Scots or Not: The search for Scots TikTok
In which I propose a test for broadcast Scots and then find the top twenty TikTokers
The question of “What is Scots?” is in most cases a red herring, a distraction, a barrier put up to stop Scots being treated like a regular European language. There is the unspoken suggestion that it is undefinable, and no one can possibly know.
This is nonsense, there are plenty of books written in Scots and millions of people who have a very clear conception of what Scots is, and whether they can understand or speak it.
Whilst it is true that Scots lies on a language continuum with English, and the boundary between the two languages can be vague. In most cases there is a clear distinction, a speech or piece of writing might be in Scots or it might be in English, or it might code-switch between the two. There is even occasionally a blend or mix of the two languages.
I would argue in most cases the difference between the two is clear-cut.
Imagine if a TV station or radio station wished to determine what proportion of their output was in Scots, they would need some objective measure, some way to determine if a spoken voice was speaking Scots or English, without getting too bogged down in accents or strict adherence to standard English, or to code-switching.
‘Allo
There’s a distinction between speaking Scots and speaking English with a Scottish accent. By way of example we might recall the 1980s TV show ‘Allo Allo where English actors portrayed the French resistance during the German occupation of France.
The English actors were speaking English with a French accent for comic effect. But conceptually, how do we know this? How do we know they weren’t speaking French?
French is not English. The two languages have different words, different spellings and don’t sound the same.
Except, French and English share lots of words - envelope, hospital, soup, weekend etc. We might estimate that the lexis of the two languages overlap by about 2%. How would we know if actors weren’t actually “speaking French with a few English words dropped in”?
If you were trying to figure out the if people were speaking English or French, or English with a French accent, you would look at the words that weren’t used in both languages, distinctly English words or distinctly French words.
Since its conception three centuries ago Modern Scots has shared a significant vocabulary with English. We can measure that between 30% and 50% of words are spelled identically between the two languages. Its a bit of a weird fallacy that Scots is a mixture of Scots and English, but in the same way that English is a mixture of English and French.
Scots or Not
For the purpose of determining if TV or radio broadcasts or videos are in Scots or English, I propose using a six point checklist, whereby if four or more items are checked then the speaker is using Scots. This checklist is based in identifying words that are not shared between English and Scots:-
1. Are negatives created using either -NAE or -NA
whereas in English they would be -N’T for example CANNAE, DINNA, WADNA, instead of CAN’T, DIDN’T or WOULDN’T
Also using NO in places where NOT would be used in English.2. Are any “Overt Scottisisms” present - words that are commonly used in Scots but rarely in English
for example WEE, BAIRN, WEAN, LOON, CHIEL, DRIECH, ILKA, AHINT, ABUIN, BEN etc.3. Different pronunciation of common function words
For example
TAE instead of TO
YE instead of YOU
either O or AE instead of OF
WI instead of WITH
either FAE or FRAE instead of FROM4. Placement of definite article distinct from British Standard English
For example in Scots “going to THE school” or “taken to THE hospital” whereas in English it is merely “going to school” or “taken to hospital”5. Verb forms
In the English the present participle -ING verb ending, the -G is pronounced, in Scots there is no -G.
Strong and weak verbs are also different in Scots – the past tense of TELL is TELT, not TOLD6. Regional distinctions -
Different regions in Scotland have different regional dialects of Scots, in a manner distinct from regional dialects of English.
In Glasgow AE is used instead of O or OF
In the North East FIT is used instead of WHIT or WHAT
In Shetland DA is used instead of THE, DU instead of YOU, DEY instead of THEY
In Orkney -AN is used as the verb ending instead of -ING or -IN, for example WALKAN
In the north north east -EEN is used as verb ending instead of -INGIf only one or two of these items are checked, then its not clear-cut that the speaker is using Scots. It might be that their speech isn’t long enough to cover sufficient items, or it could be they are speaking English. It could be its “English with a few Scots words”, we can’t easily be certain.
If three items are checked, then its more likely they are speaking Scots
If four or more items are checked then we can be reasonably certain that speaker is speaking Scots and not English - Might have to carry out substantial research to verify the proportions of false positives and false negatives. I would estimate that the test is 90% accurate.
It might be that different criteria in the checklist have a better accuracy rate, but that would need to be tested and proved.
Code switching
This is the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language, it is not uncommon in Scotland for people to code-switch between Scots and English, or between broad Scots and a more pan-dialectic Scots, or between Scottish Standard English and British Standard English.
Suppose we were able to distinguish between the types of speech -
1) when someone is speaking a variety of Scots;
2) a variety of English;
3) code-switching between two varieties.
