Words grow like plants

Gerardo Petsaín Sharup, Cosmovisión Wampís

They find a niche where they have a function that allows them to persist. They live from energy drawn from the sun and the ground. On the burnt grounds where the amazon once flourished, the soybean grows and takes its nutrients from the soil. Say it is picked and packed into a refrigerated container, and a plane or perhaps a ship brings it to a different country for processing. It becomes a product. It is packaged again. After a long journey through factories and distribution centres, the soybean product is mediated to you by all the materials and stories woven together in the concept and physical place of a supermarket. Now at last the soybean gets to sublimate itself; fulfil its life’s destiny – albeit not to flower and bear fruit; it passes your lips and makes acquaintance with the grinding power of your molars. 

This is the soybean’s transition ritual into a new society with a logic of its own, or perhaps many logics interacting: the subsistence and desires of each of its cells and particles. Cast into neat rows, the epithelial cells of the intestinal lining function like a port, taking in the imports from far overseas. The delivery from the Amazon forest grounds is sent on its merry way through the body’s distributional infrastructure.  Our soybean is deconstructed into building materials and fuel. Through the red canals of the internal inferno the fuel flows on its way back up to the site of the original transition, where the tongue and lips now propelled by its fire shake and obstruct the air flow coming through the lungs and past the larynx. Fricative then resounding and approximating, a bilabial stop is followed slightly later by a nasal sound: soybean, says the mouth. 

Depending on what mouth and what context, the air vibrations may have different effects. The sound travels into the tables and the teacups as much as it travels into a present ear. In what seems fast to us but an eternity to a mouse, the nerve nodes attached to said receptacle dissect the sound sequence. Soybean? A host of associations are called up. Memory drawers made up of nerve cells full of encoded references for textures, flavours, contexts and historical and geographical understanding are activated, some of the information even pushing its way into the consciousness. We are in luck: this person understands English and they have had tofu before. The sound sequence seems to have successfully transferred a concept from one human body to the next. Although the listener’s experiences with soybeans occurred in rather different settings from where the speaker has encountered them, and although there are many separate but alike entities which are referred to in this way, they both appear to agree about what part of the universe is worthy of this name. And so the word has yet again proved its usefulness at being used as a shorthand for the pulse from the lea of its mother plant.

Just as the plant is one iteration of a tradition with a long history, similar to but not the same as her many ancestors, so the uttered word is one instance of a “family” of very similar utterances which are however each entirely unique in their own right – not just each context being different from the next (each sentence, page, situation) but in spoken language the voice onset, vowel fronting and the shape of the mouth cavity all resulting in something as singularly matchless as a fingerprint. And yet we can understand the word as belonging to a family of such words just as we can recognise a hydrangea as being a hydrangea.

Zocker, Şeker, Azúcar. Sugar packets as evidence of a changing power balance.

Another thesis done! This is a link to the full thing.


Me with 4 of the copies on the train. Photographer: Gintarė

Abstracts (English, Nederlands, Español):
The position of a language in society is a type of discourse. Even the most banal artefacts with language choices on them are not just results of but participants in that discourse, and they can reinforce it, or challenge and transform it. In this thesis, sugar packets are presented as small samples or fossils of historical language power balances, which can be used to reconstruct shifts in those balances. As a form of ready-collected data, a number of online sugar packet catalogues are used, from which some key information is however missing such as manufacturing dates and finding places. The thesis' methodology is an attempt to utilize the potential of the data by investigating it through four different approaches. After a global overview of differences between the used catalogues, the scope is limited in two different ways. First, the focus is on one city, The Hague, for which the language choices on old and new sugar packets are compared. Next is a comparison of the packets released during the history of three different Dutch department stores. Finally, the study zooms in on a single sugar packet, to trace in detail its journey and the choices made during it. The data show a clear difference between “linguistic fetish” type use of foreign languages, whereby they are employed to call up positive connotations, and “instrumental” use, which is directly related to the companies' cross-border activities. Specifically this “instrumental” multilingualism occurs ever more often, as a result of the dynamics of franchising and foreign expansion during the period which is researched.

