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Scots not a separate language

"Scots English" is simply normal English written to sound as if the speaker has an excess of saliva in the throat. Boothman 18:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

So, do you think this helpful comment should be inserted into the article? - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 18:21, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Maybe, but in a less obvious sense. Scots is simply a dialect of English. Read Viz magazine and you'll find Geordie, but it alas does not qualify to become a language. If you write in Yorskhire dialect does it become a language too? A bloody 'owp not, mate, 'relse wid owl be buggered. Boothman
Well, I don't regard Scots as a language either. But these days, "language" is such an open concept that any group of dialects tied with a strong national or regional identity will qualify as a language. That would include Geordie if it had such an identity. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 18:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Well lets get some folks in the know then to write articles about the Geordie language, the Mackem language, the Yorskhire language, the Lancashire language, the Cornish language...actually, I'm being silly there, Cornish isn't a language. Get my point though? It should be classified as a dialect, and the article should be written as such. Boothman 18:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
It's a little disingenuous to compare the Lowland Scots dialects with Lancashire or the dialects of any English counties, since Scotland is another country, and has only been ruled by England for under 3 centuries ... whereas Lancashire and Yorkshire have been part of England for more than a millenium, and have been lingustically English for another half-millenium. But you're correct to a certain extent. In Spain, and other parts of Europe, they have no problem giving every other local dialect the "language" status; in Britain this just isn't done ... it's just not part of the tradition. But, for instance, if Greater Northumbria got independence, they could easily restandardize their writing system based on the local dialects, and if they called it a language, they'd have little less reason to do so than those who call Macedonian or Valencian a "language", as distinct from Bulgarian or Catalan - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 15:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Eh, given that Cornish is a Celtic language, it's possibly a bad example. --Doric Loon 21:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Scots:

Geordie, etc. have none of these things.

In any case, I think that far too much emphasis is put on the "Is it a language or is it a dialect?" argument. Linguists of course don't like the rather fuzzy (and generally political) distinction between "dialect" and "language", but I think that from looking at the facts of the matter Scots's status as a "language" is very defensible. Certainly historically it was considered a language, which makes me think that the question that should be asked is not whether Scots is a language or not, but whether as a language it's dead or not; whether what was a language has dissolved itself into English so much that it's disappeared. I suspect, but don't know, that the view that it's dead is mainly an urban/Central Belt viewpoint. A contributor above says "Scots is a language, but it's a dead one; schoolchildren speak Scottish English with a few words of Scots". Now that certainly ties in with my experience, but I grew up in the Central Belt. What do rural folk (particularly in the north-east, around about Aberdeen) think of this?

Putting in my tuppence-worth as a rampant Scottish nationalist: As I say I think the "language or dialect" argument is a bit moot. What Scots is, is an important part of the cultural heritage of Scotland. That's hou the leid shuid be uphauden, an A think that monie fowk that argies agin that haes an awfu attack o the creenge. Mendor 16:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


has a history of use going back 700 years This is a common misconception. Middle English has a written history in Scotland going back 650 years, but that doesn't means "Scots" does; the latter name was only usurped by Scottish English 500 years ago, about the same time it became distinctive from northern English. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 17:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Fair dos. Point is that Scots has been Scots for a long time. Mendor 18:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
It is worth taking a look at the Linguasphere statistical analysis of Germanic languages (PDF). In it Scots-Northumbrian English forms quite a distinct major grouping of English. All that is said above about the distinction between language and dialect is true. The difference between the two is more likely due to socio-political analysis rather than linguistic differences. All that can be said linguistically is that Scots is a distinct variety of the English language. Please don't misinterpret that: it does actually say that Scots is distinctive. Culturally, many Lowland Scots use code-switching between Scots language and Scottish English (SSE). --Gareth Hughes 16:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Mendor, while I take your points on board, it's still not enough for me to consider "Scots" a language. An Londoner can no easier understand a Geordie than a Scotsman. The "seperate poetic and literary heritage" you talk of, I believe, is a moot point also. Does a few Rab Burns poems really constitute a seperate heritage, more than say the works of people like Edwin Waugh or the poets on this list? Boothman 17:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Scots poetry and literature goes back a lot further and has many more luminary names than Burns. See Makar, The Complaynt of Scotland, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, David Lyndsay, Gawin Douglas, Robert Fergusson... The first four of those poets, at least, certainly didn't think they were writing in a dialect of English. If you look here you'll see that Douglas actually apologises for having recourse to some English words in his translation of the Aeneid into Scots. ("So me behuvit whilom, or than be dum,/Sum bastard Latin, French, or Inglish oiss,/Whar scant were Scottis I had nae uther choiss.")

