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Scots ( endonym: ''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 Dialect continuum, language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, register (sociolinguistics), registers, style (sociolinguistics), style ...
in the West Germanic language family, spoken in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
and parts of Ulster 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 linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
is known as Ulster Scots). Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands,
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 ...
, the Goidelic
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
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 Hebr ...
and Galloway 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 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
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, 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
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 linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to English. 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, with Scottish Standard English 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.


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


History

Northumbrian Old English 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 t ...
by the seventh century, as the region was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Middle Irish 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 ...
spoken in southeastern Scotland is also known as Early Scots. It began to further diverge from the Middle English of Northumbria due to twelfth and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English-speakers from the North and Midlands of England. Later influences on the development of Scots came from the Romance languages via ecclesiastical and legal
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, Norman French, and later Parisian French, due to the
Auld Alliance The Auld Alliance ( Scots for "Old Alliance"; ; ) is an alliance made in 1295 between the kingdoms of Scotland and France against England. The Scots word ''auld'', meaning ''old'', has become a partly affectionate term for the long-lasting a ...
. Additionally, there were
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
and Middle Low German influences due to trade with and immigration from the
Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
. Scots also includes loan words in the legal and administrative fields resulting from contact with Middle Irish, and reflected in early medieval legal documents. Contemporary
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 ...
loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as '' cèilidh'', '' loch'', ''
whisky Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Various grains (which may be malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden ca ...
'', '' glen'' and '' clan''. Cumbric and
Pictish Pictish is the extinct Brittonic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographica ...
, the medieval Brittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are the suspected source of a small number of Scots words, such as ''lum'' (derived from Cumbric) meaning "chimney". From the thirteenth century, the Early Scots language spread further into Scotland via the burghs, which were proto-urban institutions first established by King
David I David I may refer to: * David I, Caucasian Albanian Catholicos c. 399 * David I of Armenia, Catholicos of Armenia (728–741) * David I Kuropalates of Georgia (died 881) * David I Anhoghin, king of Lori (ruled 989–1048) * David I of Scotland ...
. In fourteenth century Scotland, the growth in prestige of Early Scots and the complementary decline of French made Scots the prestige dialect of most of eastern Scotland. By the sixteenth century,
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 ...
had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England. From 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster, some 200,000 Scots-speaking Lowlanders settled as colonists in Ulster in Ireland.Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 572 In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one. The name
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 used to describe the Scots language after 1700. Scots was studied alongside English and Scots Gaelic in the '' Linguistic Survey of Scotland'' at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
, which began in 1949 and began to publish results in the 1970s. Also beginning in the 1970s, the '' Atlas Linguarum Europae'' studied the Scots language used at 15 sites in Scotland, each with its own dialect.


Language shift

From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When William Flower, an English herald, spoke to Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, they first used the . When he was , they switched into her native French. King James VI, who in 1603 became James I of England, observed in his work '' Some Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie'' that (''For though several have written of ''(the subject)'' in English, which is the language most similar to ours...''). However, with the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England, most writing in Scotland came to be done in the English fashion. In his first speech to the English Parliament in March 1603, King James VI and I declared, . Following James VI's move to London, the
Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
Church of Scotland adopted the 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible; subsequently, the Acts of Union 1707 led to Scotland joining England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, having a single Parliament of Great Britain based in London. After the Union and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education, as was the notion of "Scottishness" itself. Many leading Scots of the period, such as David Hume, defined themselves as Northern British rather than Scottish. They attempted to rid themselves of their Scots in a bid to establish standard English as the official language of the newly formed union. Nevertheless, Scots was still spoken across a wide range of domains until the end of the eighteenth century. Frederick Pottle, the twentieth-century biographer of James Boswell (1740–1795), described James's view of the use of Scots by his father Alexander Boswell (1706–1782) in the eighteenth century while serving as a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland: However, others did scorn Scots, such as Scottish Enlightenment intellectuals David Hume and Adam Smith, who went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings. Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through the activities of those such as Thomas Sheridan, who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution. Charging a guinea at a time (about £ in today's money), they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made a
freeman Freeman, free men, or variant, may refer to: * a member of the Third Estate in medieval society (commoners), see estates of the realm * Freeman, an apprentice who has been granted freedom of the company, was a rank within Livery companies * Free ...
of the City of
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
. Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed the Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. These eighteenth-century activities would lead to the creation of Scottish Standard English. Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of Scots as a
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 langua ...
was revived by several prominent Scotsmen such as
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 ...
. Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm. Scots terms were included in the English Dialect Dictionary, 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 ...
's language policy 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, 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 opposi ...
. 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 percei ...
, 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 ...
or merger. By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of language death 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 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, 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 sister language forming a pluricentric
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 Scottish Standard English. 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. 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. 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 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 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 series such as '' The Gruffalo'', '' Harry Potter'' and several by Roald Dahl and David Walliams. In 2021, the music streaming service Spotify created a Scots language listing.


