Scots (

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

: ''Scots''; gd, Albais, ) is an Anglic

language variety In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Ma ...

in the West Germanic language family, spoken in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and parts of

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...

in the north of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

(where the local

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly spoken in the

Scottish Lowlands The Lowlands ( sco, Lallans or ; gd, a' Ghalldachd, , place of the foreigners, ) is a cultural and historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Lowlands and the Highlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowl ...

Northern Isles The Northern Isles ( sco, Northren Isles; gd, Na h-Eileanan a Tuath; non, Norðreyjar; nrn, Nordøjar) are a pair of archipelagos off the north coast of mainland Scotland, comprising Orkney and Shetland. They are part of Scotland, as are th ...

and northern Ulster, it is sometimes called Lowland Scots or Broad Scots to distinguish it from

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

, the

Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically ...

Celtic language The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...

that was historically restricted to most of the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...

, the

Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebrid ...

and

Galloway Galloway ( ; sco, Gallowa; la, Gallovidia) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway. A native or i ...

after the 16th century.

Modern Scots Modern Scots comprises the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, from 1700. Throughout its history, Modern Scots has been undergoing a process of language attrition, whereby successive generations ...

is a

sister language In historical linguistics, sister languages are cognate languages; that is, languages that descend from a common ancestral language, their so-called proto-language. Every language in a language family that descends from the same language as the oth ...

of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source:

Early Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

(1150–1300). Scots is recognised as an indigenous language of

, a regional or minority language of Europe, as well as a vulnerable language by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

. In the 2011 Scottish Census, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported being able to speak Scots. As there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a

, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects exist, they often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar

linguistic continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated variet ...

, with

Scottish Standard English Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...

at the other. Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects; other scholars treat Scots as a distinct Germanic language, in the way that

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

is closely linked to but distinct from

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

Nomenclature

Native speakers sometimes refer to their

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

as (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the "

Doric Doric may refer to: * Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece ** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians * Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture * Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode * Doric dialect (Scotland) * Doric ...

" or the "". The old-fashioned '' Scotch'', an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Ulster. The term , a variant of the

word , is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the

Lallans Lallans (; a variant of the Modern Scots word ''lawlands'' meaning the lowlands of Scotland), is a term that was traditionally used to refer to the Scots language as a whole. However, more recent interpretations assume it refers to the dialects o ...

literary form A literary genre is a category of literature. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or length (especially for fiction). They generally move from more abstract, encompassing classes, which are then further sub-divided i ...

. Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots ( in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recent

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

merging Ulster and Lallans.

Etymology

''Scots'' is a contraction of , the Early Scots, Older Scots and northern version of late ang, Scottisc (modern English "Scottish"), which replaced the earlier i-mutated version . Before the end of the fifteenth century, English speech in Scotland was known as "English" (written or at the time), whereas "Scottish" () referred to

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the English language used in Scotland had arguably become a distinct language, albeit one lacking a name which clearly distinguished it from all the other English variants and dialects spoken in Britain. From 1495, the term was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular and , meaning "Irish", was used as a name for Gaelic. For example, towards the end of the fifteenth century,

William Dunbar William Dunbar (born 1459 or 1460 – died by 1530) was a Scottish makar, or court poet, active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work i ...

was using to refer to Gaelic and, in the early sixteenth century,

Gavin Douglas Gavin Douglas (c. 1474 – September 1522) was a Scottish bishop, makar and translator. Although he had an important political career, he is chiefly remembered for his poetry. His main pioneering achievement was the '' Eneados'', a full and fa ...

was using as a name for the Lowland vernacular. The Gaelic of Scotland is now usually called

History

Northumbrian Old English Northumbrian was a dialect of Old English spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and employed by modern scholars. The dialect w ...

had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the

River Forth The River Forth is a major river in central Scotland, long, which drains into the North Sea on the east coast of the country. Its drainage basin covers much of Stirlingshire in Scotland's Central Belt. The Gaelic name for the upper reach of th ...

by the seventh century, as the region was part of the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

kingdom of

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engli ...

was the language of the Scottish court, and the common use of Old English remained largely confined to this area until the thirteenth century. The succeeding variety of early northern

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

spoken in southeastern Scotland is also known as

Early Scots Early Scots was the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English. During this period, speakers refe ...