I'm not wanting to get drawn into an argument about whether Scots is a separate language or not, because it's pointless. It's difficult to find linguistic criteria that let us draw such lines between different varieties -- I would have thought two volumes-worth of lexical difference would have sufficed, but you disagree, and that's fair enough. (There are plenty cultural and historical criteria you could use for language-hood, which is what I was trying to indicate in the rest of the points above, trying to show why Scots might have a better claim to the "language" label than, say, Geordie).

My standpoint is this. I feel that Geordie etc. are qualitatively different from Scots by dint of Scots's historical and cultural role. (I'm saying this as a Scot rather than a linguistics student. Saying this sort of thing in a linguistics essay would probably result in me being slapped down in short order, but we've already established, I hope, that "language vs. dialect" is a cultural/political question rather than a linguistic one.) Scots was widely considered a separate language for a long part of its history. I feel fairly secure in asserting this as a fact. I think that the debate now is whether that language that was Scots has disappeared and/or merged itself into (Scottish) English. Mendor 18:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Arguing over whether or not Scots is a language or dialect is pointless before the argument about how to define the difference between a language and a dialect has been completed.
Whether Scots is a language or dialect depends on the definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.135.220.87 (talk • contribs) 2006-02-13 11:34 (UTC)
Adding Geordie into this argument is a bit misleading: as a variety it is close to Scots and the two have a clear common origin. However, culturally, Geordie has always been treated as a regional dialect of England, and its literature is nowhere as near as extensive as that of Scots. Sufficient socio-cultural conditions are met for Scots to be considered a language. --Gareth Hughes 15:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Scots has dissappeared, in the same way that Shakespearean English has dissapeared. Do we still use those old words that Shakespeare used? No. Do Scots still use those old Rab Burns words? No. For my mind, it's only the Scottish themselves that assert that Scots is a seperate language, merely because they'd rather speak "Scots" than English. A marker of seperation perhaps. The same reason why the Welsh still bother to learn Welsh and the same reason Northerner's accents get stronger as they venture further South. It's a fact that people are proud of their heritage, but Wikipedia should differentiate between an actual different language and the desire for one. I'm not anti-Scot, I'm just trying to put my point across to improve Wikipedia. --Boothman 18:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Why not dismiss Scots as a language at the same time as we discount English as a language: after all, they're both just dialects of Platt-Deutsch ;) ...dave souza, talk 18:27, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
This "language versus dialect" argument goes on on nearly every single Talk page of the hundreds of Wikipedia articles about linguistics. Linguists themselves do not differentiate between the two: all languages are dialects and all dialects are languages. In the case of Scots Wikipedia calls it a language because that is what all the authoritative sources call it (see WP:CITE). Wikipedia cannot unilaterally decide to call it a dialect, or an extinct language, or suchlike, because that would contravene Wikipedia:No original research. As for myself, I have studied a few languages, and to me it is crystal clear that Scots is a language in its own right. It certainly varies from its closest relative, English, as much as Norwegian and Swedish vary. It has its own distinct vocabulary, grammer, word-order, verb conjugations, expressions, idioms, pronunciations, number systems etc. And it has itself many rich dialects.--Mais oui! 21:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Do Scots still use those old Rab Burns words? No.

Um, yes, they do. Plenty of Scots use plenty of "Rab Burns words". Less Scots use them now than did in Burns' time, and those Scots that do use them use less of them, but they're still used. My family use quite a few all the time, and they're Central-Belt-industrial-towns types.

I'm not wanting to be confrontational here, Boothman, but: Your user page says you're from Lancashire. Have you spent any time in Scotland, particularly rural Scotland, particularly the north-east, and have you listened to the language that's used, especially by the older generations? Mendor 00:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Living in Scotland for 20 years I heard these dialect words used by Burns - at a Burns supper, or when my Dad was quoting some piece of Scots folk wisdom. Scots may have been a language once, but it's now a dialect - and former dialects such as "Scouse" or "Geordie" are not even that, just English with an accent and the occasional variation in vocabulary, the influence of universal education and mass media has more or less destroyed the rich variety of language. Same thing is happening throughout the World.

