Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots () also known as Ulster Scotch and Ullans, is the dialect of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster, being almost exclusively spoken in parts of Northern Ireland and County Donegal.Gregg, R. J. (1972) "The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in Ulster" in Wakelin, M. F., Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles, London: Athlone PressMacafee, C. (2001) "Lowland Sources of Ulster Scots" in J. M. Kirk & D. P. Ó Baoill, Languages Links: the Languages of Scotland and Ireland, Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, p. 121Harris, J. (1985) Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English, Cambridge, p. 15 It is normally considered a dialect or group of dialects of Scots, although groups such as the Ulster-Scots Language Society and Ulster-Scots Academy consider it a language in its own right, and the Ulster-Scots Agency and former Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure have used the term Ulster-Scots language.
Some definitions of Ulster Scots may also include Standard English spoken with an Ulster Scots accent.Gregg, R. J. (1964) "Scotch-Irish Urban Speech in Ulster: a Phonological Study of the Regional Standard English of Larne, County Antrim" in Adams, G. B. Ulster Dialects: an Introductory Symposium, Cultura: Ulster Folk MuseumHarris, J. (1985) Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English, Cambridge. p. 14 This is a situation like that of Lowland Scots and Scottish Standard English with words pronounced using the Ulster Scots phonemes closest to those of Standard English.Harris (1984) "English in the north of Ireland" in P. Trudgill, Language in the British Isles, Cambridge; p. 119 Ulster Scots has been influenced by Hiberno-English, particularly Ulster English, and by Ulster Irish. As a result of the competing influences of English and Scots, varieties of Ulster Scots can be described as "more English" or "more Scots".
Names While once referred to as Scotch-Irish by several researchers, that has now been superseded by the term Ulster Scots.Harris, J. (1985) Phonological Variation and Change: Studies in Hiberno English, Cambridge, p. 13 Speakers usually refer to their vernacular as 'Big Scots',Traynor, Michael (1953) The English Dialect of Donegal. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, p. 36 'Scotch'Traynor (1953), p. 244Nic Craith, M. (2002) Plural Identities—Singular Narratives. Berghahn Books. p. 107 or 'the hamely tongue'.Fenton, J. (1995) The Hamely Tongue: a Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County Antrim, Ulster-Scots Academic Press Since the 1980s Ullans, a neologism popularized by the physician, amateur historian and politician Ian Adamson,Falconer, G. (2006) "The Scots Tradition in Ulster", Scottish Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2. p. 97 merging Ulster and Lallans, the Scots for Lowlands,Hickey, R. (2004) A Sound Atlas of Irish English. Walter de Gruyter. p. 156 but also an acronym for "Ulster-Scots language in literature and native speech"Tymoczko, M. & Ireland, C. A. (2003) Language and Tradition in Ireland: Continuities and Displacements, Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 159 and Ulstèr-Scotch, the preferred revivalist parlance, have also been used. Occasionally, the term Habitual-Scots appears,Wells, J. C. (1982) Accents of English: the British Isles, Cambridge University Press p. 449 whether for the vernacular or the ethnic group.Winston, A. (1997) Global Convulsions: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism at the End of the Twentieth Century, SUNY Press; p. 161
Speaker population and spread
During the middle of the 20th century, the linguist Robert John Gregg established the geographical boundaries of Ulster's Scots-speaking areas based on information gathered from native speakers.Gregg, R. J. (1972) The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in Ulster in Wakelin, M. F., Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles, London: Athlone Press By his definition, Ulster Scots is spoken in mid and east Antrim, north Down, north-east County Londonderry, and in the fishing villages of the Mourne coast. It is also spoken in the Laggan district and parts of the Finn Valley in east Donegal and in the south of Inishowen in north Donegal.Caroline I. Macafee (ed.), A Concise Ulster Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996; pp. xi–xii. Writing in 2020, the Fintona-born linguist Warren Maguire argued that some of the criteria that Gregg used as distinctive of Ulster Scots are common in south-west Tyrone and were found in other sites across Northern Ireland investigated by the Linguistic Survey of Scotland.
The 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that 2% of Northern Ireland residents claimed to speak Ulster Scots, which would mean a total speech community of approximately 30,000 in the territory. Other estimates range from 35,000 in Northern Ireland, to an "optimistic" total of 100,000 including the Republic of Ireland (mainly the east of County Donegal). Speaking at a seminar on 9 September 2004, Ian Sloan of the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) accepted that the 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey "did not significantly indicate that unionists or nationalists were relatively any more or less likely to speak Ulster Scots, although in absolute terms there were more unionists who spoke Ulster Scots than nationalists".