. It began to further diverge from the Middle English of

due to twelfth and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English-speakers from the North and

Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...

of England. Later influences on the development of Scots came from the

Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European languages, I ...

s via

ecclesiastical {{Short pages monitor Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm. Scots terms were included in the

English Dialect Dictionary English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, edited by

Joseph Wright Joseph Wright may refer to: *Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), English painter *Joseph Wright (American painter) (1756–1793), American portraitist *Joseph Wright (fl. 1837/1845), whose company, Messrs. Joseph Wright and Sons, became the Metro ...

. Wright had great difficulty in recruiting volunteers from Scotland, as many refused to cooperate with a venture that regarded Scots as a dialect of English, and he obtained enough help only through the assistance from a Professor Shearer in Scotland. Wright himself rejected the argument that Scots was a separate language, saying that this was a "quite modern mistake". During the first half of the twentieth century, knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary norms waned, and , there is no institutionalised standard literary form. By the 1940s, the

Scottish Education Department The Scottish Government Education Directorates were a group of the civil service directorates in the Scottish Government. The Directorates were titled Children, Young People and Social Care; Schools; and Lifelong Learning. They were responsible ...

language policy Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianco ...

was that Scots had no value: "it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as a suitable medium of education or culture". Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process of

language attrition Language attrition is the process of losing a native or first language. This process is generally caused by both isolation from speakers of the first language ("L1") and the acquisition and use of a second language ("L2"), which interferes with ...

, whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from Standard English. This process has accelerated rapidly since widespread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale

language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...

, sometimes also termed language

change Change or Changing may refer to: Alteration * Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time * Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of the menstrual period * Metamorphosis, or change, ...

convergence Convergence may refer to: Arts and media Literature *''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen *Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics: **A four-part crossover storyline that ...

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

. By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of

language death In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers. Other similar terms include linguicide, the deat ...

over much of

Lowland Scotland The Lowlands ( sco, Lallans or ; gd, a' Ghalldachd, , place of the foreigners, ) is a cultural and historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Lowlands and the Highlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lo ...

. Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang. A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards the Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in a

representative sample In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attempt ...

of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", also finding "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)".

Decline in status

Before the

Treaty of Union 1707 The Treaty of Union is the name usually now given to the treaty which led to the creation of the new state of Great Britain, stating that the Kingdom of England (which already included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland were to be "United i ...

, when Scotland and England joined to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be an independent

forming a

pluricentric A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard language, standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spo ...

diasystem In the field of dialectology, a diasystem or polylectal grammar is a linguistic analysis set up to encode or represent a range of related varieties in a way that displays their structural differences. The term ''diasystem'' was coined by linguis ...

with English. German linguist considered Modern Scots a ('half language') in terms of an and languages framework, although today in Scotland most people's speech is somewhere on a continuum ranging from traditional broad Scots to

. Many speakers are diglossic and may be able to

code-switch In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...

along the continuum depending on the situation. Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine. Because standard English now generally has the role of a ('roofing language'), disputes often arise as to whether the varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a separate language in their own right. The UK government now accepts Scots as a

regional language * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...

and has recognised it as such under the

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, the ...

. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature, its independent – if somewhat fluid – orthographic conventions, and in its former use as the language of the original

Parliament of Scotland The Parliament of Scotland ( sco, Pairlament o Scotland; gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council o ...

. Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after the Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English.

Language revitalisation

During the 2010s, increased interest was expressed in the language.

Education

The status of the language was raised in Scottish schools, with Scots being included in the new national school

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

. Previously in Scotland's schools there had been little education taking place through the

medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane *Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...

of Scots, although it may have been covered superficially in English lessons, which could entail reading some Scots literature and observing the local dialect. Much of the material used was often Standard English disguised as Scots, which caused upset among proponents of Standard English and proponents of Scots alike. One example of the educational establishment's approach to Scots is, "Write a poem in Scots. (It is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as you hear the sounds in your head.)", whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation". A course in Scots language and culture delivered through the medium of Standard English and produced by the Open University (OU) in Scotland, the Open University's School of Languages and Applied Linguistics as well as

Education Scotland Education Scotland ( gd, Foghlam Alba) is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, tasked with improving the quality of the country's education system. Origins The creation of the Agency was announced by Scottish Government Education a ...

became available online for the first time in December 2019.

