English (Global)

oorNews is a Scots Language media start-up that aims to provide insightful unbiased articles and media. oorNews will always remain neutral with regards to political matters and is not affiliated with any political party or government.

“Our mission is to make unbiased factual media in Scots free to everyone to support the right of Scots speakers to only seeing, hearing and speaking Scots.”

People who speak Scots have a right to living their life in Scots without needing to switch to English, just as Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers are able to do through the provision of media in these languages.

To address this lack of provision for Scots speakers, oorNews provides regular articles in Standard Scots (aiming to encompass speakers from Ulster to Dundee as well as the global Scots community), North Eastern Scots (covering Angus, Aberdeenshire and Moray, also referred to as Doric Scots), Northern Insular Scots (aiming to encompass Orkney and Shetland, although the spelling aligns with Shetlandic) as well as English (so that it can be translated into languages spoken in Scotland already catered for by Google Translate such as Scottish Gaelic, Polish, Urdu etc.).

Scots is for everyone and anyone to be used wherever and whenever – these articles should start conversations in Scots and we should all feel free to speak in Scots regardless of the situation (unless there are non-Scots speakers). At oorNews we encourage our readers to share and discuss the articles with their friends and family in Scots.

Our editor-in-chief, Dr Rory MacDonald CEng, is from the North East of Scotland and a native speaker of Doric Scots. He started oorNews for several reasons – firstly out of the frustration of having to read news and other online materials in English all the time, secondly out of the dismay at seeing poor translations into Scots, thirdly for the lack of equity to Doric and Northern Isles Scots with most Scotland wide organisations only providing Standard Scots translations, and fourthly out of the desire to show that Scots, particularly Doric Scots, can be used in serious contexts such as science news. The Scots in oorNews is for our readers and is shaped by what we see and hear around us – and it will continue to evolve with our readers via feedback. The Scots is all currently the work of our editor-in-chief and so to provide our readers with assurance of what you are reading and why every article is in three variants of Scots, here is some further background. As well as being raised surrounded by North East Scots, his mother and her family are from the Glasgow area and so he is familiar with Glasgow Scots as well as Scottish English. He lived in Shetland as a toddler, where he and his family were exposed to Shetlandic Scots. He then won awards for Burns poetry recitals at primary school while growing up in Buchan. He moved to Moray as a teenager, making lifelong friends in Buckie and Cullen. He then moved abroad to the Middle East as an older teenager and so had to learn to clearly separate his Doric and English – this made it obvious that Scots in its pure forms is a separate language from English and sparked his interest in Scots. His vision for the future of Scots is in part due to great sci-fi books like But-n-Ben a Go-Go by Matthew Fitt. He currently lives in rural Aberdeenshire, but has lived and conversed in the Borders and Northumberland. He speaks Scots at home with his family and in the community, but like all of us he feels forced to speak English in most situations to avoid classist discrimination from those who have rejected their own Scots or to simply be understood by those without enough Scots. Rory has been writing Scots and creating Scots songs for over 20 years (here is an example translation of a song by Howard Blake from 12 years ago with all translation, singing and instrumentation by Rory – https://youtu.be/0CP0tZbGwf0?si=GGSuf8PiBHtJf7gZ). He is passionate about protecting and creating situations and environments where it’s normal to speak to Scots – and so only companies that allow staff and customers to speak Scots can advertise with oorNews.

At oorNews, we are committed to providing our readers with accurate, reliable, and engaging news content. We also believe in embracing technological advancements that can enhance our journalistic practices, while maintaining the highest ethical standards. This includes our approach to using Artificial Intelligence (AI). We want to be transparent with our readers about how we use AI in our newsgathering and publishing process. Currently, we employ AI tools in two key areas:

1) Drafting from Original Sources: We use AI to assist in the initial drafting of articles. This involves inputting original source material, such as official reports, press releases, or transcripts of speeches. The AI helps to structure the information and create a first draft, which is then thoroughly reviewed, fact-checked, edited, and on some occasions rewritten. AI is never used to fabricate information or replace critical thinking. The final article always reflects our own analysis and interpretation of the source material. We never use other news websites as source material for this process.

2) Scots Language Translation: We are passionate about preserving and promoting the Scots language. To streamline producing four versions of every article, we are now using an AI model, recently trained on our own articles in their current variants with their various spelling conventions. This is helping to provide more accurate translation than standard machine translation, reflecting the specific style and vocabulary we use at oorNews which aims to retain register and be equally capable at the variants of Scots on oorNews. While AI is now assisting with the translation, every article is always reviewed to ensure quality and accuracy. This is essential as we using our articles as the training data for our AI model and so need it to be carefully checked and curated by a human. Readers are welcome to comment on articles if they have suggested improvements to the Scots.

Our Ethical AI Principles:

Human Oversight: We are always in control of the editorial process. AI is a tool to assist, not replace, our judgment, fact-checking, and ethical considerations.

Transparency: We are open about our use of AI and will continue to inform our readers how it is integrated into our workflow.

Accuracy and Fact-Checking: Our commitment to accuracy remains paramount. All AI-generated content is rigorously fact-checked and verified before publication.

Original Reporting: We use AI to help us work with original sources, never to plagiarize or repurpose content from other news outlets.

Bias Mitigation: We are aware of the potential for bias in AI and take steps to mitigate this by carefully reviewing and editing all AI-generated output. We are particularly vigilant about identifying and correcting any potential biases.

Continuous Improvement: We are committed to continually evaluating and improving our use of AI in journalism, ensuring that it aligns with our ethical principles and serves the best interests of our readers.

