Scots Census Question, Aye Can

The motion

That the Parliament welcomes the inclusion of a question in the 2011 census that, for the first time, asks people living in Scotland if they can understand, speak, read and or write Scots; considers that the native language of many Scots is a series of dialects such as Glaswegian, Doric, Buchan, Caithness, Gallowegian, Dundonian or Shetland; encourages those people who speak Scots dialects every day but have not realised that they are doing so to complete the question and remove the fallacy that it is slang or even bad English; notes the provision of the Aye Can website developed by the Scots Language Centre, which features examples of written and spoken Scots including recordings of people around the country speaking their local dialect, and considers the census question on Scots as the first stage toward official recognition and a means to gauge the need for provision for language learning and use throughout Scotland.


No recorded vote on this motion. Most motions are never debated, and many that are debated are agreed without a division. Vote records are published from 2011.

SNP 11 Green 1

Party shown is each supporter’s party when the motion was published.

No contribution in the Official Report cites S3M-08034 by reference.