Government

In the 2011 Scottish census, a question on Scots language ability was featured and is planned to be included again in the 2022 census. The Scottish government set its first Scots Language Policy in 2015, in which it pledged to support its preservation and encourage respect, recognition and use of Scots. The Scottish Parliament website also offers some information on the language in Scots.

Media

Serious use of the language for news, encyclopaedias, documentaries, etc., remains rare and usually reserved for niches where it is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy,

Burns Night A Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), the author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January, known as Burns Night ( sc ...

, or representations of traditions and times gone by. However, since 2016 The National newspaper has regularly published some news articles in the language. The 2010s also saw an increasing number of English books translated in Scots and becoming widely available, particularly those in popular

children's fiction Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

series such as ''

The Gruffalo ''The Gruffalo'' is a British children's picture book by author Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Its tells the story of a mouse taking a walk in the woods and deceiving different predators, including the Gruffalo. ''The Gruf ...

'', ''

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

'' and several by

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter ace of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Dahl has be ...

and

David Walliams David Edward Williams (born 20 August 1971), known professionally as David Walliams, is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is best known for his work with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series '' Little B ...

. In 2021, the music streaming service

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

created a Scots language listing.

Geographic distribution

In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the

, the

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...

, Arran and

Campbeltown Campbeltown (; gd, Ceann Loch Chille Chiarain or ) is a town and former royal burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It lies by Campbeltown Loch on the Kintyre peninsula. Campbeltown became an important centre for Scotch whisky, and a busy fishing ...

. In

, the northern

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

, its area is usually defined through the works of

Robert John Gregg Robert John Gregg (July 2, 1912, Larne, County Antrim, Ireland – November 15, 1998, Vancouver, BC, Canada), known as Bob Gregg or R. J. Gregg, was a linguist, a pioneer of the academic study of Ulster-Scots as well as a linguistic authority on Can ...

to include the

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

of Down, Antrim, Londonderry and

Donegal Donegal may refer to: County Donegal, Ireland * County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster * Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland * Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...

(especially in East Donegal and

Inishowen Inishowen () is a peninsula in the north of County Donegal in Ireland. Inishowen is the largest peninsula on the island of Ireland. The Inishowen peninsula includes Ireland's most northerly point, Malin Head. The Grianan of Aileach, a ringfort ...

). More recently, the

Fintona Fintona (; ), is a village and townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Its population at the 2011 Census was 1,164. Name and etymology Fintona is derived phonetically from the Irish name of the area, ''Fionntamhnach''; this is often trans ...

-born linguist Warren Maguire has argued that some of the criteria that Gregg used as distinctive of Ulster-Scots are common in south-west Tyrone and were found in other sites across Northern Ireland investigated by the

Linguistic Survey of Scotland The Linguistic Survey of Scotland was a long-term project at the University of Edinburgh to cover the use of language in Scotland, including Scottish English, Scots and Scottish Gaelic. The Survey began at a time when the modern subject of linguis ...

. Dialects of Scots include

Insular Scots Insular Scots comprises varieties of Lowland Scots generally subdivided into: *Shetland dialect * Orcadian dialect Both dialects share much Norn Norn may refer to: *Norn language, an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in North ...

Northern Scots Northern Scots refers to the dialects of Modern Scots traditionally spoken in eastern parts of the north of Scotland. The dialect is generally divided into:{{cite web , url=http://www.dsl.ac.uk/INTRO/intro2.php?num=15 , title=SND Introduction - ...

Central Scots Central Scots is a group of dialects of Scots. Central Scots is spoken from Fife and Perthshire to the Lothians and Wigtownshire, often split into North East Central Scots (Northeast Mid Scots) and South East Central Scots (Southeast Mid Sc ...

Southern Scots Southern Scots is the dialect (or group of dialects) of Scots spoken in the Scottish Borders counties of mid and east Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire, with the notable exception of Berwickshire and Peeblesshire, which are, like E ...

and Ulster Scots. It has been difficult to determine the number of speakers of Scots via census, because many respondents might interpret the question "Do you speak Scots?" in different ways. Campaigners for Scots pressed for this question to be included in the 2001 UK National Census. The results from a 1996 trial before the Census, by the

General Register Office for Scotland The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) ( gd, Oifis Choitcheann a' Chlàraidh na h-Alba) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adopti ...

