Talk:Scots-language literature/Archive 1

Archive 1

Historical Bunkum

All interesting stuff. But mostly academic nonsense and historical bunkum.

The idea that the northernmost dialects of British English constituted a language, distinct from English and called Scots, was first asserted only a little over 200 years ago.

By the late 19th century that romantic notion had been thoroughly exposed as historically absurd by Scotsman James Murray in his book 'The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland'. http://archive.org/details/cu31924026538938

Murray however did give us the terms Older Scots, Middle Scots etc - but merely as time frames, not as the names of a language.

Works such The Brus were written in Middle English, the later Scottish court poets 'makars' unambiguously described themselves as writing English. There never was a Scots Language, just dialects of Northern English spoken and written from the Humber to the Forth.

The idea of a Scots Language was however taken up as a propaganda weapon by Scottish Nationalists in the first half of the 20th century, and since the 1970s it has been widely, if mistakenly, accepted a fact. Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.160.146 (talk) 13:30, 31 May 2018 (UTC)