men, women and children.

Now how many deaths will the military invasion of Gaza cause?
No water, no electricity no fuel- How do hospitals perform life saving operations?
How about people on dialysis or nebulisers or iron lungs- all about to die.

How about the elderly in their final hours or days. They will die if moved.

If a million people are to leave their homes where do they go?
Where is their new home, food, job, hospital, school etc?

Will Gaze be flattened so that it would be impossible to return their unless you are a very rich country who knows they can take it over with the world turning a blind eye just as they have with illegal settlements they build every day in the captured Palestinian land from the 6 day war.

Palestinians have no human rights and slowly slowly their country is being stolen in front of them.

We need give from both sides.
Peace might come if stolen lands are returned, if the UN can put in a force to seek out anyone planning harm to Israel.

Right or wrong there will be 2 countries at peace there or one Israeli state.
Hamas had better look that in the eye and do it now.

Willie @ 8:27 am

“Why wait to implement your plan when you already have a majority of 44 MPs.”

Aye Willie, yer deid richt tae, the SNP is still sitting on a third electoral mandate for independence. The Scottish people have given the SNP, under the British electoral system, the constitutional right to withdraw Scotland from the union as it began – via a majority of Scotland’s MPs. At the decisive moment they still let us doon. They are about to lose their jobs at Westminster. They could best maintain their jobs, and any semblance of respect, by re-convening our parliament in Scotland – now.

link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com

In other news. A French holocaust denier, living in Scotland, faces extradition. Apparently he has been using a false name-Billy Carlin perhaps?
Rev Stu-you are giving Billy a platform. Be careful!

Hi Chastity!

How’s it going this mornin’
Still an independence supporter? 🙂 🙂 🙂

Transition going OK?
Did ye aye did ye no tie your tities in a bow.

The Mad Cow Disease is coming along nicely.
I get madder every day!

Captain Yossarian says:
13 October, 2023 at 4:22 am

GRR debate showed Holyrood up as not fit to govern. That was the way I saw it at the time.

I just can’t wait to hear the Captain Yossarian’s views on GRR and women’s rights.

Also waiting to hear more about his sinking school project!

This could be my lucky day!

Hiya Ruby

“I would like to be respected,” Tissera told the chamber. “I do not appreciate those comments. I have taken the Life in the UK test to become a citizen. I probably know more than you do.”

They’re not sending their brightest 😀

Are you racist yet?

Nup. Ah cannae be arsed with racists such as Humza Yousaf.

I wouldn’t call anybody a “New Scot”, because, like a “trans woman”, there’s no such thing. You’re either a woman or you’re not. You’re either a Scot or you’re not. Kidding on that anybody who smelt whisky or bought a postcard at Glasgow Airport has been magically transjockrified intae a Scotsman is part of the Cringe.

I believe that Scottish people exist, that we are not an imaginary identity that people can appropriate at will after passing a multiple choice test run by HM Government. That’s insulting and racist against us indigenous people.

I don’t think it is ever possible to rationalize murdering unarmed people in cold blood. By definition when things get to that stage reason is no longer present.

I could try by pointing out that everyone in Isr@el has to do military service in the IDF (except I believe the ultra orthodox who I assume are not big ravers) and therefore any Isr@eli of serving age at the rave would likely have been in or be in the IDF or be a reservist of some description. But honestly I am not sure H@mas give a fuck about that anymore if they ever did. Maybe it is just good old fashioned old testament an eye for an eye ‘reasoning’… where did they learn that I wonder.

When the dust settles and the emotion subsides I do think people will realize that having a knock-off burning man festival next to world’s largest open air concentration camp was not the best decision ever made from a security perspective.

The video clip of the two girls dancing and twerking as two heavily armed motorized H@mas para-gliders slowly appear in the sky behind them will be one of the enduring images of these attacks I have no doubt. But I am not sure for the reasons we in the West would expect.

I, along with the Isr@elis it seems, would never have believed Ham@s capable of carrying this out. Feels like a game changer but only time will tell. One thing is for sure is that they would have anticipated this response from Isr@el… which is not good.

Every creature must adapt to its environment in order to survive. Political parties are no different. Since 2014 the SNP has become just as feckless and hapless as the other unionist parties and so is now perfectly adapted for life in Holyrood.

With independence no longer on the table there’s no need for the SNP to maintain that majority. It costs too much to maintain and so will be discarded, much like a tail that is no longer required. As a result, it might have to wait a term or two to get it’s turn to get on the scooter of power (thanks Red) but it’s MSPs will be quite content knowing all the perks and pensions will keep on flowing.

