Where censuses are concerned, politics and ideology are pervasive. The 2011 census in Scotland (a semi-autonomous part of the United Kingdom) was the first to ask a question about Scots, a close relative of English, which is historically the vernacular in many parts of Scotland. While at one time Scots had high status as the national language of Scotland, it is now widely regarded as a ‘dialect’ of English, and for many people it has associations of inferiority. At the same time, it has political relevance because of its potential to be an important cultural marker for an autonomous Scotland. The policy position of the current Scottish government, which advocates independence, is to protect and celebrate Scots. Adding a question about Scots to the census was an attempt to advance this by finding out who and where the users of Scots are. Research carried out before the census had shown that the public had differing ideas about what could be called Scots and whether it was, in fact, a different language from English: according to one previous survey, 64% did not think of it as a language at all. Given this background it is unsurprising that interpretations of the census results were controversial, reflecting to some degree existing language ideologies. According to some, the census provided no useful information, while according to others it demonstrated that there was a robust Scots-speaking population and a clear public understanding of what it meant to be a speaker of Scots. This paper discusses the history and political background to the problematic language questions in the Scottish census, and how the choice of questions, their wording and even their order on the questionnaire may have affected the results. Despite the flawed questions and many difficulties of interpretation, it seems that the 2011 census, whether or not it succeeded in enumerating accurately the speakers of Scots, may nevertheless have helped to raise public awareness of the language and to legitimise it. There are lessons to be learnt from the Scottish census, too, in other situations around the world where there are unclear boundaries between ‘language’ and ‘dialect,’ or where low-status and high-status varieties of ‘the same’ language coexist.

中文翻译：

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命名为？2011 年苏格兰人口普查中的语言问题和苏格兰人的政治

就人口普查而言，政治和意识形态无处不在。2011 年在苏格兰（英国的半自治部分）进行的人口普查首次提出了有关苏格兰人的问题，苏格兰人是英语的近亲，在历史上，苏格兰人是苏格兰许多地方的方言。曾几何时，苏格兰语作为苏格兰的国语具有很高的地位，但现在它被广泛认为是英语的“方言”，并且对许多人来说，它带有自卑感。同时，它具有政治相关性，因为它有可能成为自治苏格兰的重要文化标志。主张独立的现任苏格兰政府的政策立场是保护和庆祝苏格兰人。在人口普查中添加一个关于苏格兰人的问题是为了通过找出苏格兰人的用户是谁和在哪里来推进这一点。在人口普查之前进行的研究表明，公众对什么可以称为苏格兰语以及它是否实际上是一种不同于英语的语言有不同的看法：根据之前的一项调查，64% 的人不认为它是一种语言根本。鉴于这种背景，对人口普查结果的解释存在争议也就不足为奇了，这在某种程度上反映了现有的语言意识形态。一些人认为，人口普查没有提供有用的信息，而另一些人认为，人口普查表明说苏格兰语的人口数量众多，而且公众对成为说苏格兰人意味着什么有着清晰的认识。本文讨论了苏格兰人口普查中存在问题的语言问题的历史和政治背景，以及问题的选择如何，他们的措辞甚至他们在问卷上的顺序可能会影响结果。尽管存在有缺陷的问题和许多解释困难，但 2011 年的人口普查，无论是否成功地准确列举了说苏格兰语的人，似乎都有助于提高公众对该语言的认识并使其合法化。在世界各地“语言”和“方言”之间界限不明确，或者“相同”语言的低地位和高地位变体共存的其他情况下，也可以从苏格兰人口普查中吸取教训. 尽管如此，这可能有助于提高公众对该语言的认识并使其合法化。在世界各地“语言”和“方言”之间界限不明确，或者“相同”语言的低地位和高地位变体共存的其他情况下，也可以从苏格兰人口普查中吸取教训. 尽管如此，这可能有助于提高公众对该语言的认识并使其合法化。在世界各地“语言”和“方言”之间界限不明确，或者“相同”语言的低地位和高地位变体共存的其他情况下，也可以从苏格兰人口普查中吸取教训.