De machtspositie van een taal in de maatschappij is een diskoers. De taalkeuzes in of op welke tekst, uitspraak of onbeduidend object dan ook zijn niet alleen resultaten van dat diskoers, maar nemen erin deel, door het te herhalen en voort te zetten, of door het aan te passen en een nieuwe richting te geven. In deze scriptie worden suikerzakjes aangegrepen als kleine staaltjes of fossielen van historische taalbalansen, die kunnen worden gebruikt om de verschuivingen daarin te reconstrueren. Bij wijze van kant-en-klare data maakt de studie gebruik van een aantal door verzamelaars bijeen gebrachte online catalogi van suikerzakjes, waarin echter bepaalde cruciale informatie mist zoals wanneer de zakjes zijn gedrukt en waar ze zijn gevonden. De methodologie van de scriptie is een poging het potentieel van de data tot bloei te brengen met vier benaderingen in toenemende mate van detail. Na een overzicht van onderlinge verschillen tussen de catalogi volgen twee verschillende manieren om het bereik van de studie te beperken, eerst met een focus op suikerzakjes uit één stad, namelijk Den Haag, waarbij taalkeuzes op nieuwe en oude zakjes worden vergeleken, en vervolgens met een vergelijking van de suikerzakjes uitgebracht gedurende de geschiedenis van drie Nederlandse warenhuizen In de laatste analyse wordt de focus verscherpt op één enkel suikerzakje, om het door het zakje afgelegde pad te traceren en de daarbij gemaakte keuzes in hun context te plaatsen. Uit de data blijkt een onderscheid tussen „dwepend“ gebruik van vreemde talen – waarbij ze worden ingezet om positieve associaties op te roepen – en „instrumenteel“ gebruik, direct gerelateerd aan grensoverschrijdende economische activiteit van de bedrijven. Specifiek deze „instrumentele“ meertaligheid komt steeds meer voor als gevolg van het ontstaan van franchises en toenemende internationalisering van bedrijven tijdens het door het onderzoek beslagen tijdsbestek.

La posición de un idioma en la sociedad es un discurso. Cada texto, objeto o acto de habla, junto con las selecciónes de idioma que se encuentran en estos, incluso en los más triviales, no son solamente resultados de este discurso sino que también hacen parte de éste y pueden reforzarlo, rebatirlo y transformarlo. En esta tesis, los paquetes de azúcar se presentan como muestras o fósiles de equilibrios históricos de poder lingüístico, cuyos cambios pueden ser reconstruidos mediante el análisis de estos vestigios. Como “corpus prefabricado” se utilizan catálogos en línea de paquetes de azúcar, recopilados por coleccionistas. Sin embargo, faltan informaciónes tales como las fechas de producción o los lugares donde se hallaron los paquetes. La metodología de la tesis busca aprovechar el potencial de dichos paquetes desde cuatro enfoques de investigación diferentes. Se empieza presentando un panorama general de las diferencias entre los catálogos y entre los sistemas nacionales de distribución de azúcar. Luego, para limitar el alcance de los datos, se comparan las selecciones de idioma hechas, en primer lugar, en paquetes nuevos y antiguos de la ciudad de La Haya, y, en segundo lugar, en los paquetes creados a lo largo de la historia de tres almacenes neerlandeses. Por último, la investigación se enfoca en un único paquete para observar en detalle su recorrido y las decisiones tomadas en este proceso. Los resultados muestran una clara distinción entre el uso de idiomas extranjeros de dos maneras: como “fetiche lingüístico” y de forma “instrumental”. En la primera, los idiomas son usados para evocar asociaciones positivas, mientras que la segunda está directamente relacionada a las actividades transfronterizas de las empresas. Este tipo de plurilingüismo “instrumental” particular occure cada vez más seguido, como resultado de las dinámicas de creación de franquicias y de expanción internacional durante el periodo investigado.

Great Service from the Customar Service

From the collection "Intimacy Under the Wires" by Sivan Askayo, taken from Ignant.de

I have compared the first page of the translation to Ulster Scots of the "Customer Service Standards2007-2008" of the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) to the original (English) version. From my analysis it is clear that this translation does not follow the "strategy for Ullans" which Kirk has recorded after reading the DARD “Hannlin Rede 2010-2011”. This strategy consists of the following steps:

·     Avoid French- or Latin-derived vocabulary

·     Avoid abstractions lexically and at every other level

·     Avoid mass nouns

·     Maximise dynamic actions or activities

·     Use lexical obsolence

·     Use dialectisms, including any Ulsterisms

·     Maximise synonyms or alternatives

·     Maximise use of alternative syntax

·     Maximise respellings (use eye dialect)

(Kirk 2013: 295)

In the DEL “Customar Service Staunarts” French- and Latin-derived vocabulary is not avoided, as the title already shows. Within the excerpt we find among others: depairtment, qualitie, pairticular, access and formats.

The “Hannlin Rede” explicitly sets out the vision (spaesicht) of the DARD, while the “Customar Service Staunarts” talk about specific rules and measures for the treatment of DEL customers. The “Hannlin Rede” is therefore on the whole a level of abstraction higher than the “Staunarts”, which is reflected in the language use by fewer abstract references or mass nouns. This makes it a bit hard to compare, but overall it seems like abstraction is not avoided in the DEL translation. The abstraction employment is translated to employ. Employ is only listed as a verb ("to make use of") in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL), indicating it may be a recent coinage, possibly modeled on the French emploi. It bears the same degree of abstraction as employment. The abstract terms service and commitment  have been left untranslated.

