ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some processes of change, partly to frame questions to do with the impacts of different forms of literacy on language and culture, but also to do with the development of lingua franca and minority language forms that emerge in circumstances of change and are influenced by the juxtaposition of literate and oral modes of expression. Many debates on language and culture issues have a long history, such as the issue of literacy and its effects on language, cognition, and social relations, and in general the use of language as an expression of power and the development of hybrid vernacular forms. The writer and broadcaster Billy Kay, who comes from a place called Newmilns in Ayrshire, has provided an account of how the Scots language originated and developed over time. John Knox was actually a part of the Protestant movement in Scotland that gradually swung influence onto the side of the English language rather than Scots.
