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I generally like Atlas Obscura's articles, but this one has, to use a local phrase, a load of shite in it. I've lived in Scotland my entire life and never come

I generally like Atlas Obscura's articles, but this one has, to use a local phrase, a load of shite in it. I've lived in Scotland my entire life and never come across anyone who speaks "Scots" as their main language. It's not taught as a course in any school that I'm aware of, so the idea that 1.5 million people "read, spoke or understood scots" seems like it required a bit of "flexible thinking" to be true. What is true is that many scottish people understand words which come from scots as their used in vernacular speech. Things like "Auld" == "old" or "Braw" == "good", but I wouldn't equate that with understanding a language.

falsedan 8y ago
One doesn’t have to go far in Embra to hear about the dreich days nor the harr coming off the firth, and it’s the least Scottish city in the country. The vocab is distinct from English, and that puts it beyond an accent to a full dialect and language of its own. Also shite is northern English, Scots would call it a load a bawls pal
- ppod 8y ago
  "a load of balls" and "pal" are pretty well understood anywhere in Britain. Scouse and Geordie accents have lots of difficult pronunciation and unusual vocabulary like this, and I don't think that they are languages.
  - falsedan 8y ago
    I don’t understand your distinction, mutual intelligibility does not discount a tongue from being a language, and discounting dialects from the accent <-> language continuum seems overly logocentric. I agree that dialects like Scouse, Strine, Geordie are not distinct languages; I also think that a rest-of-The-world English speaker would struggle to understand a speaker going full-on with the vernacular. The trouble with finding equivalent meanings between words with similar spellings/pronunciation is that you’ll conclude English and Dutch are the same language (or Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)
    - kwhitefoot 8y ago
      I've lived in Norway for the last 32 years and from my English vantage point Norwegian and Danish are definitely dialects of the same language. Swedish is the one that has made the most progress to becoming a separate language because of the large amount of vocabulary that is not shared with the other two but it is still not really distinct. All three have essentially the same grammar and syntax. I can converse with educated, well spoken, Swedes because the pronunciation is very similar to Norwegian even though spelling, vocabulary, and usage often differ. On the other hand I struggle with Trøndersk which no one claims is a separate language from Norwegian, and Danish is almost impossible in conversation because the pronunciation is so different from Norwegian but reading it is very easy. These three languages are much more similar than Dutch and English. I think you need a more telling example.
    - ppod 8y ago
      I agree with the principles of what you say but I also agree with the other reply to you. It is definitely a continuum and we can only impose artificial boundaries to it; what is mutually intelligible to one speaker may not be to another. However, from my experience of the accents of the Atlantic Archipelago (owning to my political bias here!), I don't think Scots is more different to RP than Scouse or southern Hiberno-English, perhaps with the exception of some very isolated communities.
- raesene9 8y ago
  Sorry pal, go watch Chewin' the fat if you want to disclaim "shite" as a scottish term. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8vOcxatsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8vOcxatsI)
- dboreham 8y ago
  Yer haverin'
jamescun 8y ago
Let me see your anecdote with another, growing up in Scotland I had the exact opposite experience. Depending on the area and interaction, you'll find Scots. Formal encounters are most certainly conducted in English with the odd Scots word thrown in however in my experience, particularly when concerned with community work, Scots was more common than not. On a lighter note, I recall visiting a comic theatre production in Arbroath which to my surprise was mostly spoken in Doric, and found myself odd one out and missing many of the jokes. Regarding education, in high school we had entire units where we read and wrote Scots, and the majority of classroom discourse took place in Scots. This was not a special language nor otherwise remarkable school in any sense, it just seemed to be par of the curriculum in Angus at the very least.
- raesene9 8y ago
  Well times are obviously different where you are. Over in Glasgow we had no contact or mention of Scots as a language in school whatsoever. Out of curiousity, what rough timeframe was your schooling in? I have a feeling that it's been seeing more of a resurgance in recent years, my schooling experience was in the 70's and 80's for comparison. I find Scots words in vernacular speech all the time, but I don't think I've ever heard someone speaking it as a distinct language. I've heard weegies speak Glaswegian, and I've heard people from the kingdom speak with their accent and dialect, but not people speaking "Scots".