The translation cannot be said to maximise dynamic actions or activities. Some changes are more and others less dynamic. Expect ("the standards of service that you can expect from us") has been replaced with leukan tae get. Expect in this sentence implies "regard as likely to happen", which is a passive thing to do. Leukan tae get implies much more activity and it is also a change of tone towards the more colloquial. At the other hand tells you about has been replaced with gies you wittins anent, which is more formal and more abstract. Because "giving information" is more abstract than "telling about" it is also less dynamic.

Alternative words and synonyms have not been maximised in this excerpt; such words as business, programs and customar could have been replaced, but have not. One could even ask if it is always justified to leave the original word; for instance for customar the only result in the DSL is "An official having charge of the customs; a customs officer." However if a word with the meaning of the English customer did not yet exist in Ulster-Scots, it seems fair enough to borrow that meaning into the language as it is less obfuscatory than the periphrasis tha yins we'r fennin/dalin wi (DARD 2010: 1).

There are some notable syntax changes. In two instances superlatives are created through adding -maist as a suffix. This is not mentioned in Robinson's grammar guide (1997), however it is mentioned in an online Scots language course: "In words of two or more syllables the comparative is formed by prefixing mair, and the superlative is formed by suffixing maist." (Eagle 2001: Adjectives). 

In some subordinate clauses the finite verb is left out: An us no aible for tae dae it, we will gie an expoun. Verbless subordinate clauses are indeed a common feature of Scots, although  Robinson (1997: 111) suggests they are normally used to express surprise or indignation, which is not the case here.

There is one instance of a verbal concord in the excerpt: Some airts o our business haes customers staunarts relate to aefauld programs. There is also one instance of the form bes of the verb 'to be': We will mak sicar our facilities bes redd up, bien an open. Robinson (1997: 149) indicates that the verb form bes can be used to indicate a "'habitual' or ongoing condition". This means that its use here is appropriate.

Alternative spellings are used, but not maximised; a lot of words are left the same as in the English version. Where respellings are used they are consistent and usually they have precedents in Scots or Ulster Scots literature. Examples are prent/prentit, appyntment (precedent: appeynt, DSL), Inglis. Depairtment is cited in the DSL with several precedents starting in 1985, suggesting that it is an innovation from the current wave of language revival. Caars is a logical, if slightly confusing, adaption of caa which is a precedented way of spelling the cognate of "call" in Ulster Scots, seen for instance in Philip Robinson's poetry. The spelling -fu for the suffix as in helpfu is widely used in Ulster Scots, respelled to reflect distinct pronunciation (See for instance "mournful" in Fenton 2006: 250). Some alternative spellings that have been used in other Ulster Scots texts have note; for instance for is used here, whereas the Hannlin Rede uses fur and service is used whereas the Euraip Chairtèr fur Kintra-pairt ur Unnèr-Docht Leids uses sarvice (DFP 2005: 16).

So, what strategy does the DEL document use? The text can be seen in the context of Jean Ure's explanation of how new registers are developed (see chapter 2). As said, to develop new registers either contemporary registers may be drawn upon and extended; where forms from an earlier period are preserved these provide patterns that may be activated to suit new needs; and other languages may provide models on which new registers can be based. The DEL text employs a mix of these to create a new register in Ulster Scots. Colloquial Ulster Scots (caars, meenit, leukan tae get, helpfu) is mixed with medieval Scots conventions (qualitie, prent/prentit, Inglis, verbal concord), thus extending contemporary Ulster Scots registers and reactivating forms from an earlier period. The English-language original text is translated word for word and phrase for phrase into Ulster Scots, meaning that the conventions of the model register are maintained in the new register in Ulster Scots. The result is clearly Ulster Scots, yet it does not come off as de-intellectualised but rather as suitably formal for the text's purpose. Within the confines of the genre – Civil Service Ulster Scots – this is the best kind of translation one could have hoped for.

Is Ulster Scots a dying language?

Nursery rhyme art project by children from the Mall-ard's Kindergarten

Ulster Scots is in intensive contact with English and, to a lesser extent, Irish. Most Ulster Scots speakers are fluent in English and use it frequently both actively (e.g. in school, making it their language of literacy) and passively (e.g. on TV and in newspapers.) English is the more sizable, more dominant and overall more prestigious language. Based on these facts the situation of Ulster Scots makes it very likely that the language is degenerating rapidly, and makes gradual language death a very plausible outcome. We can therefore expect to find loss of registers and associated language forms; loss of lexicon, phonology, morphology and syntactic patterns, and replacement of lost aspects with English equivalents.
It is quite difficult to investigate exactly how and when the language contact with English has influenced the lexicon and structure of Ulster Scots, because few documents survive that were written in Scots in Ulster. This is because English was in the process of becoming the language of literacy already by the time the plantation began.

