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Middle Scots was theAnglic language ofLowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, itsphonology,orthography,accidence,syntax andvocabulary had diverged markedly fromEarly Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from earlyNorthumbrian Middle English. Subsequently, the orthography of Middle Scots differed from that of the emergingEarly Modern English standard that was being used inEngland. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers.

The now establishedStewart identification with the lowland language had finally secured the division of Scotland into two parts, theGaelicHighlands and theAnglicLowlands. The adherence of many Highlanders to theCatholic faith during theReformation led to the 1609Statutes of Iona forcingclan chiefs to establishProtestant churches, send their sons to Lowland schools and withdraw their patronage from the hereditary guardians of Gaelic culture – thebards.^{[citation needed]} This was followed in1616 by an act establishing parish schools in the Highlands with the aim of extirpating theGaelic language.^{[citation needed]}

The Danish dependency ofOrkney andShetland had been held by Scottishmagnates from the late 14th century. These had introduced the Lowland tongue which then began to replaceNorn.^{[citation needed]} In 1467 the islands became part of Scotland.

By the early 16th century the nameScottis (previously used to describeGaelic in Ireland as well as Scotland) had been adopted for what had become the national language of theStewart kingdom.^{[citation needed]} The termErse (Irish) was used instead for Gaelic, whileInglis (which previously referred to their own language) was increasingly used to refer only to the language south of the border. The first known instance of this shift in terminology was by an unknown man in 1494.^[1][2] In 1559, William Nudrye was granted a monopoly by the court to produce school textbooks, with two of the titles listed asAne Schort Introduction: Elementary Digestit into Sevin Breve Tables for the Commodius Expeditioun of Thame That are Desirous to Read and Write the Scottis Toung andAne Intructioun for Bairnis to be Learnit in Scottis and Latin, but there is no evidence that the books were ever printed.^[3]

From 1610 to the 1690s, during thePlantation of Ulster, some 200,000 Scots settled in the north of Ireland, taking what were to become theUlster Scots dialects with them.^{[citation needed]}

Later in the period southern influence on the language increased, owing to the new political and social relations with England prior to and following the accession ofJames VI to the English throne. By the time of theUnion of Parliaments in 1707 southernModern English was generally adopted as the literary language thoughModern Scots remained the vernacular.^[4]

On the whole Middle Scots scribes never managed to establish a singlestandardised spelling for every word, but operated a system of free variation based on a number of spelling variants. Some scribes used their own variants, but this was relatively rare. The least variation occurred in the later 16th century as printers moved towards fixedspellings. Use of Middle Scots spelling variants ended in the 17th century when printers began to adopt imported English conventions.

Middle Scots used a number of now obsolete letters and lettercombinations:^[5]

• þ (thorn) was equivalent to the modernth as inthae. þ was often indistinguishable from the lettery and often written so.
• ȝ (yogh) innȝ was/ɲ/ as in the FrenchBretagne. It later changed to/ŋ/ or/nj/ leading to the modern spellings withz andy as inMenzies/ˈmɪŋʌs/ andCunyie/ˈkʌnjiː/.
• ȝ (yogh) in initial position was/j/ as inȝear 'year'.
• quh[xw] was equivalent to the modernwh.
• sch was equivalent to the modernsh.
• A ligature oflong s and short s (ſs, italicſs), similar to Germanß, is sometimes used fors (with variant readings likesis). Encoded inUnicode asU+A7D6 ꟖLATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE SCOTS S andU+A7D7 ꟗLATIN SMALL LETTER MIDDLE SCOTS S, because the character for Germanß can also be a ligature of long s and z whereas the Middle Scots ligature cannot.
• Theinitialff was a stylised singlef.
• Theinflection -ys, -is was realised/ɪz/ after sibilate and affricate consonants and other voiced consonants, and/ɪs/ after other voiceless consonants,^[6] later contracted to/z/ and/s/ as in Modern Scots -s. The spelling -ys or -is also occurred in other words such asInglis[ˈɪŋlɪs] andScottis[ˈskotɪs] . The older Scots spelling surviving in place names such asFowlis[fʌulz],Glamis[ɡlɑːmz] andWemyss[wimz].
• d after ann was often (and still is) silent i.e.barrand is[ˈbarən] = barren.
• i andj were often interchanged.
• h was often silent.
• l aftera ando had becomevocalised and remained in use as an orthographic device to indicatevowel length. Hence the place namesBalmalcolm/ˈbɑːməkoːm/,Falkirk/ˈfɑːkɪrk/,Kirkcaldy/kərˈkɑːdi/,Culross/ˈkuːrəs/ andCulter/ˈkuːtər/.
• i after a vowel was also used to denote vowel length, e.g.ai/aː/,ei/eː/oi/oː/ andui/øː/.
• u,v andw were often interchanged.
• After -ch and -th, some scribes affixed apleonastic final-t (-cht, -tht); this was unpronounced.
• The wordane represented the numeralane as well as the indefinitearticlean anda, and was pronounced similar toModern Scots usage. For example,Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis was pronounceda sateer o the three estates.
• The verbal noun (gerund)-yng (-ing) differentiated itself from the presentparticiple-and/ən/,^[7] in Middle Scots, for exampletechynge, cryand and bydand—-the motto of theGordon Highlanders. Both the verbal noun and present participle had generally merged to/ən/ by 1700.^[8]

The development of Middle Scots vowels:^[9]

TheScottish Vowel Length Rule is assumed to have come into fruition between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots period. Herevowel length is conditioned byphonetic andmorphemic environment. The affected vowels tended to be realised fully long in end-stressedsyllables before voiced oralcontinuants except/l/, inhiatus, before word or morpheme boundaries and before/rd/ and/dʒ/.

