107-462: Giffnock ( / ˈ ɡ ɪ f n ə k / ; Scots : Giffnock ; Scottish Gaelic : Giofnag , pronounced [ˈkʲifnak] ) is a town and the administrative centre of East Renfrewshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies 3.7 miles (6.0 km) east of Barrhead , 5.6 miles (9.0 km) east-southeast of Paisley and 5.3 miles (8.5 km) northwest of East Kilbride , at
214-611: A public body in Scotland , has direct operational responsibilities, such as supporting (and in some cases running) local bus services and managing integrated ticketing in Giffnock and other areas from the former Strathclyde region. Transport Scotland manages the local rail network. Scots language Scots is a language variety descended from Early Middle English in the West Germanic language family . Most commonly spoken in
321-552: A "superb suburban cinema". The Tudor was an Art Deco style building and is considered Glasgow's first "entertainment complex", featuring a ballroom and restaurant as well as the 2,400-seat cinema. Giffnock has numerous parks, including Rouken Glen , Huntly Park and Eastwood Park, where the East Renfrewshire Council offices are based. There remains some ancient woodland in Giffnock, which could be as old as 8,000 years. The lands of Rouken Glen Park originally belonged to
428-905: A 1996 trial before the Census, by the General Register Office for Scotland (GRO), suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding "Yes" to the question "Can you speak the Scots language?", but only 17% responding "Aye" to the question "Can you speak Scots?". It was also found that older, working-class people were more likely to answer in the affirmative. The University of Aberdeen Scots Leid Quorum performed its own research in 1995, cautiously suggesting that there were 2.7 million speakers, though with clarification as to why these figures required context. The GRO questions, as freely acknowledged by those who set them, were not as detailed and systematic as those of
535-541: A 25-metre (82 ft) swimming pool, two additional smaller pools and two gyms. Activities in the leisure centre include casual swimming, swimming lessons, pool fun sessions, fitness classes, a sauna and gym sessions. Greenbank Garden , an 18th-century house and garden owned by the National Trust for Scotland , is located between nearby Clarkston and Newton Mearns. The house has a 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) walled garden , sixteen rooms and barns and stables. This building
642-625: A Scots language listing. The Ferret, a UK -based fact-checking service, wrote an exploratory article in December 2022 to address misconceptions about the Scots language to improve public awareness of its endangered status. In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles , Caithness , Arran and Campbeltown . In Ulster , the northern province in Ireland , its area
749-587: A Sunday to visit Rouken Glen. During the great housing boom of the late 1930s, Giffnock began to grow rapidly. Between 1930 and 1940, as many as 3,000 dwellings were constructed, and the population rose dramatically, from 1,425 to 3,471 in 1939 and 9,144 in 1951. On 7 May 1941, during the Greenock Blitz of World War II , the Nazi German Luftwaffe dropped a group of bombs over Giffnock, but only two houses were destroyed. On 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess ,
856-462: A collection of children's nursery rhymes and poems in Scots. The book contains a five-page glossary of contemporary Scots words and their pronunciations. Alexander Gray 's translations into Scots constitute the greater part of his work, and are the main basis for his reputation. In 1983, William Laughton Lorimer 's translation of the New Testament from the original Greek was published. Scots
963-433: A continuum ranging from traditional broad Scots to Scottish Standard English . Many speakers are diglossic and may be able to code-switch along the continuum depending on the situation. Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine. Because standard English now generally has the role of a Dachsprache ('roofing language'), disputes often arise as to whether
1070-415: A language from a dialect , scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to English . Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects exist, they often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum , with Scottish Standard English at
1177-507: A more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots, especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots. Locharbriggs Locharbriggs is a village in Dumfries and Galloway , Scotland. It is located near the Lochar Water, 2.7 miles (4.3 km) north-northeast of the town of Dumfries . It was one of several villages that stood on
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#17328524796901284-685: A number of high-volume road links to neighbouring Glasgow. The A77 main Glasgow to Kilmarnock road passes through the centre of the town and crosses the A727 from Paisley to East Kilbride at the Eastwood Toll. The nearest motorway is the M77 , of which Junction 3 Darnley is the interchange for Giffnock. Giffnock lies within the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport Passenger transport executive and
1391-774: A prominent Nazi politician and deputy to Adolf Hitler parachuted out of his Messerschmitt Bf 110D near Waterfoot . Hess had flown solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom. He was detained by the Home Guard in the battalion headquarters in the Giffnock Scout hall, where he was questioned by Major Donald, the Assistant Group Officer of the Glasgow Royal Observer Corps before being transferred to Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow
1498-516: A recent neologism merging Ulster and Lallans. Scots is a contraction of Scottis , the Older Scots and northern version of late Old English : Scottisc (modern English "Scottish"), which replaced the earlier i-mutated version Scyttisc . Before the end of the fifteenth century, English speech in Scotland was known as "English" (written Ynglis or Inglis at the time), whereas "Scottish" ( Scottis ) referred to Gaelic . By
1605-612: A representative sample of Scotland's adult population) claim to speak Scots to varying degrees. The 2011 UK census was the first to ask residents of Scotland about Scots. A campaign called Aye Can was set up to help individuals answer the question. The specific wording used was "Which of these can you do? Tick all that apply" with options for "Understand", "Speak", "Read" and "Write" in three columns: English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots. Of approximately 5.1 million respondents, about 1.2 million (24%) could speak, read and write Scots, 3.2 million (62%) had no skills in Scots and
1712-501: A suitable medium of education or culture". Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process of language attrition , whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from Standard English. This process has accelerated rapidly since widespread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after
1819-501: Is Giofnag and is of partially Brythonic and Gaelic origin. 'Cefn' (i.e. 'Giff') comes from the Brythonic meaning 'ridge' and the Gaelic cnoc (i.e. 'nock') meaning "hill". In Gaelic, oc or og is a diminutive , and thus when added to cefn gives Giffnock the meaning of "Little Ridge". The first written mention of Giffnock came in 1530, when James V presented Rockend (Ruken) Mill and
1926-520: Is a sister language of Modern English , as the two diverged from the same medieval form of English. Scots is recognised as an indigenous language of Scotland by the Scottish government, a regional or minority language of Europe, and a vulnerable language by UNESCO . In a Scottish census from 2022, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported being able to speak Scots. Given that there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing
2033-611: Is contiguous with Glasgow and forms part of Greater Glasgow , the United Kingdom's fifth largest conurbation . Giffnock is situated on the plateau that encircles Glasgow. It is at edge of the area that defines the basin that Glasgow has developed within. The underlay is composed mainly of sedimentary rocks and freestone from the Strathclyde and Clackmannan groups of early to mid Carboniferous age (354 to 316 million years). The relatively soft and easily eroded rocks have resulted in
2140-552: Is in Scots, for example. Scott introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels. Other well-known authors like Robert Louis Stevenson , William Alexander, George MacDonald , J. M. Barrie and other members of the Kailyard school like Ian Maclaren also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the Victorian era popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular, often of unprecedented proportions. In
2247-745: Is lykest to our language..." ( For though several have written of (the subject) in English, which is the language most similar to ours... ). However, with the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England, most writing in Scotland came to be done in the English fashion. In his first speech to the English Parliament in March 1603, King James VI and I declared, "Hath not God first united these two Kingdomes both in Language, Religion, and similitude of maners?" . Following James VI's move to London,
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#17328524796902354-445: Is protected as a Category A listed building . The Giffnock North Social Club, located on Braidbar Road, is a community non-profit making venue run by its members. The club host a wide and diverse range of live music events. Facilities at the club include a lounge and a games room with pool tables, darts and large screen TV. It also has a function hall which can be hired out for special occasions, accommodating up to 150 guests. In 1905
2461-438: Is served by three railway stations, all of which are managed by ScotRail : The closest airport is Glasgow Airport , 6.8 miles (10.9 km) north-west of Giffnock, followed by Glasgow Prestwick Airport , 27.2 miles (43.8 km). Giffnock is serviced by a number of bus routes by various operators. The main bus link to the city is the number 38 line operated by First Glasgow , which runs at least every 10 minutes throughout
2568-575: Is sometimes used in contemporary fiction, such as the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (later made into a motion picture of the same name ). But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt is a cyberpunk novel written entirely in what Wir Ain Leed ("Our Own Language") calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative neologisms . The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
2675-570: Is today. On his sudden death in August 1893, the house passed into the hands of his brother, William Graham Crum, who later sold the estate to Archibald Cameron Corbett, MP (later Lord Rowallan ) on 19 May 1905. In 1906 the estate was given to the City of Glasgow by Lord Rowallan, with the provision that it be for the "citizens of Glasgow for all time". Rouken Glen Park was officially opened on Saturday, 25 May 1906 by Lord Rowallan. Eastwood Park Leisure Centre has
2782-550: Is used to describe the Scots language after 1700. A seminal study of Scots was undertaken by JAH Murray and published as Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland . Murray's results were given further publicity by being included in Alexander John Ellis 's book On Early English Pronunciation, Part V alongside results from Orkney and Shetland, as well as the whole of England. Murray and Ellis differed slightly on