As shown by Montgomery and Gregg (1997: 584-8), Scots writing conventions gave way to English conventions in Ulster, as they did in Scotland, in the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th. At the end of this period distinctive Scots writing conventions such as quhilk or thir and grammatical features such as the indefinite article ane and the northern verbal concord had all but disappeared.That they had disappeared from writing does not necessarily mean that they had disappeared from speech as well; for instance, the geographical distribution of Scottish settlements during the Ulster plantation is almost exactly the same as the boundaries of Ulster Scots speaking areas found by Robert Gregg in the 1970s and 1980s (Montgomery and Gregg 1997: 578), indicating that the language in fact continued to be spoken by much of the population.

The way that speech has changed is even harder to establish for the plantation period, if not impossible, because there are no spoken records available and we do not know whether surviving texts are a good representation of pronunciation. About speech change in modern Scots we know more. Caroline Macafee (2003: 55) has interviewed urban Glaswegian Scots speakers, which, although not directly relevant to the situation in Ulster, has resulted in a useful overview of the processes of speech change. She focuses on lexicon and finds that indeed, distinctive lexicon is disappearing. While older generations do still have passive knowledge of distinctively Scots words, they do not use them themselves but instead opt for English counterparts and English cognate forms, meaning their children no longer have even passive knowledge of the Scots terms. Scots words lose their full range of meaning, instead becoming specialised to particular senses; some of them are preserved only in compound forms or nursery rhymes.

The Irish Cottier's Death and Burial, by James Orr.

 A Highland Funeral, Sir James Guthrie, 1882. Taken from Glasgow Museums collections navigator.

Full text of the poem: The Irish Cottier's Death and Burial, by James Orr


1(a) Why was this text created?
  (b) What motivations does the author have for his style choices? (Extent of distinctive Scots vocabulary and grammatical aspects; neologisms and other innovative language use; spelling; distinctive form; imagery.)

The poem can be seen as a challenge to Robert Burns' poem "The Cotter's Saturday Night". That poem is a story in the pastoral tradition, in Spenserian stanza (ababbcbcc; iambic pentameter except for last line which is iambic hexameter), which describes an idyllic Saturday night in a Cottage home. A cott(i)er is someone who has been given the use of a cottage in exchange for labour rather than rent. Carol Baraniuk argues that Orr's poem is a protest against the romantic image Burns sketches of rural life: "Orr seems implicitly to oppose the Scots Bard’s idyll, choosing rather to articulate the Ulster-Scots community’s experience of poverty, injustice and marginalisation" (2009).

D. Sibbald (2007) notes that Burns wrote his poem with a genteel urban audience in mind, as demonstrated by its dedication to Robert Aitken, an Ayr lawyer. Sibbald goes on to argue that in trying to please the high-class audience, Burns ends up posturing too much, as evidenced for instance by his choice of a traditionally English stanzaic form; he gets quite sentimental and tries to imitate other authors too much. Whether this is true or not is a matter for literary critics; however it can be seen that Burns' use of Scots in the poem is quite "thin"; the poem is largely intelligible to the English-speaking reader, with Scots words used to evoke a rural atmosphere. Indeed stanzas 13 through 17, which describe the Bible reading in the cottage, contain hardly any distinctive Scots terms at all. Sibbald notes that this is appropriate, as "the Scottish rustic of the period would in fact move into the language of the King James Bible on such occasions". If the poem was indeed intended for a high class, the choice for a "thin" Scots could be understood as a way of accommodating the audience, with Scots after all being seen as the language of the poor and rural.

That Orr's poem is a response to Burns' one is clear from his choice of a similar setting and main characters, the same poetic form (spenserian stanza), and a similar usage of "thin" Scots as compared to some of Orr's other poems. In "Donegore Hill" the use of distinctive Scots words is much more dense than in "The Irish Cottier's Death and Burial". He does not use English terms in the latter for things he indicates with Scots terms in the former; rather, he uses more formal or abstract terms in the latter for which he uses terms shared between Scots and English; look for instance at sentences such as "Thy grievances through time shall not be scorn'd", or "Deceiv'd by hope, they thought till now he'd mend". The language in "Donegore Hill" is less abstract or formal. While both poems contain a lot of imagery, "Death and Burial" takes a more explanative, interpretative tone whereas "Donegore Hill" seems to present the raw reality of conflict in harsh, slang-like terminology. Thus we find such phrases as "chiels wha grudg'd", "Some hade, like hens in byre-neuks", "lea the daft anes", "Hags, wha to henpeck didna spare". It is not clear whether Orr intended "The Cottier's Death and Burial" for a more genteel audience than "Donegore Hill" was intended for; rather, it seems he chose a more 'thin' Scots in this poem (a) because Burns chose a similar variety of language in "the Cotter's Saturday Night", and (b) to make the poem sound more respectful and moderate, as befitting to its subject matter: a funeral. The people in the poem, too, feel that Scots is not appropriate to the formality of the situation: they try in vain "to quat braid Scotch" (to stop speaking it) when the minister comes in (stanza 5).

