Northern Ireland Census and the Scots Language

The proposals for the Northern Ireland census – which will be tested on 11 October 2009 – have been published online. It is currently the intention of the Northern Irish census office to ask respondents whether or not they can speak, read, write or understand the Scots language as it is spoken in Ulster. There are two main questions relating to language. The first, question 19, asks the respondent what their main language is, giving ‘English’ or ‘other’ as the choices. Question 21 asks

“Can you understand, speak, read or write Irish or Ulster-Scots”

and gives a series of boxes to tick : ‘no ability’, ‘understand’, ‘speak’, ‘read’ or ‘write’.

Scots language organisations and campaigners, including a number of Scottish MSPs, have been so far dismayed at the suggestion by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) that it does not intend to ask a similar set of questions for the Scots language in Scotland, in stark contrast to both Gaelic in Scotland and Scots in Ulster. Since the mid-1990s organisations in Scotland have been calling on GROS to include a question on Scots language ability. Without such a question no statistical information can be collected in relation to the language and no provision or language planning can be attempted on behalf of Scots speakers.

Please follow this link to see the Northern Ireland census form:

http://www.nisranew.nisra.gov.uk/Census/pdf/H4_09.PDF

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