In the final part of her look at Scottish literature, Beth Whitelaw looks to the future.
OUR set texts certainly celebrate Scottish writing, but in their publication date and narrow spectrum of authorship they celebrate a Scots of the past, a relic, a period in time. There is, of course, enormous value in this. The Cheviot, The Stag, and the Black, Black Oil is an imperative and engaging text which allows young people to understand the devastation caused to Scottish culture by British colonialism, homogenisation, and the poison of greed.
But to bring everything together, to start incorporating the care and specificity that can be applied to our environment, to our own community, in the utilising of Scots and Gaelic – we need books that celebrate the way Scottish people live and communicate both in the past and now.
How about Graeme Armstrong’s The Young Team, a coming-of-age story set in North Lanarkshire’s gang culture and written in an Airdrie-Scots vernacular?
Armstrong is regularly told by his readers that it’s the first thing they’ve read that’s reminded them of their own lives – that has made them laugh out loud, that has inspired them to finish a novel for the first time since school.
READ MORE: Beth Whitelaw: Language brings us joy – so Scotland must get curriculum right
How about Jenni Fagan, who grew up in the Scottish care system, and writes stories with characters you’d die to know in person in a modern and fresh Scottish voice? One of my favourite dialogue exchanges in her novel, Luckenbooth:
Can you not speak English?
I uhmnay English, pal.
We love yer radge gadge, uhm urnay, it’s – expressive!
My language isnae a f****** joke, Davey says.
No. It’s one ay the auldest in the world, Ali adds.
How about Leila Aboulela, whose book The Translator, discusses what it is like to be uprooted from a life in Khartoum in Sudan to settle amongst the grey, rainy streets of Aberdeen in the winter.
What about a book translated from Gaelic into Scottish English? In Gaelic there is no difference between the accusative case and the nominative case, for example, in English, you would say “I saw John” or “John saw me”, in Gaelic these two uses are grouped together as a single case we can call the common case. In this sense, you wouldn’t say “I am angry at you” or “he is angry at me”, but rather “there is anger between us”. Imagine we could adopt similar patterns into our language – imagine how much less inflammatory conversations could be.
There is so much creative and transformative energy in Scotland’s voice just waiting to be tapped into – yet our own language, stories, and dreams are consistently damned our own self-effacing, self-deprecating nature.
When I attended university in the country I was born in, it took me a long time to realise that although I had a Scottish accent and hadn’t been to a private or international school – what I had to say still mattered. Like Nicola Sturgeon, “Chris also helped me understand the inferiority complex that working-class Scots can sometimes feel, worried that our way of speaking isn’t the ‘proper English’ we hear on the television, but also knowing that it is the best and purest way of expressing who are.”
READ MORE: Shuggie Bain author announces first-ever Glasgow event to launch Young Mungo
Like I’m sure many can – I see that the tide is changing. Something is bubbling in Scottish waters, in literature, in film, in art and in our collective voice. We are beginning to awaken to the fact that we have something worth saying, a way of life worth immortalising in art and worth showing to the world.
Seeing parts of yourself reflected in books, films, TV, music, art and, most importantly – in language – is an incredibly therapeutic and transformative experience. It has the power to add value to every kind of life.
I’ll go back to Douglas Stuart’s quote: “The joy of reading came to me much later in life. Books are an escape, yes, but it was only when I started to see my own world, my own people on the pages before me, that I discovered the true power of words. Books are a window, a dream, an education; but sometimes, and as importantly, they are a record that we, and those like us, are here. These are the books that make me feel seen.”
When I was younger, I used books to escape. Now that I’ve moved away from childhood, from the landscapes of my past, I use it to return home.
Next week. The SQA and set tests
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