Although the formality level of the variety of language in Orr's and Burns' poem is the same, some of the Scots words used differ between the two poems, which could be an indication of Orr self-consciously writing in Ulster Scots rather than Scots Scots. Where Burns talks of a neebor town, Orr uses nyb'rin town. Orr talks about a glaikit wean and Burns about expectant wee-things, though this may have been needed to keep the meter intact. Burns says his subjects spier (= pry) one another for their welfare, but those of Orr speer. Orr uses owre twice but Burns keeps to o'er. Orr uses the word freets (n.), which is included in Fenton's dictionary of Ulster-Scots (meaning superstitions), but not in the Online Scots Dictionary (Eaton, 2000). However, there are more similarities than differences; both authors use belyve, to gar, ben and bairns, aft, wha and frae among others.

The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Edouard Fournier, 1889. See Liverpool Museums website.

2 How successful was this text in reaching its audience?

James Orr published his poems in the Belfast Newsletter and the Northern Star, which indicates that his audience were liberal to radical readers. "The Irish Cottier's Death and Burial" was published in a posthumously published collection compiled by his friends (Ferguson 2008: 135). The group of Weaver Poets that Orr is commonly seen as a part of (Herbison 1996:4) never achieved quite as much fame as contemporary Scots, English or southern Irish counterparts, such as Burns, Allan Ramsay, Jonathan Swift or Samuel Johnson. Stephen Dornan (2005) theorises that this group has been caught in between two paradigms: they were not Scottish enough to be included in collections of Scottish poetry, but not Irish enough to be seen as part of the Irish canon. He says: "The anomalous and problematic position of Ulster Scots literature has tended to mean that it has been at best marginalised and often completely excluded from studies of Irish literary history." Ivan Herbison (1996) further suggests that the Weaver poets never became very succesful because they were (unjustly) viewed by contemporary critics as imitators of Burns.

What has been done, by whom, to revive Ulster Scots?

 Demagogia (2011) by Iván Capote. Source. More of his work.

In the revival of Ulster Scots, most of the steps listed in the previous post have been or are being taken which can be demonstrated through examples.

Selection
Key documents: Good Friday agreement, European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages, North-South agreement.

The listed documents all bestow rights and status upon Ulster Scots, thus exemplifying step 2(b) of Haugen's framework, allocation of norms.

From the Good Friday agreement:

3. All participants recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity, including in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and the languages of the various ethnic communities, all of which are part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland.

From the North-South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 no. 859, Annex 1, part 5:

Language

One Body, with two separate parts, with the following functions:

Irish Language

•     promotion of the Irish language;
•     facilitating and encouraging its use in speech and writing in public and private life in the South and, in the context of Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, in Northern Ireland where there is appropriate demand;
•     advising both administrations, public bodies and other groups in the private and voluntary sectors;
•     undertaking supportive projects, and grant-aiding bodies and groups as considered necessary;
•     undertaking research, promotional campaigns, and public and media relations;
•     developing terminology and dictionaries;
•     supporting Irish-medium education and the teaching of Irish.

Ulster Scots
    promotion of greater awareness and use of Ullans and of Ulster Scots cultural issues, both within Northern Ireland and throughout the island.

From the Application of the ECRML in the United Kingdom (Full charter text here) :

1.3.5 Ulster Scots
27. The Ulster Scots language has been used in Ireland since the early seventeenth century when Scottish and English Protestants were settled in the northern part of the Island. The Scottish settlers who came from the Lowlands used the Scots language, which became the Ulster Scots language. The use of Ulster Scots has declined, mainly because of its closeness to English.
28. There are no official figures on the number of speakers of Ulster-Scots. According to recent research the language is spoken by an estimated 100,000 people in Northern Ireland and in Ireland.
29. There is no specific legal act governing the use of Ulster-Scots in public and private life in Northern Ireland. The main legal foundations guaranteeing its use are therefore the following:
    - the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999, through which the North/South Language body was founded. This body has two agencies, namely the Foras na Gaeilge (the Irish Language Agency) and Tha Boord o Ulstèr Scotch (the Ulster-Scots Agency);
    - the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) - signed on 10 April 1998.
30. As a result of the Belfast Agreement, both Irish and Ulster Scots cross-border bodies have been established, to promote these languages in both Northern Ireland and in Ireland.