The major differences to contemporary southern English were the now well established early merger of/ei/ with/e/ (dey 'die',ley 'lie'), early 15th centuryl-vocalisation where/al/ (except intervocalically and before/d/),/ol/ and usually/ul/ merged with/au/,/ou/ and/uː/, medial and final/v/ was lost (deil 'devil',ser 'serve').TheGreat Vowel Shift occurred partially,/u/ and/øː/ remained unaffected,/ɔː/ became/oː/,/iː,eː,ɛː/ and/aː/ became/ɛi,iː,eː/ and/ɛː/.

This is an excerpt from Nicol Burne's anti-reformation pamphletOf the praying in Latine (1581):

Thair be tua kynd of prayeris in the kirk, the ane is priuat, quhilk euerie man sayis be him self, the vthir is publik, quhilk the preistis sayis in the name of the hail kirk. As to the priuate prayeris, na Catholik denyis bot it is verie expedient that euerie man pray in his auin toung, to the end he vndirstand that quhilk he sayis, and that thairbie the interior prayer of the hairt may be the mair valkinnit, and conseruit the bettir; and gif, onie man pray in ane vther toung, it is also expedient that he vnderstand the mening of the vordis at the lest. For the quhilk caus in the catholik kirk the parentis or godfatheris ar obleist to learne thame quhom thay hald in baptisme the formes of prayeris and beleif, and instruct thame sufficiently thairin, sua that thay vndirstand the same: Albeit the principal thing quhilk God requiris is the hairt, that suppois he quha prayis vndirstand nocht perfytlie the vordis quhilk he spekis, yit God quha lukis in the hairt, vill nocht lat his prayer be in vane. As to the publik prayeris of the kirk, it is not necessar that the pepill vndirstand thame, becaus it is nocht the pepill quha prayis, bot the preistis in the name of the hail kirk, and it is aneuche that thay assist be deuotione liftand vp thair myndis to God or saying thair auin priuate oraisonis, and that be thair deuotione thay may be maid participant of the kirk. As in the synagogue of the Ieuis, the peopill kneu not quhat all thay cerimonies signifeit, quhilk vas keipit be the preistis and vtheris in offering of thair sacrifices and vther vorshipping of god, and yit thay did assist vnto thame; ye, sum of the preistis thame selfis miskneu the significatione of thir cerimoneis Than gif it vas aneuche to the pepill to vndirstand that in sik ane sacrifice consisted the vorshipping of God, suppois thay had not sua cleir ane vndirstanding of euerie thing that vas done thairin, sua in the catholik kirk, quhen the people assistis to the sacrifice of the Mess, thay acknaulege that thairbie God is vorshippit, and that it is institute for the remembrance of Christis death and passione. Albeit thay vndirstand nocht the Latine toung, yit thay ar not destitut of the vtilitie and fruit thairof. And it is nocht vithout greit caus that as in the inscrptione and titil quhilk pilat fixed vpone the croce of Christ Iesus thir thre toungis var vritt in, Latine, Greik, and Hebreu, sua in the sacrifice and the publik prayeris of the kirk thay ar cheiflie retenit for the conseruatione of vnitie in the kirk and nationis amang thame selfis; for, gif al thingis var turnit in the propir langage of euerie cuntrey, na man vald studie to the Latine toung, and thairbie al communicatione amangis Christiane pepil vald schortlie be tane auay, and thairbie eftir greit barbaritie inseu. Mairatour sik publique prayeris and seruice ar keipit mair perfytlie in thair auin integritie vithout al corruptione; for gif ane natione vald eik or pair onie thing, that vald be incontinent remarkt and reprouit be vther nationis, quhilk culd not be, gif euerie natione had al thai thingis turnit in the auin propir langage; as ye may se be experience, gif ye vald confer the prayeris of your deformit kirkis, togidder vith the innumerabil translationis of the psalmes, quihlk ar chaingit according to euerie langage in the quhilk thay ar turnit. It is not than vithout greit caus, and ane special instinctione of the halie Ghaist, that thir toungis foirspokin hes bene, as thay vil be retenit to the end of the varld. And quhen the Ieuis sall imbrace the Euangel than sall the sacrifice and other publik prayeris be in the Hebreu toung, according to that quhilk I said befoir, that on the Croce of Christ thai thrie toungis onlie var vrittin, to signifie that the kirk of Christ suld vse thay thre toungis cheiflie in his vorshipping, as the neu and auld testament ar in thir thre toungis in greitast authoritie amangis al pepill.^[10]

• History of the Scots language
• Phonological history of the Scots language
• Dictionary of the Scots Language

• A History of Scots to 1700 in A Dictionary of Older Scots Vol. 12. Oxford University Press 2002.
• Aitken, A.J. (1977)How to Pronounce Older Scots in Bards and Makars. Glasgow, Glasgow University Press.
• Jones C. (ed) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh Press.ISBN 0-7486-0754-4

• Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd
• The Palaeography of Scottish Documents 1500 - 1750
• Reading Older Scots
• Teaching Package
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