The Sunday Posts 2016/ A Wee Cock Sparra'

This comic poem was an annual entertainment for New Year when I was growing up. The Scots dialect of the non-gaelic regions was always only heard on TV in a comic situation, not taken seriously, except in a work of Rabbie Burns. I always thought it was strange that the language I spoke everyday with friends and family and had grown up with was something to be laughed at in 'polite' society. At school you could earn a prize one day for reciting Burns and get belted the next for 'not speaking properly'.

Thankfully that situation has slowly changed but there's a long way to go in recognising and rescuing the diversity and heritage of a native tongue.