The texts vary in style and purpose; the first text is the peace agreement of Northern Ireland, from 1998. Here the granting of "respect, understanding and tolerance" to Ulster Scots as well as Irish was important as a condition to allow for peace, though noticeably the agreement does not specifically refer to Ulster-Scots as a language but rather leaves it vague. The text of the statutory instrument of the North-South Co-operation does not specifically confer status onto Ulster-Scots, but rather sets up an implementation body with two parts, one to promote Irish and one to promote Ulster-Scots, thereby implicitly giving it some recognition. Again it does not specifically refer to Ulster-Scots as a language, but it refers to "use of Ullans", which it intends to promote. The ECRML is a treaty that consists of five parts. Part II outlines basic protection objectives and principles for minority languages, which all signatories must ratify for the minority languages they wish to recognise. They may furthermore choose to ratify Part III for some or all of the languages, which consists of measures to promote the use of the language in public life. The application of the ECRML in the United Kingdom explains that for Ulster Scots, Part II has been ratified (but not Part III). Thereby the United Kingdom has recognised Ulster Scots as a regional or minority language, and promised to at least try to give Ulster Scots some protection and recognition. To answer the question, "by whom" is the language being revived: all of the above are clearly top-down initiatives, as they are initiated by the government, governmental agencies and inter-governmental organisations.


Standardisation and codification
Key documents: the Ulster Scots Spelling Guide and the Ulster Scots Glossary, both by the Ulster Scots Academy Implementation Group (USAIG) and funded by the Ministerial Advisory Group on Ulster Scots (MAGUS); Philip Robinson's "Ulster-Scots: A Grammar of the traditional written and spoken language"; James Fenton's "The Hamely Tongue: A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County Antrim". Also others not listed here.

The listed documents exemplify graphisation (USAIG's spelling guide), grammatication (Philip Robinson's grammar), and lexication (Fenton's vocabulary; USAIG's glossary.) Interestingly Fenton and Robinson are both "just" interested individuals (if scholars); they wrote their works out of personal interest and out of personal conviction of the importance of the subject matter, meaning their books can be seen as bottom-up initiatives. The MAGUS, being a ministerial advisory committee, would be nearer to the top. However, there are links between the aforementioned authors and USAIG; at the time of writing, Robinson is the chair of USAIG; he in turn mentions considerable help from Fenton with his grammar in the foreword thereof.


Implementation
The implementation is mainly the work of the Ulster-Scots Agency and the Ulster-Scots Academy Implementation group. Possibly also the Ulster-Scots Language Society and the Ullans Centre.

From the website of the Ulster Scots Agency:

The aims of the Ulster-Scots Agency are to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster-Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots.

Ulster Scots is not yet in the stage where schools are being set up that commit to teaching in it; so far groups and agencies mostly focus on trying to create a more positive image of the language as part of the overall heritage of the Ulster Scots people and culture.

While the Ulster Scots Agency in word commits to, as cited above, "study, conservation, development and use of Ulster-Scots as a living language", they reacted disapprovingly to initiatives to set up an Ulster-Scots Academy in 2008, stating that Ulster-Scots should not be seen as a separate language: "The implementation group (of the academy) seem to be planning to be concerned with a language separate from Scots, which they are calling Ulster-Scots, though this appears to be something distinct from the language variety traditionally spoken in Ulster". (BBC: 31/07/2008)
More news later on whether they ever retracted this statement.


Elaboration
Key works and initiatives (Post-1998): James Fenton, "Thonner an Thon"; "Guid Wittins Frae Doctèr Luik"; official translations of government documents to Ulster-Scots.

Stylistic development: The listed works and initiatives are all different genres of writing in Ulster Scots. Perhaps Fenton's work is the least relevant here, as it is building on one genre that has existed in Ulster-Scots for a couple of centuries now, namely poetry; yet his work does make a contribution to maintaining both the genre and the language. The second listed work, "Guid Wittins Frae Doctèr Luik", is a translation of the Gospel according to Luke, done by the Wycliffe Bible Translators in cooperation with groups of native speakers. Bible translations are a bit of a milestone for small developing languages, and for many languages it is the first thing that is ever written in them. While the translation of the book of Luke may not be the first thing to have ever been written in Ulster Scots, it does create an opportunity for a more formal, sacred style of Ulster Scots to be developed. Finally, of the works listed here the official translations of government documents to Ulster Scots form the clearest effort to forge new registers for roles that the language had ceased to have (see Ch. 3 (which as of yet still needs written.) ).