(GRO), ain Máté(1996) Scots Language. A Report on the Scots Language Research carried out by the General Register Office for Scotland in 1996, Edinburgh: General Register Office (Scotland). suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding "Yes" to the question "Can you speak the Scots language?", but only 17% responding "Aye" to the question "Can you speak Scots?". It was also found that older, working-class people were more likely to answer in the affirmative. The

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...

Scots Leid Quorum performed its own research in 1995, cautiously suggesting that there were 2.7 million speakers, though with clarification as to why these figures required context. The GRO questions, as freely acknowledged by those who set them, were not as detailed and systematic as the

ones, and only included reared speakers (people raised speaking Scots), not those who had learned the language. Part of the difference resulted from the central question posed by surveys: "Do you speak Scots?". In the Aberdeen University study, the question was augmented with the further clause "... or a dialect of Scots such as Border etc.", which resulted in greater recognition from respondents. The GRO concluded that there simply was not enough linguistic self-awareness amongst the Scottish populace, with people still thinking of themselves as speaking badly pronounced, grammatically inferior English rather than Scots, for an accurate census to be taken. The GRO research concluded that " more precise estimate of genuine Scots language ability would require a more in-depth interview survey and may involve asking various questions about the language used in different situations. Such an approach would be inappropriate for a Census." Thus, although it was acknowledged that the "inclusion of such a Census question would undoubtedly raise the profile of Scots", no question about Scots was, in the end, included in the 2001 Census. The Scottish Government's ''Pupils in Scotland Census 2008'' found that 306 pupils spoke Scots as their main home language. A Scottish Government study in 2010 found that 85% of around 1000 respondents (being a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) claim to speak Scots to varying degrees. The

2011 UK census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...

was the first to ask residents of Scotland about Scots. A campaign called ''Aye Can'' was set up to help individuals answer the question. The specific wording used was "Which of these can you do? Tick all that apply" with options for "Understand", "Speak", "Read" and "Write" in three columns: English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots. Of approximately 5.1 million respondents, about 1.2 million (24%) could speak, read and write Scots, 3.2 million (62%) had no skills in Scots and the remainder had some degree of skill, such as understanding Scots (0.27 million, 5.2%) or being able to speak it but not read or write it (0.18 million, 3.5%). There were also small numbers of Scots speakers recorded in England and Wales on the 2011 Census, with the largest numbers being either in bordering areas (e.g.

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

) or in areas that had recruited large numbers of Scottish workers in the past (e.g.

Corby Corby is a town in North Northamptonshire, England, located north-east of Northampton. From 1974 to 2021, the town served as the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Corby. At the 2011 Census, the built-up area had a population of 5 ...

or the former mining areas of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Literature

Among the earliest Scots literature is John Barbour's ''Brus'' (fourteenth century),

Wyntoun Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun (), was a Scottish poet, a Canon (priest), canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and, later, a canon of St. Andrews. Andrew Wyntoun is most famous for his completion of an eight-syllabled met ...

's ''Cronykil'' and

Blind Harry Blind Harry ( 1440 – 1492), also known as Harry, Hary or Henry the Minstrel, is renowned as the author of ''The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace'', more commonly known as '' The Wallace''. This wa ...

's '' The Wallace'' (fifteenth century). From the fifteenth century, much literature based on the Royal Court in Edinburgh and the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

was produced by writers such as

Robert Henryson Robert Henryson (Middle Scots: Robert Henrysoun) was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots ''makars'', he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renai ...

and

David Lyndsay Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount (c. 1490 – c. 1555; ''alias'' Lindsay) was a Scottish herald who gained the highest heraldic office of Lyon King of Arms. He remains a well regarded poet whose works reflect the spirit of the Renaissance, spec ...

. ''

The Complaynt of Scotland ''The Complaynt of Scotland'' is a Scottish book printed in 1549 as propaganda during the war of the Rough Wooing against the Kingdom of England, and is an important work of the Scots language. Context and authorship The book was part of the wa ...

'' was an early printed work in Scots. The ''

Eneados The ''Eneados'' is a translation into Middle Scots of Virgil's Latin ''Aeneid'', completed by the poet and clergyman Gavin Douglas in 1513. Description The title of Gavin Douglas' translation "Eneados" is given in the heading of a manuscript at C ...