Short of an asteroid coming along and rearranging the landscape, the SNP are going nowhere. It will continue to administer wokery on the population and the Tories will promised to stop it if only you vote for them. However nothing will actually be done to upset this natural order.
Labour will continue to be irrelevant. Hanging on because of their position in Westminster.

So, better get used to it. Everything is stable and there’s nothing on the horizon that would trigger change. There’s not even a small dot in the sky that appears to be getting a little bigger each day.

And if you want to understand the near lock-step of all Western politicians on this then read Mearsheimer & Walt’s excellent paper from 2006. I read it many years ago now but it explains very clearly exactly how it works. When you see the totality of it, it is very concerning, and that was 17 years ago… it is worse now. And this has all been replicated in the UK… This is why we are on the brink of WWIII folks.

hks.harvard.edu/publications/israel-lobby-and-us-foreign-policy

Mac says: Maybe it is just good old fashioned old testament an eye for an eye ‘reasoning’… where did they learn that I wonder.

Is it a “holy book” that encourages them to do horrible things to “infidels”? I saw a video of an Indian Christian guy interviewing a pro-Palestinian protestor in England yesterday.

The interviewee was eloquent in explaining that he hates Christians, that his religion says Christians are “liars”. It wasn’t the kind of ecumenical dialogue you see on TV, but it felt more genuine for it.

I’ve never seen Jewish people talking about a religious obligation to hate me. I’ve never seen Jewish people dress their children up as suicide bombers, or threaten to behead people. I have never seen Jewish people dancing in the streets to celebrate torture and death.

Mac @ 11:19 am

“in the UK… This is why we are on the brink of WWIII folks”

All the more reason for SNP MPs to pull the plug on the union hoax now, ensuring Scotland remains neutral, like Ireland and other former colonies now independent states. Nae mair Scots sodjers dragged into mankit illegal Anglo-American corporate wars.

The New French are getting up to high jinks.

A teacher has been killed and two people have been seriously injured in a knife attack at a school in France, officials say.

The attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, during the attack, police told the AFP news agency.

We don’t yet know if the assailants passed a “Life In France” test that would make them the Frenchiest Frenchies Who Ever Haw Haw Hawwed, but it’s possible they were radicalised by Brexit.

Anyhoo, that’s why I’m not putting a wee Palestinian flag on my social media. No thanks. I like Scotland and the Scots.

Alf – If Scotland wishes to remain neutral, then it would be a good idea for the FM’s wife not to appear on Reporting Scotland supporting the views of Palestinians and the BBC shouldn’t have aired such a one-sided view from Bute House. Balance is required.

Secondly, if Scotland wishes to achieve independence, and in view of the mess that has been left behind by the Sturgeon/Swinney years, you would be lucky to achieve 30% support at the polls just now.

Molesworth says:
13 October, 2023 at 11:09 am

Stu, any chance of your giving your readers the ability to uptick or downtick the comments on here?
I stop short of suggesting a direct right of reply.

You do have a right to reply. I’ve just replied to you.
The uptick downtick idea is good idea. Doesn’t work very well on The Scotsman & The Herald due to glitch which allows readers to up tick/down tick all day long.

I’m pretty thick skinned so if you wanted to reply to me with a whole series of down ticks it would be fine.

The other thing you could do which often happens is just make a post saying how rubbish all the post are. You could even start giving posters nicknames and singling them out for particularly harsh criticism.

I’ve been called ‘The Spinster’ ‘The Wings Bunny Boiler’ The person suffering from Mad Cow Disease etc etc etc

I was also called Scooby which I didn’t get but I don’t think it was complimentary.

Don’t hold back say what you think.

link to thenational.scot

Kate Forbes will miss the SNP conference. She’s off to meet her handlers. The United States can’t allow a Palestinian sympathiser to run their permenant aircraft carrier.

link to m.youtube.com

I watched Scotland Speaks. It’s a beautiful documentary by Alex Salmond and Tasmina about the Wyndford flats. Interviews the locals fighting to save their homes.

The Wheatley group is using bullying tactics, cutting down trees as they ignore a court of Session rulling to demolish an entire community.

John Wheatley will be turning in his gave about his name being dragged through the dirt.

Big Eck a man of people. We need more houses not less.