Geographic distribution

In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, the
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 ...
, Caithness, Arran and Campbeltown. In Ulster, the northern
province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
in
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 ...
, its area is usually defined through the works of Robert John Gregg 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 (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-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. Dialects of Scots include Insular Scots, Northern Scots,
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 Sco ...
,
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 Ed ...
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 (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 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 University of Aberdeen 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 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) 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 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census, the built-up ...
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'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 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 ...
,
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 ...
,
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 ...
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, speci ...
. ''
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's '' Aeneid'', completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. After the seventeenth century, anglicisation increased. At the time, many of the oral ballads 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 younger, 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 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, William Alexander, George MacDonald,
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 like Ian Maclaren also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the Victorian era 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 The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid whose benchmark poem " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" (1926) did much to demonstrate the power of Scots as a modern idiom. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young, John Buchan,
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 S ...
, Robert Garioch, Edith Anne Robertson and Robert McLellan. The revival extended to verse and other literature. In 1955, three Ayrshire 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 from ...
; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain of Ayr; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to write ("Child Songs"), a collection of children's nursery rhymes 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 Chri ...
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 is a cyberpunk novel written entirely in what ("Our Own Language") calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative
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 ...
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 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 worl ...
. J. K. Annand 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 functione ...
into Scots. The strip cartoons '' Oor Wullie'' 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 Harry Potter 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 (character), Harry Potter, a youn ...
'', was published by Matthew Fitt. In 2020, the Scots Wikipedia received attention after a Reddit 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, ...
is usually conditioned by the Scottish vowel length rule.


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 ...
of Early Scots had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century. After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, the Standard English 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 langua ...
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, 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 wi ...
exists in the Standard English cognate. This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the King James Bible, 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, David Herbison, 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 apologetic apostrophe, 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 cognate 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 Standard English. However, the word order (''Give us it'') vs. "Give it to me" may be preferred. The indefinite article ''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)" a ...
''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. 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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...
into Modern Scots, but have become weak plurals in Standard Modern English – ''ox''/''oxen'' and ''child''/''children'' being exceptions. Nouns 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 r ...
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 of verbs 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 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 and gerund ''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"). Adverbs usually take the same form as the verb root or adjective, 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)


See also

*
Bungi Creole Bungi (also called Bungee, Bungie, Bungay, Bangay, or the Red River Dialect) is a dialect of English with substratal influence from Scottish English, the Orcadian dialect of Scots, Norn, Scottish Gaelic, French, Cree, and Ojibwe (Saulteaux). ...
of the Canadian Metis people of Scottish/British descent *
Doric dialect (Scotland) Doric, the popular name for Mid Northern Scots or Northeast Scots, refers to the Scots language as spoken in the northeast of Scotland. There is an extensive body of literature, mostly poetry, ballads, and songs, written in Doric. In some liter ...
* Glasgow patter * Billy Kay * Languages of the United Kingdom * Phonological history of Scots * Scotticism *
Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech (SCOTS) is an ongoing project to build a corpus of modern-day (post-1940) written and spoken texts in Scottish English and varieties of Scots. SCOTS has been available online since November 2004, and can ...
*
Scottish literature Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes works in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin, Norn or other languages written within the modern boundaries of Scotland. The earli ...


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
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