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Awards for communities celebrating Scots heritage.

Communities with strong links to their Scots heritage are being urged to nominate themselves for the new Scots Toun Awards.

The first prize of £6,000 will help the winner to develop new projects aimed at encouraging the Scots language, Minister for Scotland’s Languages Alasdair Allan announced recently.

The awards have been launched by the Scots Language Centre and applicants have until February 28 to put themselves forward.

Dr Allan said:

“With the last census showing 1.5 million people describing themselves as Scots speakers it is clear that Scots remains an important and vibrant part of our communities. There are many excellent projects across the country to encourage its use and these awards recognise that we can’t be complacent about supporting a language so ingrained in our national identity.

“We want to hear about festivals, writers groups and the many and varied ways that people use Scots to promote cultural and community vitality and tourism.

“The prize money will help groups who have created successful projects celebrating Scots to develop, expand and share their expertise so that many more people can benefit. I would encourage all groups and individuals supporting the Scots language to visit the Scots Toun website.”

The first prize of £6,000 and second place £4,000 will be announced at the end of April. The judging criteria and application form can be found at www.scots-toun.co.uk.

Michael Hance, Director of the Scots Language Centre said:

“The Scots Toun Awards provides us with a unique opportunity for us to recognise and reward the work being done in cities, towns and villages across Scotland. Our aim is to raise awareness of this work and to encourage communities to develop new projects to support Scots language and culture locally.

“At this time of year when we are celebrating the life and work of Robert Burns it makes sense to find ways of encouraging and promoting the language he wrote in and we are looking forward to hearing about the many ways that communities throughout Scotland are doing that.”

Notes to editors

The Scots language is an integral part of Scotland’s distinctive culture and heritage as is demonstrated by the Census 2011 results. The Scottish Government has given commitments to raise the profile and encourage the use of the Scots language in a variety of settings. The establishment of the Scots Toun Award was a recommendation of the Scots Language Ministerial Working Group.

The £10,000 prize fund has come from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government has taken a number of steps to promote and support the Scots language and links to relevant papers and research are noted below.