Captain Yossarian @ 12:20 pm

“If Scotland wishes to remain neutral”

You miss the point. For ‘a people’ to remain neutral they first have to be independent. Until then all matters of war and peace are outwith their control; a colonised people are effectively ‘out of the game’, they are merely bystanders, observers, ‘no longer part of history’ (Memmi).

One huge problem with a multi-cultural society is in the event of war who do the Brits old & new fight for?

As I said I haven’t watched or read anything much about this latest war but from the comments I’ve read on here it looks very much like a war of religions.

If the country choose one religion over the other to fight for/protect would it be fair to ask all young men to fight for their country if they were a different religion?

I do remember when the Humza entered into politics he said it was because of the war in Iraq that was why he wanted Scottish Independence.

I agreed with him at the time. At that time I really though he was a good man I liked him. I agreed it would be best not to be part of a warmongering nation with the 2nd largest (or something) military budget in the world that drags us into illegal wars. Perhaps Humza was mainly concerned about Muslims being killed I on the other hand was concerned about anyone/everyone being killed just general about all the horrors of war.

Had that war escalated and we had required all our young men to fight would Humza have been a consciousness objector or would he have fought for ‘our enemies’.

link to wingsoverscotland.com

That post is mine no idea why my moniker has come up as Ruth.

I’ll see what happens this time.

Looking for the Pope’s take on Gaza and came across this gender story as well.

link to archive.vn

For the benefit of Paul Davis and others.

According to Lloyd Qinlan on ‘Through A Scottish Prism’, Mark Hirst when he was parliamentary aide to Christine Grahame, submitted a FOI request as to the amount of contact between MI5/6 and the Scottish Government.

Needless to say, he had to resubmit his enquiry. They eventually had to admit to over 800 ‘points of contact’. What they were and with whom they were made is not available for oik consumption.

However, Mr Davis is correct in that Alex Salmond did indeed ‘blow it’ by using the ‘White Heather Club’ franchise for the 2014 referendum

Come in, come in,
It’s nice tae see ye,
Post yer vote,
An’ then move on.

Politicians are almost purposely becoming unelectable,
Politician are putting forth legislation that restricts freedom of human speech,

Politician are enforcing policies to mix races of people and to mesh, mix and dilute human right laws on the Island of britain,

Politicians passing legislation to not protect women and children compared with beard women,

The politician are well down the path to change and restrict the rights of all humans,
As the restrictions on how or how far you travel and move,
On restricting the words you speak.
Restriction on energy supplies.
Restriction on housing builds,

And endorsing euthenising section of humans like old people, disabled people, veterans of war, homeless people,
Lockdowns,
Cover your face,
Get ID for human credit scores.
Digital Access to your, and you’re families bank accounts..
Testing drugs on locked up people as experiments,

In the 1930s and the 1940s the transition to abuse of humans forced into ghettoes and then into camps with no lawyers, courts, or juries or politicians to give a opposition voice was so fast that it was obvious afterwards, they were considered crimes against humanity,

The slower legislation passed by politicians, is a different tack on the process through government control restriction policies is almost not so obvious, but the parallel results are eerily similar that regime,

Slowly, slowly catch all the monkeys.

Regarding the elusive Thatcher quote, it is immaterial whether she said it or not, I’m old enough to remember that this was the train of thought back when there was no Holyrood government/administration and that there was no threat from the SNP.

It also made sense to guard against the possibility that there could be a majority of SNP MPs in Scotland by having another layer of government, i.e. more hoops to jump through.

Again we enter the realms of Schrödingers Scotland where we can’t do what any other country can do, like end a treaty that we are disgruntled with. No, it seems we’re not a country because we must ask our neighbour for permission to do anything.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with our democratically elected representatives representing us. Yes, that means we don’t need to have a referendum for anything, that’s not to say it wouldn’t be a good idea but the principle remains.

It’s perfectly legitimate to stand for election with a promise to end the Union and resile from our agreement with England.
Again, it may not be the best way forward as it may put a few noses out of joint domestically but that would be Scotland’s problem and if we put a few noses out of joint externally then that’s just tough.

Having said that, the reason the SNP are saying this is not to actually follow through on it but to simply garner votes to keep their snouts in the trough.

If Hungary, for example, voted to leave the EU without a referendum how angry would we all be?
How many of us would be complaining that this was illegal?
How many of us would lose sleep over it?
Is Hungary a country?
Is Scotland a country?

If Scotland is a country, we should bloody well act like it.
If we’re not a country, that leads to a lot more questions.