'' is a

Middle Scots Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually ...

translation of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'', completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. After the seventeenth century, anglicisation increased. At the time, many of the oral

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

s from the

borders A border is a geographical boundary. Border, borders, The Border or The Borders may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Border'' (1997 film), an Indian Hindi-language war film * ''Border'' (2018 Swedish film), ...

and the North East were written down. Writers of the period were

Robert Sempill Robert Sempill (the elder) (c. 1530–1595), in all probability a cadet of illegitimate birth of the noble house of Sempill or Semple, was a Scottish ballad-writer and satirist. Very little is known of Sempill's life. He was probably a soldi ...

Robert Sempill the younger Robert Sempill, the younger (1595?–1663?), Scottish poet, son of James Sempill, was educated at the University of Glasgow, having matriculated in March 1613. During the Civil War he fought for the Stuarts, and seems to have suffered heavy ...

, Francis Sempill, Lady Wardlaw and

Lady Grizel Baillie Lady Grizel Baillie, ''née'' Hume, (25 December 1665 – 6 December 1746) was a Scottish gentlewoman and songwriter. Her accounting ledgers, in which she kept details about her household for more than 50 years, provide information about soci ...

. In the eighteenth century, writers such as Allan Ramsay,

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

, James Orr,

Robert Fergusson Robert Fergusson (5 September 1750 – 16 October 1774) was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson led a bohemian life in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and c ...

and

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

continued to use Scots – Burns's " Auld Lang Syne" is in Scots, for example. Scott introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels. Other well-known authors like

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

, William Alexander,

George MacDonald George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. I ...

J. M. Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, (; 9 May 1860 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several succ ...

and other members of the

Kailyard school The Kailyard school (1880–1914) is a proposed literary movement of Scottish fiction dating from the last decades of the 19th century. Origin and etymology It was first given the name in an article published April 1895 in the ''New Review'' by ...

Ian Maclaren John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. Life The son of John Watson, a civil servant, he was born in Manningtre ...

also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular, often of unprecedented proportions. In the early twentieth century, a

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid (), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Rena ...

whose benchmark poem "

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle ''A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle'' is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness genres of writing. A poem of extremes, it ranges be ...

" (1926) did much to demonstrate the power of Scots as a modern idiom. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young,

John Buchan John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. After a brief legal career ...

Sydney Goodsir Smith Sydney Goodsir Smith (26 October 1915 – 15 January 1975) was a New Zealand-born Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots often referred to as Lallans (Lowlands dialect), and was a major figure of the Sc ...

Robert Garioch Robert Garioch Sutherland (9 May 1909 – 26 April 1981) was a Scottish poet and translator. His poetry was written almost exclusively in the Scots language, he was a key member in the literary revival of the language in the mid-20th century ...

Edith Anne Robertson Edith Anne Robertson (10 Jan 1883 – 31 Jan 1973) was a Scottish poet who wrote in both the English and Scots tongues. Biography Edith Anne Stewart was born in Glasgow, to Jane Louisa Faulds and Robert Stewart, a civil engineer. She attende ...

and

Robert McLellan Robert McLellan OBE (1907–1985) was a Scottish renaissance dramatist, writer and poet and a leading figure in the twentieth century movement to recover Scotland’s distinctive theatrical traditions. He found popular success with plays and ...

. The revival extended to verse and other literature. In 1955, three

Ayrshire Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...

men – Sandy MacMillan, an English teacher at

Ayr Academy Ayr Academy (Scottish Gaelic: ''Acadamaidh Inbhir Àir'') is a non-denominational secondary school situated within the Craigie Estate area at University Avenue in Ayr, South Ayrshire. It is a comprehensive school for children of ages 11–18 fro ...

; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain of

Ayr Ayr (; sco, Ayr; gd, Inbhir Àir, "Mouth of the River Ayr") is a town situated on the southwest coast of Scotland. It is the administrative centre of the South Ayrshire Subdivisions of Scotland, council area and the historic Shires of Scotlan ...

; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to write ("Child Songs"), a collection of children's

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...

s and poems in Scots. The book contains a five-page glossary of contemporary Scots words and their pronunciations. Alexander Gray's translations into Scots constitute the greater part of his work, and are the main basis for his reputation. In 1983, William Laughton Lorimer's translation of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

from the original Greek was published. Scots is sometimes used in contemporary fiction, such as the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in '' Trainspotting'' by

Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. His 1993 novel '' Trainspotting'' was made into a film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short fil ...