2889-529: Is usually defined through the works of Robert John Gregg to include the counties of Down , Antrim , Londonderry and Donegal (especially in East Donegal and Inishowen ). More recently, the Fintona -born linguist Warren Maguire has 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
2996-547: The 2015 General Election . Before its creation in 2005, Giffnock was in the Eastwood Constituency . At 55°48′9″N 4°17′43″W / 55.80250°N 4.29528°W / 55.80250; -4.29528 (55.803°, −4.30°) Giffnock is situated in Scotland's Central Lowlands . The town lies 3.7 miles (6.0 km) east of Barrhead , 5.3 miles (8.5 km) northwest of East Kilbride and 4.3 miles (6.9 km) south-southwest of Glasgow. The territory of Giffnock
3103-470: The English Dialect Dictionary , edited by Joseph Wright . Wright had great difficulty in recruiting volunteers from Scotland, as many refused to cooperate with a venture that regarded Scots as a dialect of English, and he obtained enough help only through the assistance from a Professor Shearer in Scotland. Wright himself rejected the argument that Scots was a separate language, saying that this
3210-501: The Linguistic Survey of Scotland . Dialects of Scots include Insular Scots , Northern Scots , Central Scots , Southern Scots and Ulster Scots . It has been difficult to determine the number of speakers of Scots via census, because many respondents might interpret the question "Do you speak Scots?" in different ways. Campaigners for Scots pressed for this question to be included in the 2001 UK National Census . The results from
3317-494: The Low Countries . Scots also includes loan words in the legal and administrative fields resulting from contact with Middle Irish , and reflected in early medieval legal documents. Contemporary Scottish Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as cèilidh , loch , whisky , glen and clan . Cumbric and Pictish , the medieval Brittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are
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3424-706: The Protestant Church of Scotland adopted the 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible; subsequently, the Acts of Union 1707 led to Scotland joining England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain , having a single Parliament of Great Britain based in London. After the Union and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education, as
3531-518: The Scottish Crown . Ownership shifted to the Earl of Eglinton when James V presented the land to Hugh Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Eglinton on the marriage of his son in 1530. The area of the estate was farmed until the end of the 18th century and, in 1858, the estate was purchased by local merchant Walter Crum. Alexander Crum inherited the estate in 1879 and is responsible for the layout of Rouken Glen as it
3638-469: The Scottish Government . Giffnock's distribution network operator for electricity is Scottish Power . The NHS board is NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde . Strathclyde Fire and Rescue is the statutory fire and rescue service . The nearest fire station is in the neighbouring settlement of Clarkston Policing in Giffnock is provided by Police Scotland. The Strathclyde Partnership for Transport ,
3745-629: The Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles of Scotland , and northern Ulster in Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots ), it is sometimes called: Lowland Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic , the Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands , the Hebrides , and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English . Modern Scots
3852-461: The Second World War . It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift , sometimes also termed language change , convergence or merger . By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of language death over much of Lowland Scotland . Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang. A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards
3959-579: The University of Aberdeen , and only included reared speakers (people raised speaking Scots), not those who had learned the language. Part of the difference resulted from the central question posed by surveys: "Do you speak Scots?". In the Aberdeen University study, the question was augmented with the further clause "... or a dialect of Scots such as Border etc.", which resulted in greater recognition from respondents. The GRO concluded that there simply
4066-466: The post town of Glasgow in the G postcode area . Giffnock consists of postcode district G46, which also extends beyond the town boundary to include neighbouring settlements Kennishead , Thornliebank , Deaconsbank , Carnwadric and Arden . According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 , the census locality (town and sub-area) of Giffnock had a total resident population of 16,178, or 18% of
4173-612: The prestige dialect of most of eastern Scotland. By the sixteenth century, Middle Scots had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England. From 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster , some 200,000 Scots-speaking Lowlanders settled as colonists in Ulster in Ireland. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one. The name Modern Scots
4280-544: The " Buchan Claik ". The old-fashioned Scotch , an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Ulster. The term Lallans , a variant of the Modern Scots word lawlands [ˈlo̜ːlən(d)z, ˈlɑːlənz] , is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form . Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots ( Ulstèr-Scotch in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans",
