The Scots tongue, like most of the world's minority languages, is under pressure and Billy Kay in this excellent and cogent survey draws together the strands of our concern

Kay is the best writer on his own language I have read since Burchfield on English; his book should be put in schools, for it is capably seditious

Moving, delightful, even inspiring

It is not the kind of dry academic tome so cherished by linguistic nitpickers, but a bright, radical examination of the language which is at the heart of our existence

A fresh and invigorating overview of a fascinating subject

Well written . . . provocative

Attuned to pop culture as well as to scholarship, Abley proves a deft social anthropologist