And we somehow had a representative corpus of “broadcast speech in Scotland”. What proportions of the corpus would be in each of the types?
The 2022 Scottish census reported 70% English speakers could not speak Scots, suggesting that at least 70% of the hypothetical spoken corpus would be a variety of English. Would the remaining 30% be mostly varieties of consistent Scots or mostly code-switching between English and Scots?
I reckon most of the 30% is going to be a consistent variety of Scots and only a smaller fraction is code-switching.
For the purposes of this “Scots or Not” test, the code-switching speech is consumed within the 10% of results that are false positive or false negative.
Furthermore, if this test was used by the BBC, I have a gut feeling that we might find that 98% or more was Scottish Standard English, and perhaps less than 2% of the broadcast speech was Scots or code-switching between the two.
Use Case
As implied above, a typical use case for this test would be if the BBC or STV were inclined to investigate what proportion of their output was in each Scottish language, English, Scots or Gaelic. I remain convinced that these media organisations are composed of people who are disproportionately less literate in Scots than the general Scottish population, and their in-house conception of Scots cannot be relied upon.
Imagine that a minimum-wage intern from a nice middle-class area of a large city was directed to spend a week watching or listening to the broadcaster’s output and scribbling notes of how many minutes of each language they heard.
At the start of the week our English-speaking intern might be unsure what was Scots and what was Scottish Standard English (English with a Scottish accent). The proposed “Scots or Not” test would be very useful, clearly and objectively distinguishing between two of the languages.
By day two our intern might have realised that newsreaders only ever speak English, and never Scots, and in watching other shows they would have a conception of which characters speak English and which might require closer attention.
By day three the intern might have become the personification of the test and doesn’t need to rely on each individual item, they can just inherently distinguish between English and Scots.
And then by day four, they might realise that its all English except for the few occasions of unscripted vox pops where people on the street invariably speak Scots, or comic characters in soaps and sitcoms. Maybe.
Until a media organisation pays an intern to do it and publishes the results, we’ll never know.
TikTok Top twenty
The other week on Facebook, someone asked about any Scots TikTok accounts, there were only about eight that came to mind. Not enough for a functional "Top Ten” list.
But since there, armed with the “Scots or Not” checklist I have been able to confidently rattle through Scottish TikTokkers and decide if they qualify as speaking Scots based on the proposed criteria.
In many cases the subtitles suggest its merely English with a few Scots words, but on actually listening to the un-transcribed words, they are clearly speaking Scots.
Top twenty
Whats er name
Cosplayer
2,600,000 followers 158,400,000 likes
Most of her videos use a music soundtrack, but in the occasional ones where she speaks, it is distinctly Scots
Tiktok failed to load.
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browserNathan Evans
Singer
1,800,000 followers 16,000,000 likes
A popular singer, whose songs are all in standard English, but when speaking he uses ScotsMiss Punny Pennie
Poet
700,800 followers 11,000,000 likes
Well known for poetry and Scots word of the day.Jarad Rowan
Singer
485,900 followers 16,400,000 likesEddie Fade Walker
Personality
221,000 followers 13,000,000 likesIsland Larder
Confectioner
105,000 followers 3,700,000 likesWits er name
Personality
92,200 followers 1,900,000 likes
Same person as the number one on this list, but with more talking and less cosplayTeuchter Quine
Personality
84,000 followers 1,300,000 likesStuart Mitchell
Comedian
55,400 followers 691,900 likesScottish Geologist
Geologist
36,500 followers 1,100,000 likesTwisted Gem
Personality
35,200 followers 405,800 likesDoric Dad
Personality
24,800 followers 629,400 likesMarjolein
Comedian
18,100 followers 242,800 likesThe Wee Man
Rapper
16,600 followers 199,400 likesGlasgow Auction House
Auctioneer
12,500 followers 11,900 likesIona Fyfe
Singer
4,078 followers 47,500 likesAndy Legge
Bee man
2,580 followers 10,700 likesEmma Grae
Writer
1,788 followers 32,200 likesSusi Briggs
Writer
863 followers 12,700 likes
Nicole McArthur
Personality
264 followers 416 likes
I don’t doubt there are many other more popular Scots TikTokkers out there. As part eight of my Secret Plan for the Promotion of Speaking and Writing of Scots in Scotland, I wish to find, cultivate and promote Scots content producers on TikTok and YouTube. Although some of these people with millions of followers clearly don’t need my help, really, I have a reach of about 20.
I will keep looking and updating a spreadsheet as I find them.