Guid freen, - I usually enjoy reading Kevin Myers' column in your newspaper but I was very disappointed by some of his comments (February 12th) about the Ulster-Scots language.First of all, he made a number of "mock translations" of words and phrases into Ulster-Scots but simply got them wrong. For example, he concocted the phrase "wha rubbidge" which I think was meant to be a translation of "what rubbish". In fact "wha" is a Scots and Ulster-Scots word for "who", not "what". I thought Kevin might have known this from the song title "Scots wha hae".The news that prompted Kevin's article was of course the advertisement for an Ulster-Scots sub-editor for the Northern Ireland Assembly but this advertisement is not based on any "brainless parity of esteem" as he suggests. It is based on the commitments to linguistic diversity and equality in the Belfast Agreement, the document on which the Assembly itself is based.In the course of his article Kevin referred to the "French dialects" spoken by the Huguenots who came to Ireland 300 years ago but there is an important difference between these French dialects and the Irish and Ulster-Scots languages. There is an Irish language community in Ulster and there is also an Ulster-Scots language community but there is no French language community. Irish and Ulster-Scots are still spoken but the French of the Huguenots had disappeared. The descendants of the Huguenot settlers were unwilling or unable to sustain a distinctively French culture beyond the third or fourth generation.Kevin also describes Ulster-Scots as "an obscure dialect of English, with few literary forms". In fact Ulster-Scots is not a dialect of English. It is a West Germanic language which is derived from, and has its closest linguistic parallels with, Lowland Scots or Lallans. Indeed Ulster-Scots has been described as a "variant" of the Scots language and as such has been accommodated within the Scottish National Dictionary. The "braid Scotch" was brought to Ulster by the Scottish settlers of the Ulster Plantation and the later 1600s and became known as Ulster-Scots. It survives most strongly in those parts of Ulster that were settled by Scots.From the 17th century plantation onwards we have a significant corpus of Scots writings in Ulster, including the work of Ulster-Scots poets such as James Orr and the writings of authors such as Archibald McIlroy. There is much research to be done on the literary tradition but it is wrong to say that there are `few literary forms'.The situation of Ulster-Scots today is similar to that of the Frisian language in the Netherlands some years ago. At one time it was stigmatised as a "vulgar dialect" but is now recognised as a traditional language. Over the last 50 years the Frisian Academy has published grammars, compiled dictionaries, translated classics and produced teaching resources. Indeed we can look to the work of the Frisian Academy as an example for the future development of the Scots language in Scotland and Ulster.The revival of interest in Ulster-Scots has been encouraged by the Ulster-Scots Language Society, which was formed in 1992 and should not be seen as an "equal and opposite reaction" to what Kevin Myers describes as the "culturally subversive politicisation of Irish by Sinn Fein". We are grateful to those within the Irish language movement who have pointed out to us the mistakes made by that movement in the past and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that we avoid those mistakes.The Belfast Agreement described the Ulster-Scots language as part of the "cultural wealth of the island of Ireland". But for too long it has been marginalised, stigmatised and eroded. It would be a tragedy if that cultural wealth were to be lost and so it is only right that the Ulster-Scots language tradition is respected, preserved and promoted. - Wi a aefault hairt.,Nelson McCausland, Director/Heich heid yin Ulster-Scots Heritage Council/Ulster-Scotch Heirskip Council,213 York Street,Belfast.