A Scot Abroad says:
13 October, 2023 at 3:26 pm
The Scots language is nothing of the sort. It’s just English with a Scottish accent, and poor spelling.

Away you go with your daft flame baits & answer the question I asked you on a previous thread

link to wingsoverscotland.com

It’s a simple enough question

Is Scotland a country, a colony or Lesser England.

It’s just for your opinion I want. No need for a long draw out answer.

A Scot Abroad @ 3:26 pm

“The Scots language is..just English with a Scottish accent, and poor spelling.”

Whit dae ye ken aboot Scots langage? Naethin A wad jalouse. An nae respeck o Scots langage an fowk naither.

English is English, Scots is Scots. Ane shoudna haud-doun the ither, alike colonialism. Langage is whit gies fowk thair identity, ye ken. Tak awa a fowk’s langage ye tak awa thair identity – Imperial job duin!

The quaistion is, whit identity daes fowk want tae be? Ye canna hiv twa identities, thon’s a cultural blaflum (illusion), like yon ‘union’ hoax, an thon Englis Imperial state croun, an thon SNP’s gender deceivery an aw.

Alf Baird.

And my spouse an sister used to say words on Scots that had no relation to a slang English words even old English,

Braw seeing you right it down,

I was talking yesterday about the fairness of the previous selection procedure of the SNP and compared it to the present. I have just had a very refreshing experience voting in the Alba elections for officials. Out of the 4 categories. I knew some of the candidates in each category so it was easy for me. A slick digital election with information on everyone putting themselves up for election. Ps Don’t tell Stu. James Kelly of Scot goes Pop is up for election.

Perhaps it would be wise not to share the scots language down with those whom thing it is Slang English so as not to enable adoption until it is qualified as a unique language to Scots,
I noticed your use of the word “blaflum” and could not find it has any correlation to a english slang word old or new,

These are nugguts of old Scots, an like I said my spouse uses plenty in their everyday conversations with born an bred locals as did their parents an grandparent,

It is indeed a colonial mind that likes to pretend every languange is English,
At yet the english language is not unique as it consists of words from latin, french, german, Scots , Wesh and Irish.

With a multitude of borrowed words to make up the english language it is amazing they still call it English,

I presume Alf speaks more Scots than I do because he lived in a part of the country where Scots was spoken.

The likes of Katie Forbes & Angus Brendan O’Neil speak Gaelic because they in turn lived in a part of Scotland where Gaelic was spoken. Their parents probably spoke to them in Gaelic.

I think they have done really well learning Gaelic/Scots considering the TV/Radio is for the most part in English, their education would all have been in English and they require to speak English for their jobs.

Well done guys.

I was thinking about what A Scot Abroad said

“The Scots language is..just English with a Scottish accent, and poor spelling.”
obviously it’s just another flame-bait from this man from Lesser England.

You could possibly say the same about Portuguese
“The Portuguese language is..just Spanish with a Portuguese accent, and poor spelling.”

Could be there are other languages you could say the same about although I don’t know why you would want to.

@A Scot Abroad @ 3:26 pm

“The Scots language is..just English with a Scottish accent, and poor spelling.”

You don’t seem to know how well you have been colonised. Here’s a little help.From Colin Burnett’s piece on wer cultural cringe.

“The Scots language corresponds Bourdieu’s concerns as everyone does not have the right to communicate via Scots, as this can place them in opposition to the deemed universal language of English. If we take the term field (Bourdieu 1979) used to describe arenas where social agents operate within and include politics, parliament, patronage, court, and religion which grants legitimacy to the language which Scotland has lost, one player was Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (one of the Scottish negotiators of the Union of 1707) who remarked ‘’the English language … since the Union wou’d always be necessary for a Scotsman in whatever station of life he might be in, but especially in any public character’’ (cited in Balilyn and Morgan 2012, p. 85).

This prophetic comment is epitomised in an incident at an Edinburgh court where a young man was held for contempt of court for answering aye (Scots for yes) instead of using the English form of yes (Crowther and Tett 1999). Similarly, Lord George Robertson remarked “Scotland has no language and culture” (NewsNet Scotland 2014) during the 2014 Referendum; a comment which is a wonderful example of cultural inferiority insofar as it suggests Scotland is void of a recognised culture by its own political elite and representatives. Billy Kay enquired to a Fife headmaster if pupils were encouraged to engage with Scottish Literature and was startled by his response: ‘’No. This is not a very Scottish area” (Robinson 2008, p.5).”