(later made into a motion picture of the same name). '' But'n'Ben A-Go-Go'' by

Matthew Fitt Matthew Fitt (born 1968) is a Scots poet and novelist. He was writer-in-residence at Greater Pollok in Glasgow, then National Scots Language Development Officer. He has translated several literary works into Scots. Early life Fitt was born in 19 ...

is a

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyber ...

novel written entirely in what ("Our Own Language") calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative

s. The ''

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (') attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". Altho ...

'' has been translated into Scots by

Rab Wilson Rab Wilson (born 1 September 1960, in New Cumnock, Ayrshire) is a Scottish poet who writes mainly in the Scots language. His works include a Scots translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the poetry books ''Accent o the Mind'', ''Life Sent ...

(published in 2004). Alexander Hutchison has translated the poetry of

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

into Scots, and in the 1980s,

Liz Lochhead Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE (born 26 December 1947) is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011. E ...

produced a Scots translation of ''

Tartuffe ''Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite'' (; french: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, ), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical thea ...

'' by

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

J. K. Annand James King Annand MBE (2 February 1908 – 8 June 1993) was a Scottish poet best known for his children's poems. Biography Born at Edinburgh to Maggie Gold and her husband, plumber William Annand, He was educated at Broughton Secondary ...

translated poetry and fiction from German and

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

into Scots. The strip cartoons ''

Oor Wullie ''Oor Wullie'' ( en, Our Willie) is a Scottish comic strip published in the D.C. Thomson newspaper ''The Sunday Post''. It features a character called Wullie; Wullie is the familiar Scots nickname for boys named William, equivalent to Willie. ...

'' and ''

The Broons ''The Broons'' (English: The Browns) is a comic strip in Scots published in the weekly Scottish newspaper ''The Sunday Post''. It features the Brown family, who live in a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street in (since the late 1990s) the fictiona ...

'' in the ''

Sunday Post ''The Sunday Post'' is a weekly newspaper published in Dundee, Scotland, by DC Thomson, and characterised by a mix of news, human interest stories and short features. The paper was founded in 1914 and has a wide circulation across Scotland, N ...

'' use some Scots. In 2018, ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stane'', a Scots translation of the first

book, ''

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' is a 1997 fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers hi ...

'', was published by

. In 2020, the Scots Wikipedia received attention after a

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

post criticised it for containing a large number of articles written in very low-quality Scots by a single prolific contributor who was not a native speaker of Scots.

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel system of Modern Scots:

Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...

is usually conditioned by the

Scottish vowel length rule The Scottish Vowel Length Rule (also known as Aitken's law after A. J. Aitken, the Scottish linguist who formulated it) describes how vowel length in Scots, Scottish English, and, to some extent, Ulster English and Geordie is conditioned by th ...

Consonants

Orthography

The

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century. After the

Union of the Crowns The Union of the Crowns ( gd, Aonadh nan Crùintean; sco, Union o the Crouns) was the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of the Kingdom of England as James I and the practical unification of some functions (such as overseas dip ...

in 1603, the

Standard English In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...

of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After the Acts of Union in 1707 the emerging Scottish form of Standard English replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland. The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new

literary language A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken langu ...

descended from the old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended. These writings also introduced what came to be known as the

apologetic apostrophe The 'apologetic'Graham W. (1977) The Scots Word Book, The Ramsay Head Press, Edinburgh, p.11 or parochial apostrophe is the distinctive use of apostrophes in Modern Scots orthography. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant exi ...

, generally occurring where a

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

exists in the Standard English

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...

. This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

, and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of Augustan English poetry. Consequently, this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries. This modern literary dialect, "Scots of the book" or Standard Scots, once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author". This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster, embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott,

Charles Murray Charles Murray may refer to: Politicians *Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore (1661–1710), British peer *Charles Murray (author and diplomat) (1806–1895), British author and diplomat *Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore (1841–1907), Scotti ...

