“What happened in Scotland in the 1960s and the 1970s and what laid the foundation for the enormous creative achievements of the 1980s was the liberation of the voice. The Scottish voice declared its independence. The liberation of the voice was at first the acceptance of and an assertion of the vernacular. But the real liberation of the voice came not from the assertion of the rights of the vernacular itself, but from the assertion of the right to move without boundaries between the vernacular and standard English, between the demotic and the literary.” ScotlandLiteraryVernacular1970s1980sScottish CultureStandard EnglishDemoticScottish Voice Book:Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and British Culture Source: Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and British Culture
“The attempt to separate Lowland from Highland Scotland ignores the extent to which Lowland Scots are the descendants of Highlanders, and how many Lowland Scots, like Nan Shepherd, made the country's mountains the focus of their spiritual aspirations. 'Highlandism' is not simply the ersatz adoption of a stereotypical version of Scottish culture which is entirely unconnected with the reality of modern Scottish life: the Highlands are both the geographical and the historical backdrop with which 'Lowland' Scottish culture interacts.” HighlandsScottish CultureLowlands Book:The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture and Independence Source: The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture and Independence