“The Scots language is nothing of the sort. It’s just English with a Scottish accent, and poor spelling”

I am afraid you have just demonstrated your ignorance in the subject.

It appears you do not know the difference between a language and a dialect.

A dialect does not have written form, it is only spoken. This means that if you forbid people to speak it and listen to it for long enough, you will end up extinguishing it.

A language, however, has written and oral form. For as long as you preserve the written form, the language survives and can be taught. Latin for example is not a live language because it is not spoken anywhere. But the written form is preserved, therefore it can be taught and could potentially be resurrected again.

It is because Latin is a language and not a dialect that Boris Johnson could learn a few written quotes in Latin and then parrot them to “prove” his knowledge (or lack of, according to some who know Latin).

By writing his comment in Scots, Prof Baird has just demonstrated to you that Scots is not a dialect. It is language which has written form. But we already knew that and so should you, because Robert Burns wrote in Scots.

Treating Scotland’s languages as if they were dialects or ridiculising them, as you have just done in your comment, is a signature expression of persistent colonialism, which seeks to subjugate by undermining local heritage and culture so the colonised adopt the coloniser’s instead.

Why does the coloniser try to suppress the language and heritage of the colonised? Because that is what identifies them as a people and distinguishes them from the coloniser.

Suppressing the languages of the colonised is a way of imposing “unity” by force. This is also what Franco’s fascists did in Spain as soon as they got to power.

He suppressed all the languages that were not “Castilian”. Disgustingly, he even forbid his own fellow Galicians to speak their (his) own mother tongue punishing them (through the compliant and complicit bourgeoisie) harshly if they did.

Franco’s action is an example of what Prof Baird has been explaining all along. The middle class natives who reach power under the coloniser’s rule, are even harsher and more despicable against their own fellow countryman than the coloniser. This is to prove their loyalty.

Galicians in Spain saw that with Franco. Here in Scotland, we see it in the way the SNP is treating the people of Scotland: for nine years they have given more consideration to the no voters moving to Scotland from elsewhere, than the yes voting natives.

Spain’s languages (other than Castilian) took a very serious hit during Franco’s fascist rule, but thanks to their preservation in written form, they survived and are thriving today. The main problem, when they became mainstream again, was to fill the gaps of all the new things created in the interim for which there was not a name in the original language.

Those languages are now taught in schools, spoken in the local TV stations and radio and are, together with Castilian, official languages in the regions where they are spoken.

If you want a job as a civil servant in those regions, you must be able to speak both languages, Castilian plus the regional language. This acts, of course, as a fantastic deterrent against people from elsewhere getting a civil servant job in the region displacing the locals. I think it is a great thing, because it secures that either local people gets those jobs, or at least people who can speak the language.

I am of the opinion in Scotland it should be exactly the same. Scots and Gaelic should be taught at Scotland’s schools, or at the very least one of them with option to study the other too as a subject choice.

It is embarrassing that our kids are being taught foreign languages but not their country’s own language.

Civil servants in Scotland should be fluent in at least two languages, English plus one of Scotland’s languages.

If I have to be honest, I am absolutely appalled at the total lack of progress advancing Scotland’s languages and culture made by the political fraud Sturgeon and her continuity candidate Yousaf. I find it unforgivable. I was fully expecting Scots to taught in the schools as a mandatory language and Scots language courses being openly available for adults when the political fraud became FM.

9 years in power and nothing to show for it. That should be STurgeon’s epitaph.

A Scot Abroad

Colonialism’s ‘most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonised, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world’.”

Ng?g? Wa Thiong’o

Mia,

What you write dialect and language is fine as a distinction that makes no difference. The fact that the “Scots language” is just middle English that has evolved a bit over 500 years doesn’t make it special. It’s just English spoken in a Scottish accent, or written with poor spelling. It’s just English.

“Swedish, like the other Nordic languages, is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the speaker.” (Wikipedia)

So according to Lord Naw-Naw, Danish is just Swedish spoken in a Danish accent, or written with poor spelling. It’s just Swedish.

Glad we cleared that up.

To be clear AScotAbroad doesn’t hate Scots folk, or approve of theft, torture and molestation.
It’s just business.
I hope that is clear.

