Ulster-Scots 'porn' leaves MLA hot under the collar
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
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An event combining Ulster-Scots with pornography which is due to be screened at the Belfast Film Festival has caused a furore among local politicians.
A proposed screening of the 1974 soft porn film Flesh Gordon — an erotic spoof on Flash Gordon — on April 2 will be accompanied by a live translation in Ulster-Scots from three local comedians.
Entitled Shockin'ly Spaiked O'er Smot (Badly Dubbed Porn) Live, the so-called “evening of titillation” has raised objections in certain quarters over funding.
One MLA has said that money should not have been handed over to support the event at The Menagerie, Belfast — even if it is designed to highlight the beauty of a fast-shrinking dialect.
“Porn is porn is porn is porn — and whether it is done Ulster-Scots-style, well, it really doesn't come into it,” Stormont culture, arts and leisure committee member, David McNarry, told the BBC.
“This event has presumably been given funding and all this kind of thing does is make people look all the harder at an application the next time it comes round.
“The committee wasn't aware of this but the department must have been.”
A Belfast film festival spokeswoman said the use of Flesh Gordon might “seem at first a peculiar choice of film”, but insisted it was “almost logical”.
“Contrasting Ulster-Scots against such a coarse and roguish piece of film such as Flesh Gordon will optimally highlight the extent of the detachment between the culture of the tongue and the culture of the film,” she said.
Ulster-Scots is spoken by an estimated 35,000 people in Northern Ireland and has enjoyed something of a revival since 1992, when the Ulster-Scots Language Society was formed to protect and promote the dialect in both speech and writing.
The 1974 trailer for Flesh Gordon
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28 Comments
......Indeed my mother, who is fluent in Irish, also claims to be able to understand ‘Ulster Scots’ and you know, so do I. You pride yourself on not having to be taught it and speaking if daily. When I read ads in papers or on government signs I wonder to myself just who on earth made up some of the words. Again I refer to ‘eatin Hoose’. Not hard to understand what that is. I have also watched a Dander Wi Drennan and fully understood what that is. I have also watched a Dander Wi Drennan and fully understood what he says. Note; there is no need for subtitles! I’m no dafty wee’un. I look forward to visiting the US visitor centre.
Posted by Stephen Mc | 13.03.09, 11:03 GMT
Thank you Dissenter. These are indeed useful references and I don’t deny that they document the dialect of the Scots in Ulster. However, the Hamely Tongue, which I have a copy of, is NOT a dictionary. It simply charts the words of country folk. It is interesting that you remark about not having to be ‘taught’ this language. Says it all really. It’s handed down through generations in the forms of words and expressions. .......
Posted by Stephen Mc | 13.03.09, 11:00 GMT
Thank you Dissenter. These are indeed useful references and I don’t deny that they document the dialect of the Scots in Ulster. However, the Hamely Tongue, which I have a copy of, is NOT a dictionary. It simply charts the words of country folk. It is interesting that you remark about not having to be ‘taught’ this language. Says it all really. It’s handed down through generations in the forms of words and expressions. .......
Posted by Stephen Mc | 13.03.09, 11:00 GMT
Ref information requested by Stephen Mc.
1.Dictionary:- The Hamely Tongue, John Fenton. The Concise Ulster Dictionary,C Macafee, Oxford University Press. 2.Literature:- The Rhyming Weavers, John Hewitt. Includes James Orr of Ballycarry, a United Irishman who fought at the battle of Antrim in 1798. 3. Abolition:- Ulster Scots is not abolished. 4. I and 35,000 other folk speak Ulster Scots daily without payment and without having had to be taught it at school. 5. Some Ulster Scots do take parrt in Scottish dancing but thousands dance Irish and have done for at least fifty years and recently there has been more contact between Festival and Feis.
Anything else I can help you with Stephen?
Posted by Dissenter | 11.03.09, 13:02 GMT
Dear Dissenter. Show me a dictionary. Show me evidentce of this abolished language in scripts from years gone by. Show me anyone who can actually speak this language - who doesn't get paid to promote it. If you're so obsessed with Scotland and their culture move there. Stealing their highland flings, music and culture and adding some Trad Irish ways to it doesn't cut the mustard. Sorry, but it's the true. Lets wait for St Patrick's Day and you'll see it
Posted by Stephen Mc | 11.03.09, 09:17 GMT
Delighted to read all the well reasoned comments about Ulster Scots. They reflect the great erudition of our Gaelic breathren and their legendary acceptance and respect for opinions and cultures not their own. I must confess that having been raised an Ulster Scots speaker I never wonderd whether it's a dialect and if so of what language. Didn't seem an issue. There is of course no such doubt about what our friends like to call Irish. Like Scots Gallic and Manx Gallic, it is undisputedly just a dialect of Q Gaelic, all mutually understandable in written or spoken form but not by Welsh, Cornish and Breton P Gaelic speakers. Those in doubt contact Foras na Gaeilge (Not na Eirann). True, certain elements have politicised the Ulster Scots tongue. In that they but follow the unremitting example of Sinn Fein who still propound, decades after Southern government abandoned it in the 70s, the politcisation of language set forth in De Valera's 1943 speech 'Language and the Irish Nation.'
