where is Ulster/Scots spoken?

[earl]

You'd have to ask Lord Laird. It's all his idea. At a guess, I'd have to say that rural Antrim would be the most likely place for this dialect to be spoken. Not too sure about any other county though.

[Jim]

The main reason its being banded about as a language is to get one up on the Irish language.

[Blue Angel]

I'm not sure mind you of the accuracy of the UNESCO world atlas regarding Cornish. Saying it was extinct to my colleague James* from work who is Cornish would have him disagreeing severely with that assesment as his mother helps run a Cornish medium infants school and there are at least several thousand people who can speak it with some degree of profiency and the people of Cornwall seem to be having a mini cultural revival down there. I suppose it depends what they view as the threshold for a language to be extinct - if they view it as extinct if only a small percentage of a populace can speak it then it might fit the criteria right now. But if you go to Cornwall you'll see there's been a big growth in dual language road signs etc. in recent years. From talking to him and visiting Cornwall myself a few times recently I can see the locals are becoming more and grumpy with what they consider London's complete disdain for them as a region.

*Can't help doing a shameless plug for his band as well - which I recommend. www.myspace.com/jameswillsandthespills
The bass player is an ex-member of a band who are fairly famous in Russia as a side note.

[earl]

There was a very interesting program on BBC4 2 weeks ago called 'How the Celts Saved Britain', which stated that the original British language is actually that spoken by the Welsh. There's 2 day's to go to watch it on BBC iplayer.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kps7h

Dan Snow blows the lid on the traditional, Anglo-centric view of history and reveals how the Irish saved Britain from cultural oblivion during the Dark Ages, in this provocative, two-part documentary.

Travelling back in time to some of the remotest corners of the British Isles, Dan unravels the mystery of the lost years of 400-800 AD, when the collapse of the Roman Empire left Britain in tatters.

In the first episode, Dan shows how in the 5th century AD Roman 'Britannia' was plunged into chaos by the arrival of Anglo-Saxon invaders. As Roman civilisation disappeared from Britain, a new civilisation emerged in one of the most unlikely places - Ireland. Within a few generations, Christianity transformed a backward, barbarian country into the cultural powerhouse of early medieval Europe.

This is a visually stunning and intellectually stimulating journey into one of the least known chapters of British history.

[Jim]

No one can agree if Ulster Scots is a language or dialect that has evolved into what you would hear today. I dont doubt people spoke it, but it does sound more like a dialect, not a separate indigenous language, and the reason its spokespeople call it a language is to get one up on the Irish language. Silly aul politics at it again.

As for Cornwall, the reason people say its extinct or "dead" is because the last native speakers of the language are dead and the language was mainly revived through literature, which was only half the case for the irish revival.

[Harry]

No idea at all. I speak English and thats that. Not something i'd want to learn either.