To the flame baiter and ignorance,

English and middle English is not a pure language, it is made up of many lanuages through evasion of England and ancient traders,
Wether it be anglo’ language, french invasions an words, roman invasion, german, etc, latin and Greek, some Spanish,
And elements of welsh, Scots and Irish,

So those who is claiming Scots are borrowing the english language first have to acknowledge that most of spoken English is is a foreign language to England.
The english language has been,
Derived through foreign kings and queens of England
Through chefs from abroad.
From invasions,
From Roman and latin laws.
From religion,
From trade.
And foreign wars abroad,
And adopted words from colonising other countries.

Are saying Scots are speaking slang language and common language of france, germany spain viking, nordic, anglo saxon, russie and Gaelic and old pictish scots maaybe, welsh and Irish,

Multi bylingo

Scots are talented indeed,

Perhaps the shoe is on the other foot, seeing as english has no specific one country language or origins.

SAM
Repeat often enough that a culture is superior in all respects to another and it will come to be taken for «fact». Scotland’s three hundred year lecture on the matter from England/Britain and the system’s Scottish propagandists has conditioned many to that spurious «fact».
Without the intellectual and political will there can be no effective deconditioning and no permanent, sustainable desire for liberation.
The current Scottish politics, simply a version of the standard British variety, lacks the requisite sophistication to handle the process of liberation and national renewal.

A Scot Abroad

Frae the Hootsmon

Is Scots a language?
The Scottish Government recognises Scots as an indigenous language and calls it an “important part of Scotland’s culture and heritage, appearing in songs, poetry and literature, as well as daily use in our communities.” Its status as a language (and not a dialect) is further cemented by its recognition from the Council of Europe and UNESCO who registered it as a vulnerable language.

What separates Scots from English?
Both Scots and English are connected to the language of the Angles who came to Scotland roughly 1400 years ago. They evolved from ‘Old English’ throughout the middle ages but Scots developed into its own distinct tongue.

This occurred as the Norman French conquered England in a historical turning point that saw their language adapt new spellings, pronunciations and tenses separate to Scots. As written in Gaelic-Scots Wordbook by James S. Adam, Scots “is coeval with English but it has grown up differently. Many of the English borrowings from French came at second hand through the Norman Conquest.

“The Scots borrowings from French came directly, as did the borrowings from Norse and the wealth of Dutch words from our years of trading with the Low Countries.

“In short, Scots is not a dialect of English but a separate and sister language with just as long and just as proud a pedigree.”

You’re wrong and wrong at the top of your voice or a meringue.

Someone saying Humza’s Palestinian wife should not be pleading for peace and expressing
the desperation in seeing her immediate family trapped in an area under attack and about to be razed to the ground.

That is absolutely without insane.

Really your parents may be blown up at any minute and the can’t get out and you want to say nothing?

What planet can be from?

That’s interesting Sarah I didn’t know that about Wales.

Was there not something similar done in Scotland I vaguely remember a friend who works in the public sector complaining about forms having to be done in Gaelic. She was not happy.

A lot of people Stu included go bananas when anything Gaelic is mentioned.
I always try to calm them down by telling them the few words of Gaelic I know and trying to show them they already speak Gaelic.

I’m talking about pretty nice people but they just turn into ‘racists’ when there is any mention of Gaelic. Some of them are pretty hard core Unionists and felt that spending money on Gaelic was trying to dilute their Britishness or something or try to make Scotland different. I always find their reaction pretty odd.

It’s only Gaelic what harm can it do.

Here’s an idea. What about NOT reacting in any way whatsoever to the persistent commenters who have nothing constructive to contribute?

On another matter, is anyone able to go to the Chain of Freedom tomorrow? I had planned to but have had to withdraw, sadly.

I recall watching the Scandi crime series The Bridge, where a Swedish cop from Malmö teamed up with a Danish cop from Copenhagen, and neither appeared to have any serious issues communicating with each other.

Perhaps Lord Naw-Naw can tell us who should have regarded themselves as being the linguistically inferior of the two?

Perhaps if the Swedes or Danes had an obvious Cringe, as in the case of Lord Naw-Naw, it’d be easy to tell.

“What you write dialect and language is fine as a distinction that makes no difference”

There is a huge difference between a language and a dialect. That you are determined to close your eyes to not see it so you can still peddle your failed argument does not mean the difference does not exist.

“The fact that the “Scots language” is just middle English that has evolved a bit over 500 years doesn’t make it special”

First of all, you would do well to remove the inverted commas. It is Scots language, you like it or not. Secondly, what do you mean “it is just middle English”? It is not English, it is Scots. The fact they are similar does not mean one comes from the other, it means they have the same root, in other words, they come from the same ancient language.

