A CAMPAIGN for official recognition of the language of the Plantation of Ireland, Ulster Scots, has been dealt a heavy blow, by the European Commission following a fact finding visit to Northern Ireland which failed to find a single native speaker.
In a highly critical report drawn up by 12 European delegates who speak languages such as Breton, Irish, Galician and Friulian (from northern Italy) Ulster Scots is damned as being "extremely close" to standard English.
This is a charge vigorously denied by enthusiasts who say fair fa' ye, whit wey gangs ye? in preference to "hello, how do you do?"
The report also rubbishes claims by the Ulster Scots Language Society which was founded in 1992 to promote a revival that there are 100,900 speakers living in an are which stretches from the Ards peninsula in north Down through Co Antrim and into north Donegal.
Written in the non minority French language for the European Commission's Dublin based Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, the report gives a highly sceptical account of the efforts of Ulster Scots enthusiasts in March this year to convince the delegates that the language is worthy of financial assistance,
It states that a demonstration by author and "native speaker", Mr James Fenton, of 18th century Ulster Scots poetry "in a loud voice" had not convinced the team.
"In our trip to the Ards peninsula we failed to find a communal language other than English or to find an open Ulster Scots speaker", says the report. It concludes that Ulster Scots is "the linguistic expression of a fringe of the unionist community whom the new developments in the Northern Ireland situation have made afraid of being abandoned and isolated, at the same time as they dig in their heels in rejecting their Gaelic heritage".
The report says the Ulster Scots movement is resented by many people, among them "moderate nationalists". "It would be highly prejudicial to cross community relations in Northern Ireland if the resources given to this work of research meant a lowering of aid or a halt to the official recognition and financial assistance in favour of promoting Gaelic."
Campaigners claim that Ulster Scots is experiencing a renaissance, with Oxford University Press publishing a concise dictionary, bilingual street signs and plans for an academy in Belfast. But a nationalist Belfast newspaper recently described it as "a DIY language for Orangemen".