Letter: Burgess responds to Crozier

Having read Mr Crozier’s [Ian Crozier, Chief Executive of the Ulster Scots Agency] response to my letter [‘Ulster Scots is dead and I’ll believe otherwise when it’s on the curriculum,’ January 25] ‘methinks the gentleman does protest too much.’

To shore up his pitifully thin argument that the Ulster Scots language is alive and well he quotes some obscure quango statistics.

It has often been said that there are statistics and damned statistics, well I’m afraid Mr Crozier’s come under the latter.

His long rambling lesson regarding the use of the Ulster Scots language bordered on embarassing.

If this is an example of what the Ulster Scots Agency call promoting the language I can only conclude they are’ floggin a deid horse’

I suggest Mr Crozier looks at the social media regarding his stance that the language is vibrant and well.

He should prepare himself for a shock.

Public opinion that the Ulster Scots language is no longer alive is overwhelming, and the comments on the statistics he provided are derisory.

I am of the opinion that the Ulster Scots Agency in its role as custodian and promoter of the Ulster Scots language abdicated that responsibility and thereby hastened its demise.

On a final note, no doubt Mr Crozier, the Ulster Scots Agency, and the pseudo academics who have now jumped on the bandwagon will all continue in their sinecures,

It is my sincere hope that they will accept that the language is dead, if they would only allow it to lie down.

Wilson Burgess

Poet and broadcaster

Londonderry