4387-586: The 2011–2012 season, the team competes in the Scottish Premiership Division A . The Glasgow Hutchesons Aloysians RFC (often abbreviated to GHA) are based in Giffnock. Giffnock forms part of the Western water and sewerage regions of Scotland. Waste management is provided by the East Renfrewshire local council. Water supplies are provided by Scottish Water , a government-owned corporation of
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4494-542: The Crowns in 1603, the Standard English of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After the Acts of Union in 1707 the emerging Scottish form of Standard English replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland. The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new literary language descended from
4601-449: The Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be an independent sister language forming a pluricentric diasystem with English. German linguist Heinz Kloss considered Modern Scots a Halbsprache ('half language') in terms of an abstand and ausbau languages framework, although today in Scotland most people's speech is somewhere on
4708-697: The Middle English of Northumbria due to twelfth- and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English–speakers from the North and Midlands of England . Later influences on the development of Scots came from the Romance languages via ecclesiastical and legal Latin , Norman French , and later Parisian French , due to the Auld Alliance . Additionally, there were Dutch and Middle Low German influences due to trade with and immigration from
4815-560: The Philosopher's Stane , a Scots translation of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , was published by Matthew Fitt . The vowel system of Modern Scots: Vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scottish vowel length rule . The orthography of Early Scots had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century. After the Union of
4922-480: The Scots language was also featured. It was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. The Scottish Government set its first Scots Language Policy in 2015, in which it pledged to support its preservation and encourage respect, recognition and use of Scots. The Scottish Parliament website also offers some information on
5029-467: The Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", also finding "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)". Before the Treaty of Union 1707 , when Scotland and England joined to form
5136-573: The Scottish Executive recognises and respects Scots (in all its forms) as a distinct language, and does not consider the use of Scots to be an indication of poor competence in English. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature, its independent – if somewhat fluid – orthographic conventions , and in its former use as the language of the original Parliament of Scotland . Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after
5243-622: The Standard English cognate . This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the King James Bible , and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of Augustan English poetry . Consequently, this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries. This modern literary dialect, "Scots of
5350-497: The Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. During the 2010s, increased interest was expressed in the language. The status of the language was raised in Scottish schools, with Scots being included in the new national school curriculum . Previously in Scotland's schools there had been little education taking place through the medium of Scots, although it may have been covered superficially in English lessons, which could entail reading some Scots literature and observing
5457-513: The Whitecraigs Golf Club was founded. The course was originally designed by Willie Fernie , who was The Open Championship winner in 1883 and also designed the Ailsa course at Turnberry . Alterations to the course were made in the 1930s by James Braid , who won The Open Championship five times between 1901 and 1910. Many golfing events have been hosted by the Whitecraigs Golf Club. The club
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#17328524796905564-633: The activities of those such as Thomas Sheridan , who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution . Charging a guinea at a time (about £200 in today's money ), they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh . Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed the Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. These eighteenth-century activities would lead to
5671-565: The area during the early twentieth century, as part of Scotland's densely populated Central Belt , Giffnock has continued to grow as a dormitory town , supported by its position within the Greater Glasgow area, from roughly 1,425 residents in the early twentieth century to 16,178 in 2001. Expansion continues due to several new housing developments; however, much of the land is now urbanised or designated parkland , leaving little room for further expansion. The Scottish Gaelic name for Giffnock
5778-510: The area was consistently lit at night. In 1903, two more railway stations were built on the edge of Giffnock, at Williamwood and Whitecraigs . These stations lay on the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway , originally built to provide a through route from the Lanarkshire coalfields to ports such as Ardrossan on the Ayrshire coast. The growth of Giffnock was furthered in 1905 by the arrival of