Exile 14:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've already said my piece on previous occasions on this page, so I won't repeat myself. If anyone wants to know what I think they can read the old discussions. My only new comment is to back up what Mendor says: my family is from the Northeast and we do still speak Scots as do many others in this area. Scots has been under severe pressure from English since the advent of TV (and before to a lesser extent), but reports of its death are still a little premature. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Mendor, I have not spent this time in Scotland, no, but I sincerely doubt you've spent the time maybe where I come from and heard the speech that is spoken here (by old fowk). Boothman 10:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

You may have noticed that the linguists here are in favour of Scots being described as a language. Linguists only use the terms language and dialect loosely, often variety is preferred. We often use statistical analysis of mutual intelligibility to determine the closeness of any two varieties. I posted a link to Linguasphere's analysis of Germanic languages above. As no one has commented on it, I must assume that we all take it as a given that Scots-Northumbrian is statistically distinct from Standard English. In that list, you will also find other varieties of English. Northern English varieties (apart from Northumbrian) are statistically distinct from Standard English, but at a level less distinct than Scots. Your Old Fowk speak a variety not very different from Nottingham Old Fowk. The fact that both of these groups and Scots speakers can communicate fully in Standard English as well is known as code-switching. Such code switching does not imply that the non-standard variety is subsumed within the standard variety, which is what you seem to be implying. However, if you have a scientific argument against the distinctive of Scots, let's hear it. --Gareth Hughes 13:57, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well said Gareth. But one of the things that bothers me, is who actually talks Scots as I often see it presented on websites. The so-called Scots Wikipedia has a lot of unfamiliar lexis that often would be to me as a Glaswegian totally unintelligible if isolated from context. Which begs the question if overgeneralisation of certain varieties is happening or that some effort is being made to lend the impression that defunct historical forms are still widely in use? For example, I had never in my entire life come across the word 'leid' or 'shaipt'. Is this Ulster Scots??? -- Richard

If this bothers you, think about this. When reading and writing English, you make use of a much larger vocabulary than when speaking English. You also adopt a different style to that used for conversation. You don't expect Wikipedia, for instance, to use a chatty, colloquial style, nor for your friends to sound as if they've swallowed a dictionary. It doesn't bother you that written English uses a much larger vocabulary than spoken English and why is that ? Because you've been speaking English since you were two and reading it since you were five, and you've built up the vocabulary needed for written English to the point that you scarcely notice the difference between the two styles and rarely come across English words that you don't know. In fact you happily use a word like "lexis" which many native speakers of English will never in their entire life have come across and which only a tiny minority will have used in spoken conversation.
Now contrast that with Scots where you may well have been hearing and speaking it from the age of two but where you've had very little experience of written Scots apart from some ballads and Burns poetry that you may have been exposed to for a year at school. It's not too surprising that you haven't built up the larger written vocabulary or learned the written style: after all you've never needed to. Is it any surprise that you keep on coming across words, even relatively commonplace words, that you've never met before when you start reading Scots in earnest ? I know that that was my experience when I first started really reading Scots poets. At one point I read Lorimer's excellent New Testament in Scots. My dictionary was well used at the time, I can tell you, for I was trying to build up a vocabulary over a two week period that it had taken me ten-twenty years to acquire in English!
So, apart from the fact that much of the content of the Scots Wikipedia is written by people whose first language is not actually Scots and may well need improvement for that reason, I can say that, no, it's not Ulster Scots (which is basically just another Scots dialect anyway). Neither is it the sort of Scots that people speak (any more than the last two paragraphs are the sort of English that you or I speak). It's written Scots and should be thought of as such. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The Scots that I've read, as well as what little Scots I've heard, gives me the impression that Scots is a separate language from my own AmE. But it's a really close call, especially in writing where you can go back and try to figure out what's being said. Linguofreak 05:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll not deny that it is a close call. There is a dialect continuum from the North to the South of Britain which is why some people say that Scots is a Northern dialect of English. Of course this argument can be turned on its head, although those that would argue that English is in fact a Southern dialect of Scots are rather fewer in number, <grin>. -- Derek Ross | Talk 08:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

So, Derek, basically what you are saying is that I am correct in suspecting that the language being presented is dead/not in usage. I doubt, like Shakespeare to the English, anyone who hasn't made an effort to learn the vocab would be able to understand a lot of Burns. It's a dead variety.

This bothers me from a linguistics point of view inasmuch that there is a wasted opportunity to accurately describe the very much living varieties that are flourishing today. The positive outcome of such a study could be a step towards a standardised Scots and the "official language" recognition it deserves. Language/dialect status being acknowledged as a purely politically loaded notion.