Terminological development: there have been efforts toward this, both for existing terms which may have been perceived to be too close to English (e.g. 'phone' v. 'langbletherer'); but I am not yet clear on who exactly initiated that, or whether it was meant as a joke. The official translations also include a lot of neologisms.

What processes are usually part of reviving a language?

In the following section I argue that revival is one type of language planning, with its own specific difficulties and considerations. Haugen's overall model for language planning is useful here as it provides concepts to understand the revival process. It describes which steps may be taken in language planning, and distinguishes between linguistic aspects of planning (corpus planning) and societal aspects (status planning). He further distinguishes policy planning and language cultivation, although these may be much more wrought up than he suggests. All of the categories and most of the steps outlined in the framework also apply to revival of a language, as I will demonstrate below. They are not necessarily followed in the order given; rather all of them are often ongoing at the same time through different initiatives.

Haugen's language planning model as revised by Kaplan (1997: 29). 

Selection
The selection of languages as understood by Haugen is a top-down decision as to which languages should be used in a society. The problem identification stage consists of considerations made by the political leaders in choosing what languages to promote. These considerations may include: 

• the wish to modernise or to participate in the world economy (which may for instance lead to the promotion of colonial languages in post-colonial states), the wish to retain or promote a distinct identity (such as the promotion of Estonian over Russian in Estonia),
• the connotations of a competing language (such as the rejection of colonial languages in post-colonial states e.g. German in Namibia),
• the actual vitality of competing languages or dialects in the country, the variety favoured by the leaders themselves (such as the spread of the Parisian dialect of French),
• the resources needed to implement and elaborate a language (i.e. a language is more attractive for nation-wide promotion if good teaching materials are already available, meaning a lot if not all countries in the world now opt to teach English at least as a second language),
• and other situation-specific considerations.

Based on these considerations the allocation of norms follows, meaning the decision of which languages are granted what kind of official status and where which language should be used, e.g. which languages official documents will be published in; which languages can be used to communicate with government officials; which languages will be used as a medium and which taught in schools. 

In revival situations, the language may have been promoted from the bottom up before it gains official recognition. The considerations often include a notion that a part of culture will be lost if the language is allowed to die; the rights of minority language speakers whose access to services may be impaired by the lack of recognition of their language, as well as their sense of an identity that they are allowed to feel proud of; and a wish to mobilize aspects of ethnic identity in reaction to or to serve certain political views or goals. 

The crucial difference between the considerations listed above and those of a revival movement is that those listed above pertain to multiple competing languages, whereas revival movements focus on one language that they want to promote. As such the question is not, "which language should be used where", but "how can the usage of this language (in as many domains as possible) be achieved?"

Standardisation / Codification

The standardisation and codification of a language are considered necessary in order to promote and teach the language; they consist of the decision on one correct way of speaking and writing the language. This includes deciding on a writing system and an ortography, in the framework called graphisation; a standard grammar (grammatication) and inventarising the vocabulary of the language (lexication), which to an extent overlaps with terminological modernisation as mentioned in the "Elaboration" category; it may include lexical innovation in order to prepare the language for usage in new domains or in order to emphasize the distinctiveness of the language (for instance in the adoption and promotion of dialectal terms for existing concepts during the synthesis of Nynorsk). The new standards are subsequently codified in spelling guides, grammars, dictionaries and teaching materials.

Which steps are more and which less relevant for the revival of a language depends very much on the extent of deterioration of the language, the amount of written records and the amount of speakers that still speak some variety of it. The attitude of the speakers to the correctness of their own use is also crucial for the outcome. For the formation of the writing system revivalists may draw upon written records of the language, as in Irish, which cultivated a rich literary history until well into the 17th century. They may also consider the way that the language is actually spoken by its community, or which writing system is most likely to be easily understood by the potential learners. Dorian explains that some communities are more prescriptive or conservative about what the language should be like; for instance after the independence of India, Hindi language reformers disapproved of the many loanwords from Persian and English that had started to be commonly used by Hindi speakers, and pressed for grammatical and lexical standards based on Sanskrit. Other communities are more permissive of transformation of the language; they may accept loanwords as a suitable solution to the need to create words for all the new concepts that are created by the world's rapid modernisation ('mp3-player', 'to update', etc.) Although not a language in a revitalisation process, an example would be Dutch, which draws heavily upon English for terms related to new technologies, leaving the English spelling and pronunciation intact but integrating the words into the Dutch morphological system (e.g. 'gedownload'). Dorian argues that purism or heavy reliance on archaic forms of the language may be an obstacle to revitalisation as it can alienate speakers from the language they actually speak, or make them feel that their usage is inferior or not up to standards, thus resulting in a move away from the language rather than renewed vitality. This is in line with the conclusions of Bentahila and Eirlys (1993) who argue that while language revivalers often hope to restore the language to a previous, healthier state, they are more likely to achieve transformation of the language to suit new roles. 