5885-419: The beginning of the fifteenth century, the English language used in Scotland had arguably become a distinct language, albeit one lacking a name which clearly distinguished it from all the other English variants and dialects spoken in Britain. From 1495, the term Scottis was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular and Erse , meaning "Irish", was used as a name for Gaelic. For example, towards
5992-521: The book" or Standard Scots, once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author". This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster, embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Murray , David Herbison , James Orr, James Hogg and William Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921 Manual of Modern Scots . Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in
6099-435: The border between English and Scots dialects. Scots was studied alongside English and Scots Gaelic in the Linguistic Survey of Scotland at the University of Edinburgh , which began in 1949 and began to publish results in the 1970s. Also beginning in the 1970s, the Atlas Linguarum Europae studied the Scots language used at 15 sites in Scotland, each with its own dialect. From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots
6206-457: The construction of the steps of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Only one quarry now remains active. The village's amenities include bus services, three local shops, a public house (the Lochar Inn), a social club, a Chinese takeaway, fish and chip shop, hairdressers, community centre, a library, and a primary school. Transport links from Locharbriggs to Dumfries often suffer during school holidays, when major works are routinely carried out on
6313-403: The creation of Scottish Standard English . Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of Scots as a literary language was revived by several prominent Scotsmen such as Robert Burns . Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm. Scots terms were included in
6420-436: The day. The first evidence of education in Giffnock is of a small private school that operated in the lodge house at the Redhurst Hotel. Due to the increased population, the first public school opened in 1902 in the Tower Rooms of Giffnock United Free Church, known now as the Orchardhill Parish Church. Giffnock has a number of high schools, including St Ninian's High School , a co-educational Roman Catholic High School which
6527-431: The early 1890s, residential Giffnock began to grow around the railway station and Eastwood Toll, and by 1892 gas was introduced to the area. Gas street lamps were erected by Busby and District Gas Company in 1893; however, these were supported by a voluntary subscription that many households refused to pay, leaving many areas unlit. It was not until October 1896, when Eastwood Parish Council took over street lighting, that
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#17328524796906634-694: The early twentieth century, a renaissance in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid whose benchmark poem " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle " (1926) did much to demonstrate the power of Scots as a modern idiom. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young , John Buchan , Sydney Goodsir Smith , Robert Garioch , Edith Anne Robertson and Robert McLellan . The revival extended to verse and other literature. In 1955, three Ayrshire men – Sandy MacMillan, an English teacher at Ayr Academy ; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain of Ayr ; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to write Bairnsangs ("Child Songs"),
6741-470: The edge of the Lochar Moss which was largely reclaimed in the 19th century. The Locharbriggs locality (which also includes neighbouring Heathhall) had an estimated population of 5,610 in 2016. Locharbriggs is known for the quarrying of distinctive red sandstone of the Locharbriggs Sandstone Formation . This has been used for buildings in towns and cities including Dumfries, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The stone has also been exported further afield, including for
6848-411: The end of the fifteenth century, William Dunbar was using Erse to refer to Gaelic and, in the early sixteenth century, Gavin Douglas was using Scottis as a name for the Lowland vernacular. The Gaelic of Scotland is now usually called Scottish Gaelic . Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the River Forth by the seventh century, as
6955-401: The fifteenth century, much literature based on the Royal Court in Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews was produced by writers such as Robert Henryson , William Dunbar , Gavin Douglas and David Lyndsay . The Complaynt of Scotland was an early printed work in Scots. The Eneados is a Middle Scots translation of Virgil 's Aeneid , completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. After
7062-439: The first Glasgow Corporation Tramways tram in the town. The addition of this tram link and the nearby Whitecraigs railway station helped the popularity of Giffnock as a weekend destination and lead to the opening of Rouken Glen park in 1906 by Archibald Corbett (later Lord Rowallan), the M.P. for Tradeston. The Giffnock tramline was one of Glasgow Corporation Tramways's most profitable routes; up to 15,000 travelled to Giffnock on
7169-427: The first sandstone quarry in Giffnock opened. Before long, the town became known for this industry, and at its peak, there were four quarries in Giffnock, three surface quarries and one underground quarry, which together employed over 1,000 men. The quarries produced two types of sandstone: "liver rock" and "moor rock". "Liver rock" was particularly popular with masons thanks to its lack of stratification , which made