I find myself also being suspicious that there is a tendency for some of people "describing" "Scots" to make a(n un)concious effort to de-anglicise as much as possible by ressurecting forms that have long fallen out of usage. Again, it wouldn't bother me so much if there were open and honest admission of attempting to revive a language that was lost under dubious circumstances. The reader would then be in a position evualate the information fairly.

I do wonder what purpose the excercise of presenting a false picture of a language serves. It infers many reasons from very good to very bad. But again, I feel more importantly there is a sadly wasted opportunity here. -- Richard

<Sigh>, it's only "dead" in the sense that written English is "dead". No one speaks written English (unless they want other people to think that they're strange) but that doesn't mean that no one uses it. And a language which is used is hardly dead. If you want an example of a dead language, look at Etruscan, a language which, while literature still exists for it, cannot be understood by anyone alive today. Now that's dead! Even Latin is livelier than that and Scots is in positively bouncing health by comparison with Latin. You've already acknowledged the Scots websites that exist, even if you don't like the style and vocabulary that they use, so you can't reasonably deny that written Scots is in use by a few people at least, whatever the motives you may ascribe to them.
And the fact is that written Scots tends to vary depending on the dialect of the writer and on their familiarity with other dialects. If the writer doesn't belong to your dialect group, then there's a good chance that you will come across vocabulary that you aren't comfortable with. I remember once being accused of using an archaic word because I wrote "shite" instead of "shit" in the course of some Wikipedia discussion. Well it may be archaic in some parts of the English-speaking world but it's alive and well in Scotland. Likewise use of the word "outwith", common in Scotland, seems to cause discomfort elsewhere. My point is just that archaic is a matter of opinion and personal experience and what may be archaic in Glasgow may well be commonplace in Aberdeenshire.
As for steps towards a standardised Scots, there has been plenty of work done by others on describing the different dialects still extant. That's not Wikipedia's mission though. Neither is reviving lost languages nor "standardising" them. Our mission is to write encyclopaedias and that's what we should stick to. If we have to use some words, uncommon in spoken Scots to write an article on a topic, that's just life. So I'm not sure what the wasted opportunity that you refer to might be. We have the opportunity to write an encyclopaedia in Scots and we're taking it. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:04, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Claiming the language of Robert Burns

I'm sorry but to claim the language of Robert Burns is living is just plain silly. No-one converses in that language as a mother tongue anymore. It is no longer passed on from generation to generation. No-one understands it anymore without translation. Is isn't pining for the Fjords. It has been left behind and evolved out of currency.

That many of the forms cited here are 100% unintelligible to people in the most populous part of the linguistic area itself doesn't bode well for your selection criteria. So, even if your data is biased towards a regional living variation you aren't so much writing about Scots, but Banffshire Scots or whatever.

My strong suspicion is that we have pseudolinguistics excusing the invention of some fanciful proto-language and that has more to do with emotion than any serious effort to observe, record and evaluate.

Good luck and goodbye!

-- Richard

Ummm... hear hear?! -- Boothman 18:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

But hold on a minute. There has been a continuous unbroken tradition of written Scots from the time of the Makars to the present. Surely any serious attempt to write in Scots has to take that tradition as its starting point. I don't think writers in Scots need apologise for using Rabbie Burns language. Why discard the tradition we have?

I don't see writing in Scots as a revivalist project as such, because of that unbroken tradition. Written Scots hasn't been used in an expository fashion for a long time now though (I presume the last real expository use of Written Scots, as opposed to literary use, was in Acts of the old Scottish Parliament up until Union, but I'm not sure about that), so using it for that purpose will require a lot of recourse to, yes, I suppose you could call it dictionary-raking. I don't see a problem with that; I would imagine that development of an expository register is a step that any non-standardised language would have to take. And, as I say, I at least feel we should base that on the existing tradition.

This doesn't mean it can't reflect the way people speak. I'm interested about how one would falsify your claim that the language of Robert Burns is dead. Words like sleekit, feart, tattie are still in common use all over the place; my relatives (Fifers all) would quite happily use words like howk, laith, lowse and the past tense -it (e.g. stappit, as in stappit fou). Scots lawyers still happily use words like thereanent, depone, demit, and the Latinate passive These clauses are delete (not deleted). I have no experience of Aberdeenshire but I suppose the penetration of Scots there is even higher. My question is: how much "Rabbie Burns language" do we have to demonstrate is still in use, before people accept that it still exists? I suspect that however much evidence we turn up, the bar for what counts as real "Rabbie Burns language" would always be raised a bit higher.

