Awesome! Thank you, Alan. I was completely unaware of pretty much all of that.

I "duig" what you are saying about needing to be around a language so sprinkled by local flair in order to catch onto it properly.

;-)

As far as standardised spelling, you're right. There are great challenges. Spelling doen't have an accent but with a wide array of accents there must be a compromise.

Have they cnsidered borrowing a spelling rulemthat I seem to see in Gaelic? I note the word that you taught me, "duig," along with "uillean" (union in Gaelic) and apply the spelling to the Scots word for "school" that you mentioned to become "skuil," or some variant thereof. I'm by no means a lexicologist or linguistics expert but it seems like common sense from here.

I think that the only examples of local languages dying out where I live would be various Native American tongues that fewer and fewer young people are taking up, opting to be strictly English- and/or Spanish- speakers.

Sorry for wandering OT. I find this subject fascinating!