User:An Siarach/Caint2

"Gaelic has the SAME official status in Scotland as Scots. "

The BBC,Times and Scottish Government ITSELF disagree and if i might quote the last of those: The Gaelic Language Act recognises Gaelic as an official language of Scotland

"The claim that official status is conferred upon Gaelic but not Scots is wrong, as the only difference between the two is the presence of a Govt. body promoting the use of Gaelic versus the lack of an equivalent body for Scots. "

Its an interesting tactic you take here - highlighting one of the major (certainly not the only) differences in the status/recognition accorded each language as if doing so and simply saying "this is the only difference between the two" somehow undermines the well documented and accepted (outside these Wiki pages and even here only by a determined few) fact that Gaelic has been awarded a more prominent status and greater recognition than Scots.

"The Scottish Govt. provides no additional status for Gaelic under the terms of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act establishing the BnG. This Act does NOT confer any additional status to Gaelic that does not already apply equally to Scots under the ECRML. The intention is there, certainly, but in itself the Act does nothing to the alter the status of Gaelic.80.41.244.114 09:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)"

So you might like to believe but im afraid the afore mentioned media sources as well as the Scottish Government itself disagree with you.

"The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act does not, simply by the creation of BnG, afford Official Language status to Gaelic. If you compare and contrast the Wesh Language Act (1993) "

Well the first sentence is clearly not the case either in terms of how the major media understands the situation or how the Scottish Government itself seems to understand the situation - as already pointed out. As for the second sentence the Welsh Language Act and the status of Welsh in Wales are simply irrelevant. Italian is more of an Official language than is English - does this affect the status of English as an official language in the UK or wherever (which it would if we follow your line or reasoning) ? Of course not. Different languages in different nations/regions are given different priviliges, rights, recognition and status. The number of priviliges and whether or not recognition as official is de jure or de facto with regards to the language of one nation has no direct bearing upon the status of a language in a different nation.

"For a language which, according to you, is "not an official language", Scots gets a fair few mentions in the rule book of the Scots Pairly"

So you think but wikipedia is not supposed to be based upon personal opinion, bias or original research which is all you have to support your arguments for equivalence of status with regards to Gaelic and Scots (and BSL - at least youve become consistent in arguing for that as well rather than simply having some special case made for Scots). Personally i think the page is both irrelevant and the frequent references to Scots (hand in hand with English with no requirement of translation)a result of seeming confusion over where Scots ends and English begins but my opinion is, like yours, neither here nor there. What this article and wikipedia generally requires is facts from reliable sources. There are plenty in support of official status for Gaelic and none whatsoever for Scots.

Quite frankly none of the evidence ive provided above is new - its all already been posted on this discussion page on this very topic. The determination by certain users to see their personal opinion that Scots has Official langauge status - regardless of contradictary accounts by the most major media institutions and the relevant political institution itself - triumph over reputable major references/sources has seen this argument drag on far longer than it ever should have.

No amount of original research based on the most tenuous lines of reasoning will justify languages not accepted by any major or relevant non-wikipedia source as being of "official" status being placed in the Official languages being placed in the official languages section of the infobox. Once we see legislation dealing with and recognition of Scots nation-wide as we have already seen for Gaelic and once the likes of the BBC and Scottish Government start talking about Scots as being an official language then it should certainly go into the infobox section. Until then it has no place there and the arguments demanding its insertion are simply based on original research. siarach 14:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)