David Herbison David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

, James Orr,

James Hogg James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many ...

and William Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921 ''Manual of Modern Scots''. Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in a more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots, especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots. During the twentieth century, a number of proposals for spelling reform were presented. Commenting on this, John Corbett (2003: 260) writes that "devising a normative orthography for Scots has been one of the greatest linguistic hobbies of the past century". Most proposals entailed regularising the use of established eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conventions, in particular, the avoidance of the

, which represented letters that were perceived to be missing when compared to the corresponding English cognates but were never actually present in the Scots word. For example, in the fourteenth century, Barbour spelt the Scots

of "taken" as . It is argued that, because there has been no ''k'' in the word for over 700 years, representing its omission with an apostrophe is of little value. The current spelling is usually . Through the twentieth century, with the decline of spoken Scots and knowledge of the literary tradition, phonetic (often humorous) representations became more common.

Grammar

Modern Scots follows the subject–verb–object sentence structure like

. However, the word order (''Give us it'') vs. "Give it to me" may be preferred. The

indefinite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...

''a'' may be used before both consonants and vowels. The

definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...

''the'' is used before the names of seasons, days of the week, many nouns, diseases, trades and occupations, sciences and academic subjects. It is also often used in place of the indefinite article and instead of a

possessive pronoun A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession (linguistics), possessio ...

. Scots includes some strong

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

s such as ("eye/eyes"), ("calf/calves"), ("horse/horses"), ("cow/cows") and ("shoe/shoes") that survived from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

into Modern Scots, but have become weak plurals in Standard Modern English – ''ox''/''oxen'' and ''child''/''children'' being exceptions.

Noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

s of measure and quantity remain unchanged in the plural. The

relative pronoun A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the ...

is ''that'' for all persons and numbers, but may be

elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

. Modern Scots also has a third adjective/adverb ''this''-''that''-''yon''/''yonder'' () indicating something at some distance. and are the plurals of ''this'' and ''that'' respectively. The

present tense The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

s adheres to the

Northern subject rule The Northern Subject Rule is a grammatical pattern that occurs in Northern English and Scots dialects. Present-tense verbs may take the verbal ‑''s'' suffix, except when they are directly adjacent to one of the personal pronouns ''I'', ''you'' ...

whereby verbs end in -''s'' in all persons and numbers except when a single personal pronoun is next to the verb. Certain verbs are often used progressively and verbs of motion may be dropped before an adverb or

adverbial phrase In linguistics, an ''adverbial phrase'' ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Adverbial phrases can be divi ...

of motion. Many verbs have strong or irregular forms which are distinctive from Standard English. The regular past form of the weak or regular verbs is ''-it'', ''-t'' or ''-ed'', according to the preceding consonant or vowel. The

present participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

and

gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...

''in'' are now usually but may still be differentiated and in Southern Scots, and and in Northern Scots. The negative particle is , sometimes spelled , e.g. ("can't"), ("daren't"), ("mightn't").

Adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...

s usually take the same form as the verb root or

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...

, especially after verbs. Examples include ("Having a really good day") and ("She's awfully tired").

Sample text of Modern Scots

From ''The Four Gospels in Braid Scots'' (William Wye Smith): From ''The New Testament in Scots'' (William Laughton Lorimer, 1885–1967)

References

External links

Scots-online

The Scots Language Society

Scots Language Centre

a phonetic description of Scottish Language and Dialects
at

Dictionary of the Scots Language The ''Dictionary of the Scots Language'' (DSL) ( sco, Dictionar o the Scots Leid, gd, Faclair de Chànan na Albais) is an online Scots-English dictionary, now run by Dictionaries of the Scots Language, formerly known as Scottish Language Dicti ...

''Words Without Borders'' Peter Constantine: Scots: The Auld an Nobill Tung

Scots in Schools

Dictionaries and linguistic information

The Dictionary of the Scots Language

Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd.

Dialect Map

Scottish words – illustrated

Collections of texts

ScotsteXt
– books, poems and texts in Scots
Scots Threap

Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech
–

Multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

corpus Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...

of Scots and

Scottish English Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...

BBC Voices, Scots section
– The BBC Voices Project is a major, though informal, look at UK language and speech
Scots Syntax Atlas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scots Language Languages of Ireland Subject–verb–object languages Languages of Scotland Languages of the United Kingdom Languages of Northern Ireland

Nomenclature

Etymology

History

Decline in status

Language revitalisation

Education

Government

Media

Geographic distribution

Literature

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Orthography

Grammar

Sample text of Modern Scots

See also

References

External links

Dictionaries and linguistic information

Collections of texts