For example, Galician, Castilian, Catalonian, Portuguese, French and Italian come all from the Latin. In particular, Galician and POrtuguese are very close, but that does not mean one comes from the other. They are different languages and are evolving differently. Also, Italian and Castilian are quite close, and some words are the same in Italian and Galician. That does not mean one comes from the other. It means they come from the same original language.

The Scots language is as special for the Scots speakers as English is for the English speakers. You are not any better than a Scot speaker, therefore there is nothing that makes your language better than theirs.

You are, still, displaying your ignorance. You cannot write “an accent”. It is only the phonetics that are different. The written word is the same.

Take another look at what Prof Baird has written. The difference with English is not just phonetics. The words are different.

Come on, ASA, this is the third decade of the 21st century. Is it not time you surrendered your obsolete colonial mind to the dustbin of history?

“It is just English”
No, it is not English, it is Scots and there is nothing “just” about it. It is a language and therefore as relevant as English, and it is about time it is being taught in schools and spoken freely.

If you consider Scots just English with an accent, you are giving a licence to every Scots speaker to consider English to be “just Scots with an accent”.

What exactly makes you think English is a better language than Scots? The fact it is the language you speak?

Micheal laing,

Not just made to feel ashamed to speak our language, but beaten and thrashed at school in out of the way education places in the Country, if we spoke it in the class rooms in Scotland in the 60s and 70s.

Sam.
Your equal to all the others here that are well educated and informed on Scots languages,

@Effigy 6:36pm
I was happy that Humza talked at a synagogue last night expressing sympathy with the Israeli families that have suffered grievous loss as a result of Hamas terrorists. I agree with him that a humanarian corridor should be established for women and children to get them out of Gaza. Where I disagree with Humza is his assertion that the UK Government values Israeli children over Palestinian children. Diplomatic efforts are currently ongoing. Humza Yousaf has not been elected FM by the Scottish people. He was elected by an indeterminate number of SNP members under dubious circumstances. There is no visible public consent in Scotland to adopt a policy of pro Hamas or indeed pro Israeli stance. He could put that to test by calling for Scottish Parliamentary Elections. I do wish his family get out safely along with sympathy for Israeli parents whose babies heads were chapped aff.

@ Mia at 7.01pm:

“If you consider Scots just English with an accent, you are giving a licence to every Scots speaker to consider English to be ‘just Scots with an accent’.”

Precisely, Mia. That was my thought exactly, but I couldn’t find the words to say it in my comment above.

The Union of the Crowns effectively ended court patronage of ‘makars’ writing in Scots. Writers like Burns, Scott and, more recently MacDiarmid all adored the work of William Dunbar.

Yes, it’s tricky for a mere English speaker at first, but once you get the hang of the cadence and have a decent glossary to hand, it’s a real pleasure and education.

link to en.wikipedia.org

Brian Doonthetoon – “skitters” is my personal favourite. I used that word in Africa and the Middle-East and somehow it resonates.

Lowkey
@Lowkey0nline

“I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry….We were misled.”
5:16 PM · Oct 13, 2023
·
573.8K Views

Yes, she does need to be more careful with her words.(Had their heads decapitated? Huh?)

Presumably we can now look forward to President Biden issuing an apology for lying that he had seen photos of the beheaded children.

That’s a wee bit more serious than being fed lies or using a tautology.

🙁

BDTT, my favourite is forfochan – lovely word and of course cowkin, though my spelling may be suspect.

@Ian Brotherhood 8:29pm
Truth is the first casualty of War. Always has been and always will be. So Humzas heartfelt sympathies to a Synagogue were unjustified?. He sympathised with Israeli losses. Obviously made up casualties. A big boy did it and ran away. Let’s put it to the test and have Scottish Parliamentary Elections. We will hear both sides and make-up our own mind. Humza has not been elected by the Scottish people to be our FM. He has no legitimacy on foreign policy under a devolved settlement but with a Scottish Parliamentary mandate he would have moral authority to speak on behalf of Scotland.

Alles gelogen . Alles gestohlen.
Is a mantra I heard many years ago . Not fussed really. Just seems so pertinent.

Alf, Scots is on a better supported basis in Northern Ireland since 2006. I have listened to, understood and enjoyed radio programmes from there in Scots, including drama.

This ‘Scots is just a dialect of English’ nonsense is just yet another symptom of what I think of as the Little Englander delusion.

