This article is about the distinct West Germanic language. For the dialects of English spoken in Scotland, seeScottish English. For the Celtic language, seeScottish Gaelic.
Given that there are no universally acceptedcriteria for distinguishing a language from adialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about whether Scots is a dialect ofEnglish or a separate language.[13]
Nomenclature
Native speakers sometimes refer to theirvernacular asbraid Scots (or "broad Scots" in English)[14] or use a dialect name such as the "Doric"[15] or the "Buchan Claik".[16] The old-fashionedScotch, an English loan,[17] occurs occasionally, especially in Ulster.[18][19] The termLallans, a variant of theModern Scots wordlawlands[ˈlo̜ːlən(d)z,ˈlɑːlənz],[20] is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallansliterary form.[21] Scots in Ireland is known in official circles asUlster-Scots (Ulstèr-Scotch in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recentneologism merging Ulster and Lallans.[22]
Etymology
Scots is a contraction ofScottis, theOlder Scots[14] and northern version of lateOld English:Scottisc (modern English "Scottish"), which replaced the earlieri-mutated versionScyttisc.[23][24] Before the end of the fifteenth century, English speech in Scotland was known as "English" (writtenYnglis orInglis at the time), whereas "Scottish" (Scottis) referred toGaelic.[25] 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 termScottis was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular[13]: 894 andErse, meaning "Irish", was used as a name for Gaelic. For example, towards the end of the fifteenth century,William Dunbar was usingErse to refer to Gaelic and, in the early sixteenth century,Gavin Douglas was usingScottis as a name for the Lowland vernacular.[26][27] The Gaelic of Scotland is now usually calledScottish Gaelic.
Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as theRiver Forth by the seventh century, as the region was part of theAnglo-Saxon kingdom ofNorthumbria.[31] Some historians have traditionally argued that the regions later known asLothian and theScottish Borders became attached to theKingdom of Scotland in the tenth and early eleventh centuries,[32][33] but this is no longer accepted and the takeover that does take place is not fully evident until the twelfth century and probably incomplete until at least the thirteenth century.[34][35] The common use of English remained largely confined to Lothian and the Borders until the thirteenth century, where the local varieties were reshaped in response to migration from theScandinavian-influencedNorth andMidlands of England that came with the foundation of the firstburghs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.[36] The Scots language scholarRobert McColl Millar framed Early Scots as akoine of the varieties of English spoken inBernicia and theDanelaw that had been brought to the new burghs.[37]
Later influences on the development of Scots came from theRomance languages viaecclesiastical and legalLatin,Norman French,[31]: lxiii–lxv and laterParisian French, due to theAuld Alliance. Additionally, there wereDutch andMiddle Low German influences due to trade with and immigration from theLow Countries.[31]: lxiii Scots also includes loan words in the legal and administrative fields resulting from contact withMiddle Irish, and reflected in early medieval legal documents.[31]: lxi ContemporaryScottish Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such ascèilidh,loch,whisky,glen andclan.Cumbric andPictish, the medievalBrittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are the suspected source of a small number of Scots words, such aslum (derived from Cumbric) meaning "chimney".[38] From the thirteenth century, theEarly Scots language spread further into Scotland via theburghs, which were proto-urban institutions first established by KingDavid I. In fourteenth-century Scotland, the growth in prestige of Early Scots and the complementary decline of French made Scots theprestige dialect of most of eastern Scotland. By the sixteenth century,Middle Scots had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England.[39]
From 1610 to the 1690s during thePlantation of Ulster, some 200,000 Scots-speaking Lowlanders settled as colonists in Ulster in Ireland.[40][full citation needed] In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.[41][full citation needed]
A seminal study of Scots was undertaken byJAH Murray and published asDialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland.[42] Murray's results were given further publicity by being included inAlexander John Ellis's bookOn Early English Pronunciation, Part V alongside results from Orkney and Shetland, as well as the whole of England. Murray and Ellis differed slightly on the border between English and Scots dialects.[43]
Scots was studied alongside English and Scots Gaelic in theLinguistic Survey of Scotland at theUniversity of Edinburgh, which began in 1949 and began to publish results in the 1970s.[44] Also beginning in the 1970s, theAtlas Linguarum Europae studied the Scots language used at 15 sites in Scotland, each with its own dialect.[45] As of November 2022, Scots is represented on the Scientific Committee of the Atlas Linguarum Europae by David Clement of theUniversity of Glasgow.[46]
Language shift
