MSP insists on help for Scottish Dictionaries

On 9 April Dr Bill Wilson, MSP for the West of Scotland, lodged a Scottish Parliamentary motion calling for a stamp to be issued to commemorate the 200 anniversary of the first Scots language dictionary. He also called for funding in order to create a complete modern Scots dictionary. Wilson continued saying that the writer of the first dictionary, John Jamieson, did not have the resources in his time to make a complete Scots dictionary (which would have included words shared with English) and thought it shameful that Scotland still had no such dictionary today. Wilson’s motion highlights a number of problems that Scots has in the absence of a modern dictionary: lack of effective spell checkers and no automated translation. He believed that such a work would improve the status of the Scots language and its speakers. In addition to the above issue, Wilson regarded it as a “national disgrace” that Scottish Language Dictionaries – the body that makes Scots dictionaries – always had to work on a shoestring and simply did not have the means to implement a complete Scots dictionary project. The West of Scotland MSP called on other members to debate the issue in the Chamber of the Parliament. Dr Christine Robinson from Scottish Language Dictionaries commented that we could be proud of what had been achieved to date but further added “this great body of work needs to be maintained and taken forward.”