We believe that AI, when used responsibly and ethically, can be a valuable tool for humanity. The AI translation tool that we are developing will not be available for the general public any time soon due to the risk that it could currently be damaging if used to produce Scots without proofreading. Our vision for the future of Scots with AI is bold however – we want Scots speaking communities to be able to interact with the digital world entirely in Scots without needing to hear or see any English. The “Rosetta Stone” dataset that we are building of formal register / technical Scots will, once sufficiently large and varied, enable this future vision for Scots.

Staundart Scots

oorNews is a Scots Leid media stert-up that aims tae provide insichtfu unbiased media airticles an media. oorNews will ey bide neutral wi regairds tae political maitters an isnae affiliated wi ony political pairty or government.

“Oor mission is tae mak unbiased factual media in Scots free tae awbody for tae uphaud the richt o Scots spikkin fowk tae ainlie seein, hearin an spikkin Scots.”

Fowk that spik Scots hae a richt tae livin their life in Scots ithoot needin tae switch tae Inglis, juist as Scottish Gaelic an Welsh spikkers are able tae dae throu the provision o media in these leids.

For tae address this lack o provision for Scots spikkers, oorNews provides insichtfu airticles in Staundart Scots (aimin tae encompass spikkers frae Ulster tae Dundee as weel as the global Scots commontie), North Eastern Scots (coverin Angus, Aberdeenshire an Moray, referred tae as Doric Scots), Nordern Isles Scots (aimin tae encompass Orkney an Shetland, althou the spellin aligns wi Shetlandic) as weel as Inglis (sae that it can be set ower intae leids spake in Scotland awready catered for by Google Translate sic as Scottish Gaelic, Polish, Urdu etc.).

Scots is for awbody an onybody tae be yaised whaurivver and whanivver – these airticles should stairt conversations in Scots an we should aw feel free tae spik in Scots regairdless o the situation (unless there are non-Scots spikkers). At oorNews we encourage oor readers tae share an discuss the airticles wi their freens and faimly in Scots.

Nor East Scots / Doric

oorNews is a Scots Leid media stert-up aat aims tae provide insichtfu unbiased media airticles an media. oorNews will ey bide neutral wi regairds tae political maitters an isna affiliated wi ony political pairty or government.

“Oor mission is tae mak unbiased factual media in Scots free til aabody for tae uphaad e richt o Scots spikkin fowk tae ainlie seein, hearin an spikkin Scots.”

Fowk aat spik Scots hae a richt tae livin eir life in Scots ithoot needin tae switch til Inglis, jist as Scottish Gaelic an Welsh spikkers are able tae dee throu the provision o media in ese leids.

For tae address iss lack o provision for Scots spikkers, oorNews provides insichtfu airticles in Staundart Scots (aimin tae encompass spikkers fae Ulster tae Dundee as weel as e global Scots commontie), Nor East Scots (coverin Angus, Aberdeenshire an Moray, referred tae as Doric Scots), Nordern Isles Scots (aimin tae encompass Orkney an Shetland, althou e spellin aligns wi Shetlandic) as weel as Inglis (sae aat it can be set ower intil leids spake in Scotland aaready catered for by Google Translate sic as Scottish Gaelic, Polish, Urdu etc.).

Scots is for aabody an onybody tae be eesed faarivver and faanivver – ese airticles should stairt conversations in Scots an we should aa feel free tae spik in Scots regairdless o the situation (unless ere are non-Scots spikkers). At oorNews we encourage oor readers tae share an discuss e airticles wi their freens and faimly in Scots.

Nordren Isles Scots / Orkney & Shetland

oorNews is a Scots Leid media stert-up dat aims tae provide insichtfu unbiased media airticles an media. oorNews will ey bide neutral wi regairds tae political maitters an isna affiliated wi ony political pairty or government.

“Oor mission is tae mak unbiased factual media in Scots free til aabody for tae uphauld da richt o Scots spikkin fowk tae ainlie seein, hearin an spikkin Scots.”

For tae lairn mair aboot Scots gang til / To learn more about Scots go to:

Scots Language Centre

Hame | Scots Leid Assoc­ie (scotsleidassocie.org)

Walcome — come awa ben (scots-online.org)

The Doric Board | North East Tradition And Culture

Scots Radio | Scots Language Podcast

Ulster-Scots Agency (ulsterscotsagency.com)

Shetland ForWirds – Promoting and Celebrating the Shetland Dialect

Dictionaries of the Scots Language (dsl.ac.uk)

Scots language policy: Scots version – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Mair whit’s it aw aboot… or fit’s it aa aboot?

The website is currently still under development and so feedback is welcome.

Gin ye see onythin wrang wi the airticles, sic as typos or English words that hinna been set ower tae Scots lat us ken via the airticle comments.

The Scots in oorNews is deein hings Scots hisna deen for a lang time – eese in formal prose. An sae fowk micht see a wheen o words they dinna recognise fae heich register Scots – as weel as seein words wi French etymology we hae in common wi English aat hinna bin chynged for a mair Scots een. Scots is a leid in its ain richt, even if maist fowk aat spik English can unnerstaun it – Norwegian an Danish arena ony less separate leids for haein mutual intelligibility.

Thoosands o oors hae bin spent pruifreadin aa the airticles – an thoosands mair hae gingt intil scrievin python an biggin the trainin datasets ahint the oorNews owersettin agentic framewark. Mony ither leids are weel supported by LLMs an for Scots tae be taen forrit intil the future we hae tae embrace whit they can dae for wis wi gien a helpin haun tae settin ower intae Scots fae ither leids, as weel as chattin in Scots. For tae lairn mair aboot whit we’re daein wi uphaudin Scots an makkin siccar LLMs hae heich quality trainin data (try oot the major LLMs – they’re guid, bit nae guid eneuch) get in contact at [email protected]

Gin ye’re interestit in ony media or mercatin collaborations, owersettin services, or hae ony questions get in contact via [email protected]