Alistair is a writer, presenter and producer who works to promote Scots language, history, music and literature. He regularly hosts the Scots Trad Music Awards on BBC Television, and produces and presents a poetry podcast alongside Scotland’s national poet Kathleen Jamie. He writes regularly across Scotland’s newspapers, raising awareness on Scotland’s vibrant cultural scene. He’s proudly fae Angus, and lives in Dundee.
The Scots Language
Scots (endonym: Scots; Scottish Gaelic: Albais, Beurla Ghallta) is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, Northern Isles and northern Ulster, it is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Goidelic Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides and Galloway after the sixteenth century, or Broad Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English. Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source: Early Middle English (1150–1300).
Scots is recognised as an indigenous language of Scotland by the Scottish government, a regional or minority language of Europe, as well as a vulnerable language by UNESCO. In the 2011 Scottish Census, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported being able to speak Scots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language
Alistair Heather recently, along with Ulster broadcaster Mark Thompson, recently filmed a documentary on and the Gibson Collection at Linen Hall Library, Belfast - which includes important works from Robert Burns.
A guide track for ‘Alistair Heather’ is available below for listening: -
You can download a PDF of the sheet music here
- or braille format here.
The track is additionally available within the following collections and sets: -
Associated Collections: -
4/4
Extended Bagpipe
Reel
The Tarbolton Collection
