What has been done, by whom, to revive Ulster Scots?

 Demagogia (2011) by Iván Capote. Source. More of his work.

In the revival of Ulster Scots, most of the steps listed in the previous post have been or are being taken which can be demonstrated through examples.

Selection
Key documents: Good Friday agreement, European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages, North-South agreement.

The listed documents all bestow rights and status upon Ulster Scots, thus exemplifying step 2(b) of Haugen's framework, allocation of norms.

From the Good Friday agreement:

3. All participants recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity, including in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and the languages of the various ethnic communities, all of which are part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland.

From the North-South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 no. 859, Annex 1, part 5:

Language

One Body, with two separate parts, with the following functions:

Irish Language

•     promotion of the Irish language;
•     facilitating and encouraging its use in speech and writing in public and private life in the South and, in the context of Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, in Northern Ireland where there is appropriate demand;
•     advising both administrations, public bodies and other groups in the private and voluntary sectors;
•     undertaking supportive projects, and grant-aiding bodies and groups as considered necessary;
•     undertaking research, promotional campaigns, and public and media relations;
•     developing terminology and dictionaries;
•     supporting Irish-medium education and the teaching of Irish.

Ulster Scots
    promotion of greater awareness and use of Ullans and of Ulster Scots cultural issues, both within Northern Ireland and throughout the island.

From the Application of the ECRML in the United Kingdom (Full charter text here) :

1.3.5 Ulster Scots
27. The Ulster Scots language has been used in Ireland since the early seventeenth century when Scottish and English Protestants were settled in the northern part of the Island. The Scottish settlers who came from the Lowlands used the Scots language, which became the Ulster Scots language. The use of Ulster Scots has declined, mainly because of its closeness to English.
28. There are no official figures on the number of speakers of Ulster-Scots. According to recent research the language is spoken by an estimated 100,000 people in Northern Ireland and in Ireland.
29. There is no specific legal act governing the use of Ulster-Scots in public and private life in Northern Ireland. The main legal foundations guaranteeing its use are therefore the following:
    - the North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999, through which the North/South Language body was founded. This body has two agencies, namely the Foras na Gaeilge (the Irish Language Agency) and Tha Boord o Ulstèr Scotch (the Ulster-Scots Agency);
    - the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) - signed on 10 April 1998.
30. As a result of the Belfast Agreement, both Irish and Ulster Scots cross-border bodies have been established, to promote these languages in both Northern Ireland and in Ireland.

The texts vary in style and purpose; the first text is the peace agreement of Northern Ireland, from 1998. Here the granting of "respect, understanding and tolerance" to Ulster Scots as well as Irish was important as a condition to allow for peace, though noticeably the agreement does not specifically refer to Ulster-Scots as a language but rather leaves it vague. The text of the statutory instrument of the North-South Co-operation does not specifically confer status onto Ulster-Scots, but rather sets up an implementation body with two parts, one to promote Irish and one to promote Ulster-Scots, thereby implicitly giving it some recognition. Again it does not specifically refer to Ulster-Scots as a language, but it refers to "use of Ullans", which it intends to promote. The ECRML is a treaty that consists of five parts. Part II outlines basic protection objectives and principles for minority languages, which all signatories must ratify for the minority languages they wish to recognise. They may furthermore choose to ratify Part III for some or all of the languages, which consists of measures to promote the use of the language in public life. The application of the ECRML in the United Kingdom explains that for Ulster Scots, Part II has been ratified (but not Part III). Thereby the United Kingdom has recognised Ulster Scots as a regional or minority language, and promised to at least try to give Ulster Scots some protection and recognition. To answer the question, "by whom" is the language being revived: all of the above are clearly top-down initiatives, as they are initiated by the government, governmental agencies and inter-governmental organisations.


Standardisation and codification
Key documents: the Ulster Scots Spelling Guide and the Ulster Scots Glossary, both by the Ulster Scots Academy Implementation Group (USAIG) and funded by the Ministerial Advisory Group on Ulster Scots (MAGUS); Philip Robinson's "Ulster-Scots: A Grammar of the traditional written and spoken language"; James Fenton's "The Hamely Tongue: A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County Antrim". Also others not listed here.

The listed documents exemplify graphisation (USAIG's spelling guide), grammatication (Philip Robinson's grammar), and lexication (Fenton's vocabulary; USAIG's glossary.) Interestingly Fenton and Robinson are both "just" interested individuals (if scholars); they wrote their works out of personal interest and out of personal conviction of the importance of the subject matter, meaning their books can be seen as bottom-up initiatives. The MAGUS, being a ministerial advisory committee, would be nearer to the top. However, there are links between the aforementioned authors and USAIG; at the time of writing, Robinson is the chair of USAIG; he in turn mentions considerable help from Fenton with his grammar in the foreword thereof.


Implementation
The implementation is mainly the work of the Ulster-Scots Agency and the Ulster-Scots Academy Implementation group. Possibly also the Ulster-Scots Language Society and the Ullans Centre.

From the website of the Ulster Scots Agency:

The aims of the Ulster-Scots Agency are to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster-Scots as a living language; to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots.

Ulster Scots is not yet in the stage where schools are being set up that commit to teaching in it; so far groups and agencies mostly focus on trying to create a more positive image of the language as part of the overall heritage of the Ulster Scots people and culture.

While the Ulster Scots Agency in word commits to, as cited above, "study, conservation, development and use of Ulster-Scots as a living language", they reacted disapprovingly to initiatives to set up an Ulster-Scots Academy in 2008, stating that Ulster-Scots should not be seen as a separate language: "The implementation group (of the academy) seem to be planning to be concerned with a language separate from Scots, which they are calling Ulster-Scots, though this appears to be something distinct from the language variety traditionally spoken in Ulster". (BBC: 31/07/2008)
More news later on whether they ever retracted this statement.


Elaboration
Key works and initiatives (Post-1998): James Fenton, "Thonner an Thon"; "Guid Wittins Frae Doctèr Luik"; official translations of government documents to Ulster-Scots.

Stylistic development: The listed works and initiatives are all different genres of writing in Ulster Scots. Perhaps Fenton's work is the least relevant here, as it is building on one genre that has existed in Ulster-Scots for a couple of centuries now, namely poetry; yet his work does make a contribution to maintaining both the genre and the language. The second listed work, "Guid Wittins Frae Doctèr Luik", is a translation of the Gospel according to Luke, done by the Wycliffe Bible Translators in cooperation with groups of native speakers. Bible translations are a bit of a milestone for small developing languages, and for many languages it is the first thing that is ever written in them. While the translation of the book of Luke may not be the first thing to have ever been written in Ulster Scots, it does create an opportunity for a more formal, sacred style of Ulster Scots to be developed. Finally, of the works listed here the official translations of government documents to Ulster Scots form the clearest effort to forge new registers for roles that the language had ceased to have (see Ch. 3 (which as of yet still needs written.) ).

Terminological development: there have been efforts toward this, both for existing terms which may have been perceived to be too close to English (e.g. 'phone' v. 'langbletherer'); but I am not yet clear on who exactly initiated that, or whether it was meant as a joke. The official translations also include a lot of neologisms.