From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots was increasingly influenced by the developingStandard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England.[39]: 10 WhenWilliam Flower, anEnglish herald, spoke withMary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, they first used the"Scottyshe toung". As he found this hard to understand, they switched into her native French.[47] KingJames VI, who in 1603 becameJames I of England, observed in his workSome Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie that"For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk is lykest to our language..." (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.[39]: 11 In his first speech to theEnglish Parliament in March 1603, King James VI and I declared,"Hath not God first united these two Kingdomes both in Language, Religion, and similitude of maners?".[48] Following James VI's move to London, theProtestantChurch of Scotland adopted the 1611Authorized King James Version of the Bible; subsequently, theActs of Union 1707 led to Scotland joining England to form theKingdom of Great Britain, having a singleParliament 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.[49] Many leading Scots of the period, such asDavid Hume, defined themselves asNorthern British rather than Scottish.[49]: 2 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.[39]: 11 Frederick Pottle, the twentieth-century biographer ofJames Boswell (1740–1795), described James's view of the use of Scots by his fatherAlexander Boswell (1706–1782)[when?] in the eighteenth century while serving as a judge of theSupreme Courts of Scotland:
He scorned modern literature, spoke broad Scots from the bench, and even in writing took no pains to avoid the Scotticisms which most of his colleagues were coming to regard as vulgar.
However, others did scorn Scots, such asScottish Enlightenment intellectuals David Hume andAdam Smith, who went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings.[50] Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through the activities of those such asThomas Sheridan, who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on Englishelocution. Charging aguinea at a time (about £200 in today's money[51]), they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made afreeman of the City ofEdinburgh. 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 ofScottish Standard English.[39]: 13 Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots.[39]: 14
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of Scots as aliterary language was revived by several prominent Scotsmen[citation needed] such asRobert Burns. Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm.
Scots terms were included in theEnglish Dialect Dictionary, edited byJoseph Wright. 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.[52] Wright himself rejected the argument that Scots was a separate language, saying that this was a "quite modern mistake".[52]
During the first half of the twentieth century, knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary norms waned, and as of 2006[update], there is no institutionalised standard literary form.[53] By the 1940s, theScottish Education Department'slanguage 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".[54] Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process oflanguage 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 theSecond World War.[39]: 15 It has recently taken on the nature of wholesalelanguage shift, sometimes also termed languagechange,convergence ormerger. By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage oflanguage death over much ofLowland Scotland.[55] Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang.[56] A 2010Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards the Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in arepresentative 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%)".[57]
Decline in status
Lufe God abufe al and yi nychtbour as yi self ("Love God above all and thy neighbour as thyself"), an example ofEarly Scots, onJohn Knox House, Edinburgh
German linguistHeinz Kloss considered Modern Scots aHalbsprache ('half language') in terms of anabstand andausbau languages framework,[59] although today in Scotland most people's speech is somewhere on a continuum ranging from traditional broad Scots toScottish Standard English. Many speakers arediglossic and may be able tocode-switch 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 aDachsprache ('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.[60][61]
Notwithstanding the UK government's and the Scottish Executive's obligations under part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, the Scottish Executive recognises and respects Scots (in all its forms) as a distinct language, and does not consider the use of Scots to be an indication of poor competence in English.
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 originalParliament of Scotland.[63] Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after the Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English.
During the 2010s, increased interest was expressed in the language.
Education
The status of the language was raised in Scottish schools,[64] with Scots being included in the new national schoolcurriculum.[65] Previously in Scotland's schools there had been little education taking place through themedium 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.[66] 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.)",[67] whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation".[68]
A course in Scots language and culture delivered through the medium of Standard English and produced by theOpen University (OU) in Scotland, the Open University's School of Languages and Applied Linguistics as well asEducation Scotland became available online for the first time in December 2019.[69]
Government
In the2011 Scottish census, a question on Scots language ability was featured.[70] In the 2022 census conducted by theScottish Government, a question in relation to the Scots language was also featured.[71][72] It was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots,[73] approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. TheScottish 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.[70] The Scottish Parliament website also offers some information on the language in Scots.[74]
In June 2025 the Scottish Parliament passed theScottish Languages Act 2025 that made Scots an official language of Scotland, along withScots Gaelic and introduced educational standards for the language.[2]
Media
The serious use of the Scots language for news, encyclopaediae, documentaries, etc., remains rare. It is reportedly reserved for niches[clarification needed] where it is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy,Burns Night or traditions' representations.
