Billy Kay (writer)

Billy Kay (Born in Galston, East Ayrshire, Scotland in 1951) is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and language activist.[1] he studied English literature at the University of Edinburgh. His study on the history and current status of the Lowland Scots language, Scots: The Mither Tongue, is his most notable work and it was later adapted for a television series,[2] and an audiobook, recorded after setting up a home studio during the Covid19 lockdown. Kay thought that many people would not have heard ' how the language sounds' in major Scots literature such as Barbour's Brus, RL Stevenson's Thrawn Janet or works writing by MacDiarmid, Burns or the Border Ballads covered in his book: a sound version, he said would ' fill a big gap' in people's 'knowledge and appreciation of a great tradition'.[3]