91-460: Holytown ( Scots : 'Holy-Town' - Holytown , Scottish Gaelic : Baile a' Chuilinn ) is a village situated to the east of Bellshill and north of Motherwell in North Lanarkshire , Scotland. Most local amenities are shared with the adjacent villages of Carfin , Newarthill and New Stevenston which have a combined population of around 20,000 across the four localities. The area grew on
182-905: 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
273-625: 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
364-557: A branch of the Lanarkshire Miners' County Union in 1896. Many have drifted away since the early 1990s due to the decline in the coal industries. The bulk of people in the town are now employed in blue-collar roles, including manufacturing and retail. The establishment nearby of the EuroTerminal hi-tech industrial estate in the 1990s did not bring a huge boom in jobs as expected. Other well-known local employers include Honeywell ,
455-454: A church in the town, Christ the King Church. The church and the school are both on the main street. The church was founded 1975 on the site of the public primary school which had moved to a new building. A small number of Muslims began to move to Lanarkshire in the late 1960s, and a few families of Pakistani origin moved to Holytown in the 1970s. For prayers, a room above one of the shops on
546-462: 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
637-433: 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
728-415: 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
819-758: A large electronics firm based in the Newhouse industrial estate. Notable people from Holytown include the politician Keir Hardie , the Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson ( Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2024-2025), World War I nurse Jean Aitken Bell , who won medals for having served in Serbia and the footballers Harry McShane and Matt Balunas . Holytown was also the birthplace of James Williamson, noted Scottish civil engineer involved with many of
910-661: A new surrounding and properly landscaped memorial gardens. Holytown's biggest claim in its history is undoubtedly being the home of James Keir Hardie (more commonly referred to as simply "Keir Hardie"), founder of the Labour Party in Britain. He was born in the hamlet of Legbrannock in 1856, which is now in the Holytown area, and his old home/cottage has been preserved for future generations ("the Keir Hardie Cottage"). In honour of
1001-415: A newsagents. John Reid was a member of parliament for the local constituency. On 28 September 2007 it was announced that he would become Chairman of Celtic Football Club . Reid, a lifelong supporter of the club, described the appointment as the next best thing to playing for his heroes. Eddie Pearson (1863–1918), born in Holytown, played for Celtic FC in their inaugural match on 28 May 1888. Tom Cowan
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#17328589918391092-567: 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
1183-612: 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
1274-501: 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
1365-419: A tapering plinth stepped base. The statue was built by Scott & Rae (Sculptors) and James Paterson (Builder), and was unveiled by Alexander Whitelaw on 9 October 1921 with a dedication by Rev JD Dykes. The cost of the memorial was £1160 which was funded by public, private and corporate donations. Currently (October 2009) building work is underway to restore the war memorial to its former glory. Plans include
1456-520: Is Neil Gray , who was first elected in 2015 for the Scottish National Party , replacing Pamela Nash of The Labour Party . This is the first time in many generations that the town has not been represented in parliament by a Labour Party MP. Robert Crosser was born in Holytown in 1874, and was a Congressman in the US government for 38 years. His family emigrated when he was still a child in 1881 to
1547-498: Is 20–30 minutes by car or train, and 45 minutes to Edinburgh . The station (opened in 1869) is not conveniently located for many Holytown residents, so buses into Motherwell or to Glasgow (or even a bus to Motherwell for the train to Glasgow) is a more usual choice. A sports centre was built in the early 1990s and named "The Keir Hardie Leisure Centre" in honour of local hero James Keir Hardie . The Centre's gym (two rooms) and indoor 5-a-side football pitch are regularly used. In 1976,
1638-552: 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
1729-745: 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,
1820-575: 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
1911-550: 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
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#17328589918392002-529: 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
2093-588: Is £120. Pop. of town (1836) 755, (1861) 1135, (1871) 2197, (1881) 2480, of whom 1048 were in New Stevenston ;; of q. s. parish (1871) 10,099, (1881) 10,449.—Ord. Sur., sh. 31, 1867. Reports of living conditions showed that the residents of the town lived in tough conditions in the 19th century. In 1913, one report describing housing in Jerviston Square said that the housing "may be taken as an example of houses that are very near
2184-470: 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
2275-622: The Hamilton North and Bellshill constituency for the House of Commons (Parliament) and Scottish Parliament (previously in Motherwell and Wishaw), with Michael McMahon as the local MSP (Member for Scottish Parliament) winning the seat with a 19.2% majority in 2007. A previous MP for the town was John Reid MP , who went on to serve in various high level positions in government including Home Secretary and Leader of House of Commons . The current MP
2366-501: 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
2457-494: 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
2548-706: 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
2639-461: 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
2730-579: 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