Since 2016, the newspaperThe National has regularly published articles in the language.[79] The 2010s also saw an increasing number of English books translated in Scots and becoming widely available, particularly those in popularchildren's fiction series such asThe Gruffalo,Harry Potter,Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and several byRoald Dahl[80] andDavid Walliams.[81] In 2021, the music streaming serviceSpotify created a Scots language listing.[82]
The Ferret, aUK-based fact-checking service, wrote an exploratory article in December 2022 to address misconceptions about the Scots language to improve public awareness of its endangered status.[83][84]
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 the2001 UK National Census. The results from a 1996 trial before the Census, by theGeneral Register Office for Scotland (GRO),[87] 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?".[citation needed] It was also found that older, working-class people were more likely to answer in the affirmative. TheUniversity 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.[88]
The GRO questions, as freely acknowledged by those who set them, were not as detailed and systematic as those of theUniversity of Aberdeen, 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 "[a] 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.[60][89][90] The Scottish Government'sPupils in Scotland Census 2008[91] found that 306 pupils[clarification needed] spoke Scots as their main home language. AScottish 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.[57]
The2011 UK census was the first to ask residents of Scotland about Scots. A campaign calledAye Can was set up to help individuals answer the question.[92][93] 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.[94] 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%).[95] 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 or the former mining areas ofKent).[96] In the 2022 census conducted by theScottish Government, it was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots,[73] approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population.
In 1955, threeAyrshire men – Sandy MacMillan, an English teacher atAyr Academy; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain ofAyr; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to writeBairnsangs ("Child Songs"),[98] a collection of children'snursery 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.
^/t/ may be a glottal stop between vowels or word final.[103]: 501 In Ulster dentalised pronunciations may also occur, also for/d/.
^The cluster⟨nch⟩ is usually realised/nʃ/[56]: 500 e.g.brainch ("branch"),dunch ("push"), etc.
^In Northern dialects, the clusters⟨kn⟩ and⟨gn⟩ may be realised as/kn/,/tn/ and/ɡn/[56]: 501 e.g.knap ("talk"),knee,knowe ("knoll"), etc.
^Spelt⟨th⟩. In Mid Northern varieties an intervocalic/ð/ may be realised/d/.[56]: 506 Initial⟨th⟩ inthing,think andthank, etc. may be/h/.[103]: 507
^Both/s/ and/z/ may be spelt⟨s⟩ or⟨se⟩.⟨z⟩ is seldom used for/z/ but may occur in some words as a substitute for the older⟨ȝ⟩ (yogh) realised/jɪ/ or/ŋ/. For example:brulzie ("broil"),gaberlunzie (a beggar) and the namesMenzies,Finzean,Culzean,Mackenzie etc.
^abSpelt⟨ch⟩, also⟨gh⟩. Medial⟨cht⟩ may be/ð/ in Northern dialects.loch ("fjord" or "lake"),nicht ("night"),dochter ("daughter"),dreich ("dreary"), etc. Similar to the GermanNacht.[103]: 499 The spelling⟨ch⟩ is realised/tʃ/ word initially or where it follows⟨r⟩ e.g.airch ("arch"),mairch ("march"), etc.
^abSpelt⟨r⟩ and pronounced in all positions, i.e.rhotically. The phoneme/r/ is most commonly realised as an approximant[ɹ], although an alveolar tap[ɾ] is also common, especially among older speakers in rural areas. The realisation as a trill[r] is obsolete and only sporadically used for emphasis.[56]: 510–511
^⟨w⟩/w/ and⟨wh⟩/ʍ/, older/xʍ/, do not merge.[103]: 499 Northern dialects also have/f/ for/ʍ/.[103]: 507 The cluster⟨wr⟩ may be realised/wr/, more often/r/, but may be/vr/ in Northern dialects[103]: 507 e.g.wrack ("wreck"),wrang ("wrong"),write,wrocht ("worked"), etc.