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Not parent, but : school in Edinburgh. We code-switched, although the term wouldn't be coined for decades yet. RP in school, some variety of Scots (or whatever we're calling it) outside school.
    - koralatov 8y ago
      In school it's likely you were speaking Standard Scottish English. Received Pronunciation (RP) is an accent, not a dialect -- though most RP speakers speak Standard English, so there's a strong correlation between RP and Standard English. I've yet to come across and RP speaker who speaks another variety, excluding the occasional phrase or borrowed word. Outside of school you were almost certainly speaking Scottish Standard English, rather than actual Scots. Scottish English is a branch of English that's been influenced by Scots and borrowed vocabulary from Scots, but isn't actually Scots. Almost no-one in the 20th century speaks actual Scots; those who do are immediately identifiable and generally hard for a non-Scots speaker to understand. The last vestiges of Scots language speakers are parts of Aberdeenshire and the Borders. Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.
phillc73 8y ago
The 1.5 million figure is from 2011 Scottish Census data. [1] [1] http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/censusresults/release2a/scotland/QS212SC.pdf http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/censusresults/re...
- koralatov 8y ago
  I would take that with a huge pinch of salt. Census data is self-reported, and most people don't know that Scots is a distinct language from Scottish English, albeit one sharing the same Anglic root and with a lot of borrowed words and phrases. I live in Aberdeen, and I'm pretty sure if I was to leave my flat and ask people I met in the street whether they spoke Scots or English, I'd get a disproportionate number of Scottish English speakers tell me they speak Scots; I'd also probably get some of the Doric-speaking locals tell me they speak English, even though Doric is actually a descendant of Scots.
ppod 8y ago
It's like saying that some people in London are capable of understanding rural Cork English. It might be true; it doesn't make 'Corkish' a language, even though if you wrote down the language of rural Cork I think it would be as different from London English in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation as Scots.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
  "There are only two dialects of Irish, plain Irish and toothless Irish, and, lacking a proper acquaintance with the latter, I think I missed the cream of the old man's talk." --Brendan Behan
- Rattled 8y ago
  More like Wexford English (Yola), which was a remnant of old English.
barking 8y ago
braw is probably borrowed from Gaelic breá which means fine as in fine weather.
- Marazan 8y ago
  Probably with Norse as an ancestor. The Swedish for Good is bra, pronounced very similarly to braw.
koralatov 8y ago
Here's a repost of an earlier comment[1] I made on the relationship between Scots and English, which also applies here: I think you're confusing dialect with language here. Scots and Scottish English are distinct from one another. The latter does borrow some from the former which leads to confusion. Scots is a language, historically equivalent and closely related to English but still distinct. It's a stretch to argue that "many modern English speakers derive from Scots root". At this point in history, most Scots speak Scottish English with some borrowing from a Scots root -- not the other way around. This is evident in the fact that the vast majority of a modern Scottish person's vocabulary is from mainline English and intelligible by someone from London. That doesn't happen by Scots borrowing vocabulary from English -- it happens from English absorbing vocabulary from Scots. This is the situation for the vast majority of Scottish people. Coming across those who don't fit into the English-with-Scots-influence only reinforces this. Doric is arguably a descendant of mainline Scots which has converged on English, rather than the other way around, and means it's sometimes difficult to parse even for other Scots. Quite a lot of the Borders also speak a dialect which derives from Scots which has converged on English, and is difficult for other Scots to parse. They sound very similar to each other to someone who speaks neither, but are actually quite distinct -- mistaking someone from Selkirk for an Aberdonian will cause offence! The Wikipedia has a pretty good article on Modern Scots, though I think it overstates the pervasiveness of modern Scots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots It's also worth noting that most speakers of Modern Scots also speak Scottish English, and code-switching takes place frequently and fluidly. Gaelic is spoken by ~57,500 people in Scotland. Some of them have English as a second language, having been raised with Gaelic as the language of the home. In some cases this does show their English usage. One common tell is slightly unusual phrasing -- one typical and quite common usage is "You will be having tea?" rather than the more common "Will you be having tea?" Even then, they're still speaking a variety Scottish English and not Scots. tl;dr: Every Scottish person speaks at least one of the dialects of Scottish English. Some also speak a dialect of Modern Scots. An even smaller number speak Gaelic. Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.