In the 2021 census of Northern Ireland, 20,930 people (1.14% of the population) stated that they can speak, read, write and understand Ulster Scots, 26,570 people (1.45% of the population) stated they can speak but cannot read or write Ulster Scots, and 190,613 people (10.38% of the population) reported having some knowledge of it.
Status
Linguistic status
The majority of linguists treat Ulster Scots as a variety of the Scots language; Caroline Macafee, for example, writes that "Ulster Scots is [...] clearly a dialect of Central Scots." The Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure considers Ulster Scots to be "the local variety of the Scots language." Some linguists, such as Raymond Hickey,Raymond Hickey Irish English: History and Present Day Forms, Cambridge University Press, 2007. pp. 85–120 treat Ulster Scots (and other forms of Scots) as a dialect of English. It has been said that its "status varies between dialect and language".Crowley, Tony (2006) "The Political Production of a Language". Journal of Linguistic Anthropology; Volume 16, Issue 1, pp. 23–35.
Enthusiasts such as Philip Robinson (author of Ulster-Scots: a Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language), the Ulster-Scots Language Society and supporters of an Ulster-Scots Academy are of the opinion that Ulster Scots is a language in its own right. That position has been criticised by the Ulster-Scots Agency, with a BBC report stating: "[The Agency] accused the academy of wrongly promoting Ulster-Scots as a language distinct from Scots." This position is reflected in many of the academic responses to the "Public Consultation on Proposals for an Ulster-Scots Academy".
Legal status
Ulster Scots is defined in an Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland establishing implementation bodies done at Dublin on the 8th day of March 1999 in the following terms:
The North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999, which gave effect to the implementation bodies, incorporated the text of the agreement in its Schedule 1.
The declaration made by the British Government regarding the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages reads as follows:
This recognition differed significantly from the commitments entered into under the Charter in relation to Irish, for which specific provisions under Part III were invoked for the protection and promotion of that language. The definition of Ullans from the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999 above was used on 1 July 2005 Second Periodical Report by the United Kingdom to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe outlining how the UK met its obligations under the Charter.
The Good Friday Agreement (which does not refer to Ulster Scots as a "language") recognises Ulster Scots as "part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland", and the Implementation Agreement established the cross-border Ulster-Scots Agency (Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch).
The legislative remit laid down for the agency by the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999 is: "the promotion of greater awareness and the use of Ullans and of Ulster-Scots cultural issues, both within Northern Ireland and throughout the island".
The agency has adopted a mission statement: to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots people. Despite the Agency's reference to Ulster Scots as "a language", this eliding of the distinction between Ulster Scots as a linguistic form, and "Ulster Scots culture" broadly referring to cultural forms associated with the Scottish-descended population, continued thereafter.
The Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 amended the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to insert a section (28D) entitled Strategies relating to Irish language and Ulster Scots language etc. which among other things laid on the Executive Committee a duty to "adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes to enhance and develop the Ulster Scots language, heritage and culture." This reflects the wording used in the St Andrews Agreement to refer to the enhancement and development of "the Ulster Scots language, heritage and culture". There is still controversy on the status of Ulster Scots.McCoy, Gordon, and O'Reilly, Camille (2003) "Essentialising Ulster? the Ulster-Scots Language Movement". In Language and Tradition in Ireland. Maria Tymoczko & Colin Ireland, eds. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
History and literature
A large numbers of Scots-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 Plantation, with the peak reached during the 1690s.Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 572 In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.Adams 1977: 57
Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland.Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 585 W. G. Lyttle, writing in Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco, uses the typically Scots forms kent and begood, now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream Anglic forms knew, knowed or knawed and begun. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Mid Ulster English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct contact with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.
The earliest identified writing in Scots in Ulster dates from 1571: a letter from Agnes Campbell of County Tyrone to Queen Elizabeth on behalf of Turlough O'Neil, her husband. Although documents dating from the Plantation period show conservative Scots features, English forms started to predominate from the 1620s as Scots declined as a written medium.Corbett, John; McClure, J. Derrick & Stuart-Smith, Jane (eds.) (2003) The Edinburgh Companion to Scots, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press