^In many dialects velarised/ɫ/ in most or all contexts.[104]
Theorthography ofEarly Scots had become more or less standardised[105] by the middle to late sixteenth century.[106] After theUnion of the Crowns in 1603, theStandard English of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots[107] through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After theActs of Union in 1707 the emergingScottish form of Standard English replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland.[39]: 11 The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a newliterary language descended from the old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings[108] and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended.[109] These writings also introduced what came to be known as theapologetic apostrophe,[109]: xiv generally occurring where aconsonant exists in the Standard Englishcognate. This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on theKing James Bible, and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions ofAugustan English poetry.[13]: 168 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.[110] This modern literary dialect, "Scots of the book" or Standard Scots,[111][112] once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author".[113] This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster,[114] embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott,Charles Murray,David Herbison, James Orr,James Hogg andWilliam Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921Manual of Modern Scots.[115]
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,[109] especially for the northern[116] 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 theapologetic 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.[117][118] For example, in the fourteenth century,Barbour spelt the Scotscognate of "taken" astane. It is argued that, because there has been nok in the word for over 700 years, representing its omission with an apostrophe is of little value. The current spelling is usuallytaen.
Through the twentieth century, with the decline of spoken Scots and knowledge of the literary tradition, phonetic (often humorous) representations became more common.[citation needed]
Modern Scots follows thesubject–verb–object sentence structure likeStandard English. However, the word orderGie's it (Give us it) vs. "Give it to me" may be preferred.[13]: 897 Theindefinite articlea may be used before both consonants and vowels. Thedefinite articlethe is used before the names of seasons, days of the week, many nouns, diseases, trades and occupations, sciences and academic subjects.[115]: 78 It is also often used in place of the indefinite article and instead of apossessive pronoun.[115]: 77 Scots includes some irregularplurals such asee/een ("eye/eyes"),cauf/caur ("calf/calves"),horse/horse ("horse/horses"),cou/kye ("cow/cows") andshae/shuin ("shoe/shoes") that survived fromOld English into Modern Scots, but have become regularised plurals in Standard Modern English –ox/oxen andchild/children being exceptions.[115]: 79 [13]: 896 Nouns of measure and quantity remain unchanged in the plural.[13]: 896 [115]: 80 Therelative pronoun isthat for all persons and numbers, but may beelided.[13]: 896 [115]: 102 Modern Scots also has a third adjective/adverbthis-that-yon/yonder (thon/thonder) indicating something at some distance.[13]: 896 Thir andthae are the plurals ofthis andthat respectively.Thepresent tense ofverbs adheres to theNorthern subject rule whereby verbs end in -s in all persons and numbers except when a single personal pronoun is next to the verb.[13]: 896 [115]: 112 Certain verbs are often usedprogressively[13]: 896 and verbs of motion may be dropped before an adverb oradverbial phrase of motion.[13]: 897 Many verbs havestrong orirregular forms which are distinctive from Standard English.[13]: 896 [115]: 126 The regular past form of theweak orregular verbs is-it,-t or-ed, according to the preceding consonant or vowel.[13]: 896 [115]: 113 Thepresent participle andgerundin are now usually/ən/[119] but may still be differentiated/ən/ and/in/ in Southern Scots,[120] and/ən/ and/ɪn/ in Northern Scots.Thenegative particle isna, sometimes spellednae, e.g.canna ("can't"),daurna ("daren't"),michtna ("mightn't").[115]: 115
Adverbs usually take the same form as the verb root oradjective, especially after verbs. Examples includeHaein a real guid day ("Having a really good day") andShe's awfu fauchelt ("She's awfully tired").
Sample text of Modern Scots
FromThe Four Gospels in Braid Scots (William Wye Smith):
Noo the nativitie o' Jesus Christ was this gate: whan his mither Mary was mairry't till Joseph, 'or they cam thegither, she was fund wi' bairn o' the Holie Spirit. Than her guidman, Joseph, bein an upricht man, and no desirin her name sud be i' the mooth o' the public, was ettlin to pit her awa' hidlins. But as he had thir things in his mind, see! an Angel o' the Lord appear't to him by a dream, sayin, "Joseph, son o' Dauvid, binna feared to tak till ye yere wife, Mary; for that whilk is begotten in her is by the Holie Spirit. "And she sall bring forth a son, and ye sal ca' his nameJesus; for he sal save his folk frae their sins." Noo, a' this was dune, that it micht come to pass what was said by the Lord throwe the prophet, "Tak tent! a maiden sal be wi' bairn, and sal bring forth a son; and they wull ca' his name Emmanuel," whilk is translatit, "God wi' us." Sae Joseph, comin oot o' his sleep, did as the Angel had bidden him, and took till him his wife. And leev'd in continence wi' her till she had brocht forth her firstborn son; and ca'd his nameJesus.