2821-637: The West Germanic language family . Most commonly spoken in 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
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2912-612: 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
3003-544: 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",
3094-584: The 1840s. In 1847 the union attempted to restrict output, to combat a 1s (5p) per day wage reduction proposed by the owners. The owners imposed a 3-month 'lockout', which ended in defeat for the union. In 1855 the union merged with the Scottish Coal and Iron-stone Miners' Protective Association. According to the Board of Trade Reports there was another Association of the same name formed in the early 1890s. With an estimated membership of 200 for both 1894 and 1895 it became
3185-600: The British TV actor Ian McShane . Alex McSpadyen (1914–1978) played for Holytown United, Partick Thistle and Portadown , and was capped twice for Scotland (v Hungary 1938, v England 1939) and also won one wartime cap (v Irish XI), plus three caps for the Scottish League XI . He was born on Main Street in Holytown, and on after playing for Portadown, he returned to the town and was appointed trainer to Holytown United until
3276-648: The Caledonian railway, 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles [9 km] SSE of Coatbridge, and 11 ESE of Glasgow. Surrounded by a well-worked part of the Lanarkshire mineral-field, and partaking largely in the industry and traffic connected with the working of the same, it experienced considerable increase of prosperity from the opening of the Cleland and Midcalder railway (1866), in result partly of through traffic on that line and partly of junction-communication with Motherwell. It includes
3367-542: 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
3458-560: The Hydro-electric power schemes of the 1930-1950s. The population of Holytown was 5,483 (2001 Census) ; the town is approximately 422 hectares (2001 Census) in size. There are five or six public houses and two primary schools as well as two main places of worship. The main backbone of the town is Main Street, which stretches across the north of the town from east to west upon which are the numerous shops and pubs. The town has lost various services with Clydesdale Bank having moved out of
3549-449: 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
3640-571: The Michael Sherry Senior Citizen Centre was built for use by the senior citizens in the immediate area. It has been in continual use since, and is primarily used by the senior citizens but also by the community a like. Activities taking place include, lunch clubs, dance classes, craft classes, bowling clubs, bingo nights, church activities, community councils and MSP surgeries. In the 2010s, a large new housing development, Torrance Park (featuring an adjacent 18-hole golf course of
3731-697: 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
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3822-560: 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
3913-480: 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
4004-467: 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
4095-573: 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
4186-622: 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
4277-576: The USA, where he was educated and made his way through university, law and the US government. A Democrat , he gained senior positions in government. Crosser suffered from arthritis, and used a wheelchair from 1934 onwards. He died in Cleveland in 1957 and was buried in Highland Park Cemetery in the US. Scots language Scots is a language variety descended from Early Middle English in
4368-548: 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
4459-680: 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
4550-477: The area, as listed below. There are still various small amateur teams playing in local regional leagues at all ages representing the community. One notable footballer from Holytown was Harry McShane (1920–2012) who won the Football League First Division in England with Manchester United in 1951–52 and then played for various clubs in and around the north-west of England. He was the father of
4641-572: The back of the nearby coal mining industries in the 18th century. The roots of the town stretch back to at least the 17th Century, where records show that a meeting house was used for prayer services for the community. One old description of the town from the 19th century from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland by Francis H. Groome, 1885 is as follows: Holytown, a town in Bothwell parish, Lanarkshire, 1 mile [1.5 km] E by N of Holytown Junction on
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#17328589918394732-419: 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
4823-521: 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
4914-435: 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
5005-417: The border line of the habitable standard". Mining work was a dangerous life with long hours and accidents resulting in death were not uncommon in Lanarkshire. Life was harsh, but forged the character of the working class mining community in the face of hardship, especially the politics of Keir Hardie , the founder of the Labour Party in the UK. The Holytown Miners' Association was a local union formed in
5096-504: The club folded a year later. Johnny Murdoch (1901–1964) was born in Holytown. He played for Kirkintilloch Rob Roy , Airdrieonians , Motherwell , Dundee , Dunfermline Athletic and Stewarts & Lloyds. Airdrie gave him a benefit match in 1927 v Rangers. He won one Scotland cap, a 0–0 draw v Ireland in 1931. He won the Scottish Football League with Motherwell ( 1931–32 ) and played in two Scottish Cup finals, both lost to Celtic, in 1931 and 1933. He later moved to Corby and opened up
5187-403: 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
5278-445: The day. In the mid-1980s, the initial group of people who formed the mosque (led by Ghulam Saqlain Siddiquie who was a long-time resident in Holytown) formed the Lanarkshire Muslim Welfare Society. Ghulam Saqlain Siddiquie was awarded an MBE in January 2014 for his work in creating racial harmony over more than 30 years. Since the mid-1990s there has been a halal butchers to cater for the area. The town has had its own teams representing