7276-454: The following day. The wreckage of Hess's aircraft was salvaged by 63 Maintenance Unit (MU) between 11 and 16 May 1941. Part of the aeroplane is now in London's Imperial War Museum . Proposals were put forward in 2008 to expand the town with the building of 178 houses on the currently dangerous Braidbar Quarries site next to Huntly Park, involving the Park closing for a period of two years. However, following 2,000 objections from local people and
7383-443: The landform in the area being mostly flat with gentle undulations. The area of Giffnock is typically around 45 metres (148 ft) to 50 metres (160 ft) above sea level, with the highest point in the area reaching 60 metres (200 ft). Giffnock experiences a temperate maritime climate , like much of the British Isles , with relatively cool summers and mild winters. Regular but generally light precipitation occurs throughout
7490-442: The language in Scots. In September 2024, experts of the Council of Europe called on the UK Government to "boost support for regional and minority languages", including the Scots Language. The serious use of the Scots language for news, encyclopaediae, documentaries, etc., remains rare. It is reportedly reserved for niches where it is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy, Burns Night or traditions' representations. Since 2016,
7597-509: The language used in different situations. Such an approach would be inappropriate for a Census." Thus, although it was acknowledged that the "inclusion of such a Census question would undoubtedly raise the profile of Scots", no question about Scots was, in the end, included in the 2001 Census. The Scottish Government's Pupils in Scotland Census 2008 found that 306 pupils spoke Scots as their main home language. A Scottish Government study in 2010 found that 85% of around 1000 respondents (being
7704-571: The local dialect. Much of the material used was often Standard English disguised as Scots, which caused upset among proponents of Standard English and proponents of Scots alike. One example of the educational establishment's approach to Scots is, "Write a poem in Scots. (It is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as you hear the sounds in your head.)", whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation". A course in Scots language and culture delivered through
7811-530: The medium of Standard English and produced by the Open University (OU) in Scotland, the Open University's School of Languages and Applied Linguistics as well as Education Scotland became available online for the first time in December 2019. In the 2011 Scottish census , a question on Scots language ability was featured In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , a question in relation to
7918-420: The newspaper The National has regularly published articles in the language. The 2010s also saw an increasing number of English books translated in Scots and becoming widely available, particularly those in popular children's fiction series such as The Gruffalo , Harry Potter , Diary of a Wimpy Kid , and several by Roald Dahl and David Walliams . In 2021, the music streaming service Spotify created
8025-401: The old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended. These writings also introduced what came to be known as the apologetic apostrophe , generally occurring where a consonant exists in
8132-612: The opposition of the Scottish Government's reporter, East Renfrewshire Council abandoned the plans in October 2011. Giffnock is represented by several tiers of elected government. Giffnock Community Council forms the lowest tier of governance whose statutory role is to communicate local opinion to local and central government. It is one of ten community councils of the East Renfrewshire council area . East Renfrewshire Council,
8239-451: The other. Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects; other scholars treat Scots as a distinct Germanic language, in the way that Norwegian is closely linked to but distinct from Danish . Native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as braid Scots (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the " Doric " or
8346-497: The past (e.g. Corby or the former mining areas of Kent ). In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , it was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. Among the earliest Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (fourteenth century), Wyntoun 's Cronykil and Blind Harry 's The Wallace (fifteenth century). From
8453-459: The pits began to fill with water, it became an issue that needed to be resolved. In the early 1930s, William Bearmore & Co began tipping slag from the production of steel into the Giffnock quarries. The slag tipping continued until 1969, when Derek Crouch Limited began scrap metal extraction, which lasted until the late 1970s. Today the ground is a wasteland. Coal mining was also carried out in Giffnock, between 1850 and 1926. The coal produced
8560-688: The purposes of the Scottish Parliament , Giffnock forms part of the Eastwood Constituency , which is represented by Jackson Carlaw MSP , of the Scottish Conservative Party . In the UK Parliament, Giffnock is within the county constituency of East Renfrewshire , electing one member of parliament (MP) to the House of Commons . Kirsten Oswald of the SNP was elected as MP for East Renfrewshire in
8667-447: The quarries. An additional railway service began at the start of the twentieth century, closely followed by the arrival of Glasgow Corporation Tramways . Giffnock's relative closeness to Glasgow coupled with the local industry and good transports links helped it to develop into a suburban town, as many wealthy merchants chose to construct villas in its smog-free environs and commute daily to the city. Although heavy industry died out in