— Matthew 1:18–21
FromThe New Testament in Scots (William Laughton Lorimer, 1885–1967)
This is the storie o the birth o Jesus Christ. His mither Mary wis trystit til Joseph, but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit. Her husband Joseph, honest man, hed nae mind tae affront her afore the warld an wis for brakkin aff their tryst hidlinweys; an sae he wis een ettlin tae dae, whan an angel o the Lord kythed til him in a draim an said til him, "Joseph, son o Dauvit, be nane feared tae tak Mary your trystit wife intil your hame; the bairn she is cairrein is o the Halie Spírit. She will beir a son, an the name ye ar tae gíe him is Jesus, for he will sauf his fowk frae their sins."
Aa this happent at the wurd spokken bi the Lord throu the Prophet micht be fulfilled: Behaud, the virgin wil bouk an beir a son, an they will caa his name Immanuel – that is, "God wi us".
Whan he hed waukit frae his sleep, Joseph did as the angel hed bidden him, an tuik his trystit wife hame wi him. But he bedditna wi her or she buir a son; an he caa'd the bairn Jesus.
— Matthew 1:18–21
Relationship to English
Given that there are no universally acceptedcriteria for distinguishing a language from adialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship toEnglish.[13] 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 bipolarlinguistic continuum, withScottish Standard English at the other.[12] Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects;[13]: 894 other scholars treat Scots as a distinct Germanic language, in the way thatNorwegian is closely linked to but distinct fromDanish.[13]: 894
^Alexander Bergs,Modern Scots, Languages of the World series, No. 242 (Bow Historical Books, 2001),ISBN978-3-89586-513-8, pp. 4, 50. "Scots developed out of a mixture of Scandinavianised Northern English during the early Middle English period.... Scots originated as one form of Northern Old English and quickly developed into a language in its own right up to the seventeenth century."
^abStuart-Smith, J. (2008). "Scottish English: Phonology". In Kortman; Upton (eds.).Varieties of English: The British Isles. Mouton de Gruyter, New York. p. 47.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^abcdefghijklmnopAitken, A. J. (1992).The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University Press. p. 894.
^Rollason, David W. (2003).Northumbria, 500 – 1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom. Cambridge University Press. p. 275.ISBN0-521-81335-2.
^Barrow, G. S. W. (2003).The Kingdom of the Scots: Government, Church and Society from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 121.ISBN978-0-7486-1803-3.
^Stringer, Keith (2019), ""Middle Britain in Context, c. 900-c1300", in Stringer, Keith J.; Winchester, Angus (eds.),Northern England and Southern Scotland in the Central Middle Ages, Woodridge: Boydell & Brewer, pp. 1–30,ISBN9781787441521, at pp. 4-5
^abcdefghCorbett, John; McClure, Derrick; Stuart-Smith, Jane, eds. (2003). "A Brief History of Scots".The Edinburgh Companion to Scots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 9.ISBN0-7486-1596-2.
^Petyt, Keith Malcolm (1980).The Study of Dialect: An introduction to dialectology. Andre Deutsch. pp. 94–98.ISBN0-233-97212-9.
^Eder, Birgit (2004).Ausgewählte Verwandtschaftsbezeichnungen in den Sprachen Europas: untersucht anhand der Datensammlungen des Atlas Linguarum Europae. Peter Lang. p. 301.ISBN978-3-631-52873-0.
^"A Speach in Parliament. Anno 1603" in "The Workes of the Most High and Mightie Prince Iames, by the Grace of God" (1616), pg. 485
^abJones, Charles (1995).A Language Suppressed: The Pronunciation of the Scots Language in the 18th Century. Edinburgh: J. Donald Publishers. p. vii.ISBN0-85976-427-3.
^Primary education: a report of the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland, Scottish Education Department 1946, p. 75
^Macafee, C. (2003). "Studying Scots Vocabulary". In Corbett, John; McClure, Derrick; Stuart-Smith, Jane (eds.).The Edinburgh Companion to Scots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 51.ISBN0-7486-1596-2.
^Kloss, Heinz, ²1968,Die Entwicklung neuer germanischer Kultursprachen seit 1800, Düsseldorf: Bagel. pp.70, 79
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