falsedan 8y ago

One doesn’t have to go far in Embra to hear about the dreich days nor the harr coming off the firth, and it’s the least Scottish city in the country. The vocab is distinct from English, and that puts it beyond an accent to a full dialect and language of its own. Also shite is northern English, Scots would call it a load a bawls pal

ppod 8y ago
"a load of balls" and "pal" are pretty well understood anywhere in Britain. Scouse and Geordie accents have lots of difficult pronunciation and unusual vocabulary like this, and I don't think that they are languages.
- falsedan 8y ago
  I don’t understand your distinction, mutual intelligibility does not discount a tongue from being a language, and discounting dialects from the accent <-> language continuum seems overly logocentric. I agree that dialects like Scouse, Strine, Geordie are not distinct languages; I also think that a rest-of-The-world English speaker would struggle to understand a speaker going full-on with the vernacular. The trouble with finding equivalent meanings between words with similar spellings/pronunciation is that you’ll conclude English and Dutch are the same language (or Danish/Norwegian/Swedish)
  - kwhitefoot 8y ago
    I've lived in Norway for the last 32 years and from my English vantage point Norwegian and Danish are definitely dialects of the same language. Swedish is the one that has made the most progress to becoming a separate language because of the large amount of vocabulary that is not shared with the other two but it is still not really distinct. All three have essentially the same grammar and syntax. I can converse with educated, well spoken, Swedes because the pronunciation is very similar to Norwegian even though spelling, vocabulary, and usage often differ. On the other hand I struggle with Trøndersk which no one claims is a separate language from Norwegian, and Danish is almost impossible in conversation because the pronunciation is so different from Norwegian but reading it is very easy. These three languages are much more similar than Dutch and English. I think you need a more telling example.
  - ppod 8y ago
    I agree with the principles of what you say but I also agree with the other reply to you. It is definitely a continuum and we can only impose artificial boundaries to it; what is mutually intelligible to one speaker may not be to another. However, from my experience of the accents of the Atlantic Archipelago (owning to my political bias here!), I don't think Scots is more different to RP than Scouse or southern Hiberno-English, perhaps with the exception of some very isolated communities.
raesene9 8y ago
Sorry pal, go watch Chewin' the fat if you want to disclaim "shite" as a scottish term. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8vOcxatsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8vOcxatsI)
dboreham 8y ago
Yer haverin'

jamescun 8y ago

Let me see your anecdote with another, growing up in Scotland I had the exact opposite experience. Depending on the area and interaction, you'll find Scots. Formal encounters are most certainly conducted in English with the odd Scots word thrown in however in my experience, particularly when concerned with community work, Scots was more common than not. On a lighter note, I recall visiting a comic theatre production in Arbroath which to my surprise was mostly spoken in Doric, and found myself odd one out and missing many of the jokes. Regarding education, in high school we had entire units where we read and wrote Scots, and the majority of classroom discourse took place in Scots. This was not a special language nor otherwise remarkable school in any sense, it just seemed to be par of the curriculum in Angus at the very least.

raesene9 8y ago
Well times are obviously different where you are. Over in Glasgow we had no contact or mention of Scots as a language in school whatsoever. Out of curiousity, what rough timeframe was your schooling in? I have a feeling that it's been seeing more of a resurgance in recent years, my schooling experience was in the 70's and 80's for comparison. I find Scots words in vernacular speech all the time, but I don't think I've ever heard someone speaking it as a distinct language. I've heard weegies speak Glaswegian, and I've heard people from the kingdom speak with their accent and dialect, but not people speaking "Scots".
- dboreham 8y ago
  Not parent, but : school in Edinburgh. We code-switched, although the term wouldn't be coined for decades yet. RP in school, some variety of Scots (or whatever we're calling it) outside school.
  - koralatov 8y ago
    In school it's likely you were speaking Standard Scottish English. Received Pronunciation (RP) is an accent, not a dialect -- though most RP speakers speak Standard English, so there's a strong correlation between RP and Standard English. I've yet to come across and RP speaker who speaks another variety, excluding the occasional phrase or borrowed word. Outside of school you were almost certainly speaking Scottish Standard English, rather than actual Scots. Scottish English is a branch of English that's been influenced by Scots and borrowed vocabulary from Scots, but isn't actually Scots. Almost no-one in the 20th century speaks actual Scots; those who do are immediately identifiable and generally hard for a non-Scots speaker to understand. The last vestiges of Scots language speakers are parts of Aberdeenshire and the Borders. Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.