8774-457: The region was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria . By the tenth century, Middle Irish was the language of the Scottish court , and the common use of Old English remained largely confined to this area until the thirteenth century. The succeeding variety of Northern Early Middle English spoken in southeastern Scotland is also known as Early Scots . It began to further diverge from
8881-413: The remainder had some degree of skill, such as understanding Scots (0.27 million, 5.2%) or being able to speak it but not read or write it (0.18 million, 3.5%). There were also small numbers of Scots speakers recorded in England and Wales on the 2011 Census, with the largest numbers being either in bordering areas (e.g. Carlisle ) or in areas that had recruited large numbers of Scottish workers in
8988-515: The seventeenth century, anglicisation increased. At the time, many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East were written down. Writers of the period were Robert Sempill , Robert Sempill the younger , Francis Sempill , Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie . In the eighteenth century, writers such as Allan Ramsay , Robert Burns , James Orr , Robert Fergusson and Walter Scott continued to use Scots – Burns's " Auld Lang Syne "
9095-465: The southwest of the Greater Glasgow conurbation . Giffnock has frequently been named amongst the most affluent areas in Scotland. It had been first place but that title went to Stockbridge, Edinburgh in 2020. Giffnock is mentioned in documents as early as the seventeenth century as a scattered agricultural settlement. In the late eighteenth century, Archibald Montgomerie , the Earl of Eglinton ,
9202-519: The stone easy to work with. In 1854 Giffnock and Orchard Quarries were taken over by the former foreman and clerk, De Hort Baird and William Stevenson. They formed the firm Baird & Stevenson, which became a major force in Scottish quarrying; they later owned Locharbriggs Quarry in Dumfriesshire, thus supplying Glasgow with both blond Giffnock and red Dumfries sandstone. By 1866 the Busby Railway
9309-450: The surrounding lands to Hugh Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Eglinton . The settlement of Giffnock first appeared as Gisnock, in an atlas created by Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1654, the first atlas of Scotland. Giffnock was primarily a scattered farming community until the late 1780s, when Archibald Montgomerie, 11th Earl of Eglinton was forced to partition the land into a number of small properties for sale to raise finances. In 1835,
9416-461: The suspected source of a small number of Scots words, such as lum (derived from Cumbric) meaning "chimney". From the thirteenth century, the Early Scots language spread further into Scotland via the burghs , which were proto-urban institutions first established by King David I . In fourteenth-century Scotland, the growth in prestige of Early Scots and the complementary decline of French made Scots
9523-512: The total of East Renfrewshire. The median age of males and females living in Giffnock was 39 and 43 respectively, compared to 37 and 39 years for those in the whole of Scotland. Fifty six percent were married, 3.5% were cohabiting couples, 6.9% were lone parent families and 28.7% of households were made up of individuals. The place of birth of the towns residents was 94.4% United Kingdom (including 87.8% from Scotland), 0.6% Ireland, 0.9% from other European Union countries and 4.2% from elsewhere in
9630-807: The twentieth-century biographer of James Boswell (1740–1795), described James's view of the use of Scots by his father Alexander Boswell (1706–1782) in the eighteenth century while serving as a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland : He scorned modern literature, spoke broad Scots from the bench, and even in writing took no pains to avoid the Scotticisms which most of his colleagues were coming to regard as vulgar. However, others did scorn Scots, such as Scottish Enlightenment intellectuals David Hume and Adam Smith , who went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings. Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through
9737-590: The unitary local council , is based in Giffnock and is the Executive, deliberative and legislative body responsible for local governance . The Scottish Parliament is responsible for devolved matters such as education , health and justice , while reserved matters are dealt with by the Parliament of the United Kingdom . Within East Renfrewshire, Giffnock and Thornliebank is one of five multi-member wards created in 2007, which elects three council members. For
9844-585: The varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a separate language in their own right. The UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Notwithstanding the UK government's and the Scottish Executive's obligations under part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,
9951-656: The world. Compared with the average demographics of Scotland , Giffnock has higher proportions of people born outside the Europe and people over pensionable age . Of residents 16–74, 39.6% were in full-time employment, 12.1% in part-time employment, 8.9% self-employed and 2% unemployed compared with Scotland as a whole which has 40.3%, 11.1%, 6.6% and 4% respectively. Additionally, in Giffnock 4.2% students have jobs while 5.2% do not, 16% are retired, 5.7% look after their home or family, 3.9% are permanently sick or disabled, and 2.4% are economically inactive for other reasons. The area has
10058-400: The year. Giffnock's built environment is characterised by its mixture of nineteenth and twentieth-century single and two-storey dwellings, most of which are semi-detached or terraced. Towards the south of Giffnock the properties are generally grander two-storey detached villas, commonly built with local sandstone many of which are now listed buildings . Giffnock is a postal district within