I do not deny that all this is, for me at least, bound up at least in part with nationalism; the Scots language should hold its head high and all that. The language is a very important part of Scots culture and history, and I feel Scots culture can only benefit from building up Scots on its existing foundations, and having it in general taken seriously, not just for the odd poem but for all sorts of uses. On its existing foundations means, for writing, the existing literary tradition, which does use the occasional word that's unfamiliar in speech, like leid. I don't feel I should have to apologise for that, or thereby have it claimed that I'm doing away with "any serious effort to observe, record and evaluate".

However having written all those screeds and screeds (another guid Scots word) -- we're now well off the point of Talk pages, which is to discuss the article, not the subject. So I heartily apologise for taking up space with this rant.

Mendor 21:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC) — admin on the Scots Wikipædia, filthy nationalist, and semi-native speaker of a "depleted urban" variety of Scots ;-)

PS Whit war ye daein talkin aboot shite onieroad Derek?! A thocht ye war an awfu weel-spoken kin o chiel. A'm black affrontit, sae A am.

...Okay, I suppose if I wasn't wanting to sound like Paw Broon, that wasn't the way to go about it. Mendor 21:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

A canna weel mind nou. It wis lang syne. Bit A'm siccar A wis talkin about shite rather nor talkin shite. Weel, siccar eneuch, <grin>. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

"In a' the numerous human dools, Ill hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools, Or worthy frien's rak'd i' the mools, - Sad sight to see! The tricks o' knaves, or fash o'fools, Thou bear'st the gree! "

Total gibberish to me, and I can even get on okay with Govanese. And I dare you to randomly ask native Scots (who haven't studied Burns) how much they get. To say this language is still alive just because it is in print is a gross misrepresentation as what qualifies as a living langauge. There are plenty of dead languages still in print and even still spoken a little (Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit etc) but there are no L1 (mother tongue) speakers.

I have nothing against attempts to revive defunct Scots (there is a global slaughter of languages very rapidly happening as "English" expands) or at least promote an interest in it. But to give the impression anyone converses in such language anymore is misleading or just plain batty.

Ah hink ers maer'n nuff ae be dean wae waeoo' gaein aw i' rat psih, naw? Un, um no gonnae ergue wae sum glaekit tolie fae England boot whit is ur isnae "a language" cuz aht's jis weeguy linguistics.

Noo is sumbdae i'lees gaunae dae sumhin oan Scots' negations?

See yeez --- Richard

It seems any sensible, logical argument is swept aside by these Scottish nationalists by simply writing something that sounds as if it's Scottish. Hoots mon and all that shite. I do agree with everything Richard's said. I'd suggest that Scottish is more of a ceremonial language with no mother tongue speakers, but with sizable influence on today's Scottish English. -- Boothman 18:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

But we're not getting any "sensible, logical argument", all we're getting are bald assertions that "Rabbie Burns language" isn't used. Question for Richard: you say that the Burns poem is total gibberish. Does the sentence "Nane o ma friens cuid be fashed rakin throu a' that" make sense to you? If it does, then how can you assert that the poem is total gibberish to you? It uses those words. The poem uses them in a literary fashion of course, but it's still the same vocabulary. If it doesn't, then, well, I don't know how to convince you of this, but that is a sentence that would come completely naturally to my lips. Same with the little dialogue I had with Derek above (one difference is that, it being more of an Aberdeenshire word, I wouldn't use "chiel" in speech -- but I bet Derek would). I wouldn't be "pittin it oan". And I couldn't use that sort of language un-self-consciously if I didn't come from a speech community that used it. And I don't even consider myself a very good speaker of Scots!

The status of Scots (not Scottish) in formal speeches or newspaper columns or whatever is indeed one of a "ceremonial language", used maybe for the occasional quote of the "Here's tae us, wha's like us? Gey few an' they're a' deid" variety. But in speech it's very much alive -- in some places at least.

I do not understand the comment "sounds as if it's Scottish". It IS Scottish. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't -- if we use language that's closer to Scottish English on the continuum, then we're told that Scots isn't distinct from English. If we use language that's closer to the Braid Scots end of the continuum, then we're criticised for writing "shite" that "sounds as if it's Scottish" -- the implication being that we're making it up, "pittin it oan", which as I've said isn't true. Mendor 20:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

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