+ deciding Scotland's future
Every now and again, I receive news from the Scottish diaspora about the Scottish diaspora, and even from good old Scotland itself.
The following information is from Ron Macleod - chair of SFU Scottish Cultural Studies, and Russell Walker from the Govt. of Scotland - who is a big Gung Haggis Fat Choy fan.
Choosing Scotland's Future
Scotland's First Minister, Alex
Salmond MSP launched a White Paper today inviting the people of
Scotland to join in a national conversation on the nation’s
constitutional future.The First Minister values the engagement of
Scotland's diaspora in this conversation. The paper has been published
as part of the Government's fulfilment of its manifesto commitments and
100 days undertakings, and to ensure competent government.
The paper sets out three principal choices.
· Small extension of devolved powers
· Radical redesign of devolution and greatly enhanced powers
· Independence
A new website - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/topics/a-national-conversation
- has been launched to attract comments from all shades of opinion.
Anyone interested in contributing to the discussion, can do so by
e-mailing joinin@anationalconversation.com.
Greetings, an interesting BBC website, courtesy Norman Calder. regards, the other Ron
Scots 'mither tongue' goes online
An archive of the Scots language is now available all over the world thanks to a comprehensive new website.
Researchers at Glasgow University have completed work on the online resource, which contains more than four million words in Scots and Scottish English.
As well as meaning and usage, the project also has audio links, allowing people to hear words being spoken.
The site, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, can be accessed at www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk
People from the US, Australia, China, Japan and South America have already logged on to use the service, as well as people in Scotland.
It is one aspect of a long and flourishing cultural heritage.
Dr Wendy Anderson
Project researcher
The website currently includes text from 1945 up to the present day, with researchers working on expanding it.
They are building up a new resource for older varieties of language, dating from 1700 to 1945.
Once completed this should allow people to trace the development of features of Scots and Scottish English over time.
Project researcher, Dr Wendy Anderson, said: "The Scots language is a source of interest across the world as it is one aspect of a long and flourishing cultural heritage.The website will be a useful language resource for academic researchers and students, language learners and teachers, dictionary writers and secondary school language teachers, not to mention for the large number of general users who just want to satisfy a curiosity about the Scots language."
