THE cocks have been crowing loudly on Ulster's linguistic middens for about a year now. From one side we are told - only by its lunatic fringe, I must say - that Ulster Scots is a pure speech, untainted by Irish. This, of course, is nonsense. The immigrants from the Highlands and from Galloway and Ayrshire brought with them a substantial vocabulary of Gaelic words. From the other side we heard crows of acclamation for the EU experts who recently refused to recommend that money be paid to help it survive. `A dialect of a dialect!', wrote bone ass, who doesn't even know that Scots is a language, not a dialect of English.
Ulster Scots deserves to be cherished, whatever the EU "experts" might think. You'll find the pockets it survives in, from Down right around to Donegal and as far south as Monaghan, listed in an essay the late Brendan Adams contributed to The English Language in Ireland, a book of Thomas Davis Lectures which I edited for RTE some years ago. This language is, more archaic than any variety of Scots you'll hear in Scotland and you should know that if you drive up into the glens above Cullybackey in west Antrim, for example, those gentle people will address you in Ulster Hiberno English for your own comfort, and will speak braid Scots among themselves.
Here's a sample of their speech collected by Brendan Adams not so long ago near Cullybackey. A widower, a bottle of whiskey in his pocket, has a mishap on his journey to view another woman.
The next thang A knowed ma yann (one) fit (jbot) slapped (slipped) ann (in) behann the athar yann an doon A went aan ma groof (belly) ann the coo shairn (shit). That wasnae aa. Wheen a spraaghled (sprawled) aboot traayin tae get up, shac (shoe) nor fit cud A putt undher me. At laast A gaut on ma baakside an airsed ower tae A gaut o haul (hold) o yann o thos pailin posts forninst the lannt (flax) daam. A was chaakin (shaking) wae the coul, an claarried (smeared) wae coo dung frae heel tae thraaple (throat). A thoght Raab wud navver come. At last A hard his wheeple (whistle) ann the whuns (whins). "Jammie, is thaat you?" Sez aai: "Whaa dae ye thank wud be? A hae broke ma leg." "Naw", sez he. "Is tehe whusky aa raght?"