Implementation

The next step is the implementation of the policies that have been decided upon in the previous steps; the adoption and spread of the language by the community. Correction is the (somewhat vague) term used by Haugen for specific measures taken to implement the social aspects of a language plan. In practice this means planning how exactly the language will be disseminated through education and otherwise; the considerations at this stage are how to organise teacher training, how to promote the language to students and parents, what the specific objectives of study should be, and how to fund it all. The implementation has to be evaluated and monitored; how does the population react? Are the teaching materials well-received and effective? Are the study objectives realised?

For languages that are subject to revival, education is often an important target, either to ensure that minority language speakers do not experience disadvantage (for instance if they speak a different language at home than they have to use at school, thus impairing their ability to understand what is being taught - this can lead to a model where children speak their mother tongue in their early primary school years, but transfer to a more widely used language at a later stage of their education); or to ensure the vitality and usage of the language in the future. Some languages are however still very far away from being viable for use in the classroom, for instance due to a lack of available teaching materials, a lack of teachers, or a lack of enthusiasm from within the community. In this case the implementation may consist of awareness campaigns to promote the language and privately arranged language courses rather than ones integrated into the national curriculum. Evaluation may take place in the form of, for instance, questions on censuses to find out how many people use the language at home, or fieldwork by linguists who investigate usage of the language by interviewing speakers.

Elaboration

It is crucial to the maintenance of a language that it is actually used and kept up to date with modern developments in terms of the range of registers available, words for new concepts, and styles to suit different purposes. In the framework this is called "functional development", which reflects the need to adapt the language to new roles and functions. Terminological development is done on a large scale in all living languages, mostly by individual writers and speakers though it may be controlled and regulated by language academies. Words may be borrowed from other languages, coined, for instance by the producer or inventor of a new product or through recombination of existing terms, or archaic terms may be reintroduced to serve new meanings. Sometimes newly introduced words may be very controversial or considered ugly or ridiculous by speakers - see the inkhorn controversies in 18th Century English. However, as the inkhorn terms show, such controversies may not always mean that the changes are halted.

Stylistic development entails that genres and styles are developed in the language. This is the work of poets, authors, television broadcasters, parlementarians, academics and really anyone who puts the language to new purposes; however the government may often grant funding specifically to support this goal. Jean Ure (1982) writes about possibilities for what she calls "developing register range". When a new purpose calls for a new register, the contemporary repertory may be drawn upon, extending the applicability of existing registers, then gradually modifying and differentiating the style to suit the new purpose. She gives the example of video messages of soldiers in the second world war for the people back home, which were shown on cinema newsreels. The soldiers would talk in letter form, starting and ending with letter greetings: "Now bye-bye and love to everyone at home from Johnny." A second possibility is when forms from an earlier period are preserved, either oral or written; these provide patterns that may be activated to meet new needs. Finally, other languages can provide models on which new registers may be based. Here her example is Tok Pisin, which has a narrative register influenced by speaker's original mother tongues and an official register influenced by English.

Kaplan has added internationalisation to the steps listed in this section, as he argues preparing the language for use abroad means it faces new challenges; for instance where subtle cultural differences in writing practises may obstruct interlingual understanding even if the language is the same. However, these are problems for languages in a far stage of development, rather than for minority languages that are struggling to even be spoken in their region of origin. However, terminological development and stylistic development are very important for languages that are being revived, and will be practised more or less in the way described above, with the difference that they are often just starting out on this endeavour and that they still have to develop fairly basic registers (such as appropriate styles to talk to one's teacher, bank teller or doctor), whereas more developed languages such as Italian or Polish can already be used for a wide variety of purposes and already have a long literary history, that they merely need to maintenance.


Perhaps one important aspect has been left out of Haugen's framework, which is nonetheless quite important especially for languages subject to revival; namely the work of linguists in mapping out the grammar and lexicon of a language, or salvaging what is left of a language in far stages of deterioration. An example would be the extensive fieldwork of 19th century linguists on native american languages, which has been crucial in promoting awareness of the languages and in some cases preserving enough of them to allow for a revival later on, as in the case of the Yurok language which is now being taught at schools again. This could be grouped in the codification category, as writing a language down and inventarising it is closely related to codifying it; with the difference that the former aims to be descriptive where the latter is essentially prescriptive.