5369-694: 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"),
5460-411: 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
5551-428: The far east of the town on Edinburgh Road stands Holytown Parish Church, possibly the oldest building in the town which is still used on a daily basis. The original church was founded in the 17th century which helped to set the roots of the town. The current building was built and opened in 1837. There is also a thriving community of people of Irish Catholic descent, who have long set up a Roman Catholic school with
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#17328589918395642-401: 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
5733-431: The future of Holytown Community Centre is under threat of closure by North Lanarkshire Council although residents intend to fight for the Centre to remain open. A halal butchers was opened in the late 1990s to help cater for the Muslims in the districts. Holytown railway station (which is actually located in New Stevenston) has a direct link into Glasgow and Edinburgh and the approximate time from Holytown to Glasgow
5824-489: The great man, a street in the town is named after him ("Keir Hardie Avenue") as is the local sports centre ("The Keir Hardie Leisure Centre"). His name is still a focal point for pride and respect for the town and its people. Since the time of Keir Hardie the town has been a Labour Party up until SNP gained control in 2015. In the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, North Lanarkshire, of which Holytown forms part, voted narrowly in favour of independence. The town now lies in
5915-442: 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,
6006-509: 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
6097-571: 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
6188-428: The main street (across from the Christ the King Church) was used as a small makeshift mosque for Muslims throughout Lanarkshire during the early to mid-1980s (the mosque was the first in Lanarkshire) before it moved to Carfin . In those days, for Eid (Islam's holiest religious annual day), Christ the King Church on the main street used to help and provide their halls to the small Lankarkshire Muslim community for use for
6279-415: 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
6370-420: 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
6461-401: 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
6552-451: 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
6643-558: 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
6734-457: 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
6825-413: 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
6916-461: The same name, designed by Dave Thomas ) was established to the south-east of the village, off the main road to Newarthill . Although referred to as Holytown in documentation, the development shares the ML1 5 postcode with Newarthill and is counted alongside that town in some statistics. The town is historically Protestant ( Presbyterian / Church of Scotland ), and the character of the town remains so. On
7007-515: 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 "
7098-578: The sixteenth century; or Broad Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English . Modern Scots 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
7189-468: The suburb of New Stevenston , 1 ⁄ 2 mile [800 m] SSW ; and has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a branch of the Clydesdale Bank, 3 insurance agencies, gasworks, a quoad sacra parish church, a Free church, and has 2 public schools. The quoad sacra parish is in the presbytery of Hamilton and synod of Glasgow and Ayr ; its minister's stipend
7280-461: 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
7371-484: The town (the premises are now a dentists) whilst certain other services such as the petrol station closed around the late 1970s. There is no longer a Post Office (with the premises most recently occupied by a desserts store), the nearest such services are located in New Stevenston and Bellshill. The video shops that were in the town closed in the mid-1990s. Hairdressers and barber shops, and a vets still ply their trade in
7462-489: The town. For general shopping most go to the nearest local towns, especially Bellshill. Motherwell and Hamilton are used for clothes and gifts shopping with their larger shopping centres, or for a big day out families head into Glasgow which is convenient to reach with the M8 motorway and public transport. The community centre is used for various activities all year round, for dances and larger get-togethers. As of September 2009,
7553-807: 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
7644-585: 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,
7735-477: 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
7826-436: Was a member of North Lanarkshire's Lithuanian immigrant community. Nowadays, Holytown Colts are the only football team from Holytown, though they exist only at boys club and amateur levels. The inscription on the statue says: and on the lower plinth it says: The statue is made of granite, measures 16 by 8 by 8 feet (5 m × 2.5 m × 2.5 m), and is of a life-sized kilted soldier bearing full uniform, on
7917-576: Was from Holytown, and played in the Holytown Colts side that won the 1981 Under-13 Scottish Cup against Celtic Boys Club. He went on to play in the senior professional game for a number of clubs as a defender including most notably Rangers , Sheffield United and Stoke City , but spent the bulk of his time at Huddersfield Town , Cambridge United and Carlisle United . He was player of the year twice at Huddersfield. Matt Balunas (1918–2006), born in Holytown, played for Third Lanark over 200 times. He
8008-652: 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
8099-415: 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
8190-432: 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 ,
8281-491: 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
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