Its roots go way back. Back to when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes first came to these Islands after the collapse of Rome. Romano Britain. i.e. mostly what is now England was left undefended and having been a colony was unpracticed at defending itself.

The more martially practiced Scots/Caledonii/Picts and Irish (i.e. militarised Celts if you like) obviously sought to fill that political vacuum.

The local leader Vortegern (great leader in Celtic) chose to invite a mercenary force from the Jutland Penisula (Denmark mainland) Schleswig-Holstein and Saxony (both Northern modern Germany) to hold back the marauders.

They were illiterate pagans but agreed to do it. They did stop the takeover but at a cost. Due to ongoing pressure from Westward moving Germanic tribes they were somewhat desperate to seek new lands themselves. In short, they refused to return and easily assumed a ruling position over the colonially weakened native Celtic population.

Although they were numerically never more than 10% of the population, they were, by martial might, in charge.

Being illiterate they were unable to bring with them a corpus of written material in which their cultural identity could be enshrined for future reference. All they really had was their pagan religion as a cultural glue. They did have one poem,
Beowulf, which was written down and probably finished in Britain (some Celtic elements are perceived in it by many).

Very soon, their pagan beliefs came under concerted attack from Christianity.

In time the existing literate class in Celtic England did manage to teach their new overlords how to read and write and even to produce illuminated manuscripts of their own. In time. despite a relapse or too, their paganism was also eventually completely replaced by Christianity.

This new literate, Christian Anglo-Saxon community became increasingly aware that they lacked anything like the Mythological, Legendary and historical underpinnings of their Celtic underlings. This has wrankled with them ever since.

They were in charge, they were the superior ones. Having an underclass that was literate with a superior religion and long history and mythology on which to draw for their cultural roots was simply unacceptable to them.

The fact that winna ding though is that they were illiterate, pagan and to be honest, a wee bit on the savage side. How do you maintain the veneer of elite superiority in such circumstance once the fighting of conquest has ceased?

The answer is, cultural usurption and fabrication. The seeds of a future ‘cultural identity’ built on delusion that still permeates notional Anglo-Saxon cultural identity to this day.

So many examples I’m not even going to start to enumerate.

On the linguistic front it was the Scandinavian influenced version of English and Scots which waas far more similar to modern English than the West Saxon and its Kentish variant which existed in Southern England up until around Chaucer’s time Scots with its borrowings of thousands of Parisian French words, which did not happen in the Domesday area, even more similar to modern English than Chaucer’s ‘Midland’ (read Northern) English which re-labelled as London English is the supposed birth of modern English.

Sorry just don’t have the time to go deeper.

Dinnae feed the troll.

@derek 10:05 pm . Unless you can drown them in their own skitters under bridge . There’s more of them to come after the current cantos are relieved of duty to their king .

Tinto Chiel @ 9:12 pm

“And there should be no conflict between Gaelic and Scots: they are both surviving Scottish languages (though Gaelic is older)”

The main difference is Gaelic came via Ireland with the Dalriada Gaels whereas the Scots language as we ken it was developed by Scots within Scotland.

@Breeks (12.30) –

Hear hear.

Have C&Ped your comment via my twitter.

“Can someone explain to me why Western leaders lack the courage, and apparently the intellect, to defy the intimidation of Israeli influence in places where no Israeli influence properly belongs?”

Because politicians, on the whole, are vain and shallow people easily bought by promises of power, money and sex.

Have a look at the board of the Tavistock then have a look at the three judges who overturned the findings against it. When Jack Straw and Michael Howard were found accepting cash for access they were put onto what was the replacement for the Press Complaints Commission and it was a five person board at least one of whom was already jewish which gave a jewish majority.

We have almost daily reminders of the Holocaust but the millions who died under Communism may as well never have happened, why is this given a pass?

What turned my head was spending a great deal of time amongst liberal zionists and encountering a global network of nepotism, cronyism and political favouritism. In conversation with a few of them they blatantly made demands for open borders for Western countries whilst saying that this would not be possible for Israel because it would jeopardise their homeland, culture and bloodline. The clincher for me was my peers victim blaming me for the unprovoked attacks which have been carried out against me in Govanhill by incomers, jews are the ones pushing for our extinction via mass immigration the irony being that they are joined by Saudi Arabia which funds mosques around Europe including in the Highlands And Islands.

People in the West are terrified of a small and shrill minority who have the power to remove their means to earn a living or even their liberty for questioning anything they deem off limits.