phillc73 8y ago

The 1.5 million figure is from 2011 Scottish Census data. [1] [1] http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/censusresults/release2a/scotland/QS212SC.pdf http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/censusresults/re...

koralatov 8y ago
I would take that with a huge pinch of salt. Census data is self-reported, and most people don't know that Scots is a distinct language from Scottish English, albeit one sharing the same Anglic root and with a lot of borrowed words and phrases. I live in Aberdeen, and I'm pretty sure if I was to leave my flat and ask people I met in the street whether they spoke Scots or English, I'd get a disproportionate number of Scottish English speakers tell me they speak Scots; I'd also probably get some of the Doric-speaking locals tell me they speak English, even though Doric is actually a descendant of Scots.

ppod 8y ago

It's like saying that some people in London are capable of understanding rural Cork English. It might be true; it doesn't make 'Corkish' a language, even though if you wrote down the language of rural Cork I think it would be as different from London English in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation as Scots.

Jill_the_Pill 8y ago
"There are only two dialects of Irish, plain Irish and toothless Irish, and, lacking a proper acquaintance with the latter, I think I missed the cream of the old man's talk." --Brendan Behan
Rattled 8y ago
More like Wexford English (Yola), which was a remnant of old English.

barking 8y ago

braw is probably borrowed from Gaelic breá which means fine as in fine weather.

Marazan 8y ago
Probably with Norse as an ancestor. The Swedish for Good is bra, pronounced very similarly to braw.

koralatov 8y ago

Here's a repost of an earlier comment[1] I made on the relationship between Scots and English, which also applies here: I think you're confusing dialect with language here. Scots and Scottish English are distinct from one another. The latter does borrow some from the former which leads to confusion. Scots is a language, historically equivalent and closely related to English but still distinct. It's a stretch to argue that "many modern English speakers derive from Scots root". At this point in history, most Scots speak Scottish English with some borrowing from a Scots root -- not the other way around. This is evident in the fact that the vast majority of a modern Scottish person's vocabulary is from mainline English and intelligible by someone from London. That doesn't happen by Scots borrowing vocabulary from English -- it happens from English absorbing vocabulary from Scots. This is the situation for the vast majority of Scottish people. Coming across those who don't fit into the English-with-Scots-influence only reinforces this. Doric is arguably a descendant of mainline Scots which has converged on English, rather than the other way around, and means it's sometimes difficult to parse even for other Scots. Quite a lot of the Borders also speak a dialect which derives from Scots which has converged on English, and is difficult for other Scots to parse. They sound very similar to each other to someone who speaks neither, but are actually quite distinct -- mistaking someone from Selkirk for an Aberdonian will cause offence! The Wikipedia has a pretty good article on Modern Scots, though I think it overstates the pervasiveness of modern Scots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots It's also worth noting that most speakers of Modern Scots also speak Scottish English, and code-switching takes place frequently and fluidly. Gaelic is spoken by ~57,500 people in Scotland. Some of them have English as a second language, having been raised with Gaelic as the language of the home. In some cases this does show their English usage. One common tell is slightly unusual phrasing -- one typical and quite common usage is "You will be having tea?" rather than the more common "Will you be having tea?" Even then, they're still speaking a variety Scottish English and not Scots. tl;dr: Every Scottish person speaks at least one of the dialects of Scottish English. Some also speak a dialect of Modern Scots. An even smaller number speak Gaelic. Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.