Posted by Dissenter | 06.03.09, 13:39 GMT
Spot on Jerome, never was and never will be a language! To even call it a dialect is being too kind. Used as nothing other than a political tool for scoring points or trying to justify a "culture" that simply does not exist.
Posted by john_mcd | 05.03.09, 12:49 GMT
Yes, I couldn't agree more with Jerome. This so called language appears to have no structure, past or present tense, verb table or indeed anything else that requires the basis of a language. Ack noo, ut'll onlee bae a mattar a time afore folk cop ontae this farce. Oh dear sorry I went off on a tangent there in my native tounge!
Posted by Stephen Mc | 05.03.09, 10:50 GMT
I have one question for these so called Ulster-Scots: Can you conjugate a verb? If not, you don't have a language, it's just culchie slang, plain and simple....cretins!!!
Posted by Jerome McCready | 05.03.09, 06:19 GMT
John mcb and ger , maybe they should start forcing ulster scots protestants to learn an outdated language in schools much like the irish catholic schools have been doing for years! , (and you lot say ulster scots is a waste of time and cash!)
Posted by Phil | 04.03.09, 20:57 GMT
Ooh aye hey, bet ye n'er a seen pooorn in de auld Scots Ulster befoore, ya wee dafty. As ye cin see, I'm one of thee 35,000 speekers o Ulster Scotio meself.
Posted by SDD | 04.03.09, 19:42 GMT
So extremely pornographic we get a UTube clip hosted on the BT site? Children avert your eyes!! David McNarry might want to watch it before he comes out with porn is porn is porn. It's a bad sign for someone on the culture committee to be so narrow minded. Must agree with 'ger', at least the event takes Ulster Scots seriously!
Most languages have evolved naturally over hundreds of years and were standardised by the authorities, standardised Ulster Scots is called English though. Few languages have ever been generated in the way Ulster Scots has been. This is a very much a dialect and those calling it a language are doing so for purely political reasons. I feel sorry for enthusiasts of the dialect though because it's a distinctive turn of phrase and that's worthy in it's own right. It's 'word' for people with learning difficulties is "wee dafties" for goodness sake! Says it all really.
Posted by Farrah | 04.03.09, 19:31 GMT
Ach, howd yer wheesht, wee Davey....sure its a fair oul hoot and nae hairm to a' fowk wi a common thither....onyway, hae ye nae got mair important things tae be greetin' ower?
Posted by Malachy Mulligan | 04.03.09, 18:03 GMT
Can you get a degree in Ulster-Scots? I know you can get one in Klingon. I guess it would really be down to demand.
There must be more than 35,000 people looking to speak "tlhlngan Hol."
Ulster-Scots a language? "peDoqhQo'!!!!"
Posted by PC | 04.03.09, 17:19 GMT
JMcB.........as per usual your posts are incoherent!
Posted by Baron Stefan von Heinrich | 04.03.09, 16:17 GMT
Have all languages not been made up at some point or am I missing the point of language? Typical N.I attitude to the rest of the world seeps out of all corners as per norm.
Posted by John McBride | 04.03.09, 15:45 GMT
What a laugh and a lie...35,000 indeed....I have never ever heard anyone speaking Anti-Irish Scots in my life and I have worked throughout Antrim and Down....it was created to deny the Irish language the proper funding it deserves....does not the fact that 3 local comedians are translating the film in to Anti-Irish Scots highlight just how preposterous it is to even contemplate this as a culture....it is a made up sectarian culture that has picked a point in time in Irish history for it's origin (post-reformation of course) and revised history to suit it's own disillusioned beliefs...
And besides all this, it was only formed in 1992/3 so that makes them all 16/17 years old!!!!!!I believe that their should be a campaign to determin it's authenticity or even to have it banned altogether.
I call on all Nationalists to re-label it as 'Anti-Irish Scots' at every given opportunity.....what a waste of money
Posted by Nigel69 | 04.03.09, 15:30 GMT
Yes, this Ulster Scots stuff is cobblers and it is funny. It's pathetic how one side of the community is trying to sell this as a language. It is a dialect and is worth knowing about, but here it ends.
At a time when people are losing jobs etc it is galling to see money being thrown at a tri-lingual policy in the assembly. Lets just have everything in English and scrap this PC nonsense. Irish is a language, it is preserved and funded but does it need to be used like a political stick to beat people with?? No.
To say however, like Fiona, that unionists have no culture of their own is downright offensive and quasi fascist. This is not a way forward. Stop point scoring on both sides.
Posted by Pagey | 04.03.09, 15:29 GMT
The Uslter Scot Agency should be delighted. This is the most serious anyone has ever treated their dialect...I mean language!!
Flesh Gordon or not - its a laugh anytime someone tries to palm this off as a language.
And as for the Telegraph trying to tell us its spoken by 35,000 people - thats the funniest of all. Who are you kidding??
Posted by ger | 04.03.09, 14:58 GMT
Absolute nonsense that anyone would try and pass off slang and colloquial phrases as anything but that. I'd hate to see the bill we're footing to try and keep this "language" alive with consultants, phonelines and this new premises on great victoria street.
Posted by john_mcd | 04.03.09, 12:58 GMT
28 Comments