10165-503: Was 1784 as of September 2011. Furthermore, Giffnock has a library and two primary schools: Giffnock Primary School and Braidbar Primary school, non-denominational feeder primary schools for Woodfarm High School . Until the end of the nineteenth century, Giffnock had no church buildings, and religious meetings took place in the waiting room of Giffnock Railway Station and, later, in the clubhouse at Eastwood Golf Course. Orchardhill Parish Church, designed by HE Clifford and completed in 1899,
10272-477: Was a "quite modern mistake". During the first half of the twentieth century, knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary norms waned, and as of 2006 , there is no institutionalised standard literary form. By the 1940s, the Scottish Education Department 's language policy was that Scots had no value: "it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as
10379-510: Was built in 1984 and is Scotland's top-performing state school. St Ninian's was the first state-funded school in Scotland to abandon the Standard Grade examination system in favour of the Higher Still system , using Access 3, Intermediate 1 and Intermediate 2 for pupils in third and fourth year, while maintaining Highers in fifth year and Advanced Highers in sixth year. The school roll
10486-481: Was built, allowing them to transport the stone by rail. Originally, a lower level line was laid from Giffnock railway station into the Orchard Quarry to facilitate the extraction of the stone. Sandstone from the Giffnock quarries was primarily used within the nearby city of Glasgow and can be found in older parts of the University of Glasgow and the interior of Kelvingrove Art Gallery . A small amount of trade
10593-402: Was done with Belfast, and some of the finer "liver rock" was even transported as far as America and South Africa to build both buildings and monuments. Quarrying in Giffnock continued until 1912 when, due to flooding and the high cost of extracting stone, work ceased. Numerous ventures tried to revitalise the quarries for other purposes, including the cultivation of mushrooms in the tunnels. As
10700-436: Was forced to partition the land into a number of smaller properties. The urbanisation and development of Giffnock began in the mid to late nineteenth century with the construction of several sandstone quarries , and this prompted the development of the first railway link with nearby Glasgow. Large-scale quarrying continued in Giffnock for almost a century. However, the quarrying ceased by the 1920s, and other uses were found for
10807-652: Was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When William Flower , an English herald , spoke with Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, they first used the "Scottyshe toung" . As he found this hard to understand, they switched into her native French. King James VI , who in 1603 became James I of England , observed in his work Some Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie that "For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk
10914-415: Was not enough linguistic self-awareness amongst the Scottish populace, with people still thinking of themselves as speaking badly pronounced, grammatically inferior English rather than Scots, for an accurate census to be taken. The GRO research concluded that "[a] more precise estimate of genuine Scots language ability would require a more in-depth interview survey and may involve asking various questions about
11021-405: Was of a very poor quality and was of little value to householders. The main use of Giffnock coal was with commercial and industrial customers such as Busby Gas Works . The opening of Giffnock railway station in 1866 allowed business people to build sandstone villas and commute daily to the city. At the time, it was much more desirable to live in Giffnock than to live in the smog-polluted city. By
11128-523: Was the first church built within Giffnock. Now a category B listed building , the Church is built in a Gothic revival style of architecture and is built mainly of locally quarried stone. Also located in Giffnock is Giffnock Synagogue , founded in 1938 and home to the largest Jewish religious congregation in Scotland. In 1936 the Tudor Cinema was constructed in Giffnock by Alex Frutin. It opened in December as
11235-432: Was the notion of "Scottishness" itself. Many leading Scots of the period, such as David Hume , defined themselves as Northern British rather than Scottish. They attempted to rid themselves of their Scots in a bid to establish standard English as the official language of the newly formed union. Nevertheless, Scots was still spoken across a wide range of domains until the end of the eighteenth century. Frederick Pottle ,
11342-491: Was translated into Scots by Rab Wilson and published in 2004. Alexander Hutchison has translated the poetry of Catullus into Scots, and in the 1980s, Liz Lochhead produced a Scots translation of Tartuffe by Molière . J. K. Annand translated poetry and fiction from German and Medieval Latin into Scots. The strip cartoons Oor Wullie and The Broons in the Sunday Post use some Scots. In 2018, Harry Potter and
11449-551: Was visited by the United States Ryder Cup teams of 1929 and 1933. The teams included many golfing legends such as Walter Hagen , Gene Sarazen and Horton Smith . Whitecraigs hosted the World Senior Championship in 1976 and 1978. In 1983, Jack Nicklaus visited the club to play an exhibition match and run a clinic. Whitecraigs Rugby Club is a rugby union team based at Newton Mearns, near Giffnock. As of
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