Scots, actual Scots

Maxinquaye

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I wasn' sure whether to put this here, or in the research forum.

But I have a question for any Scot in here.

Scots Language, or Lallands, is the form of Anglic spoken by, according to my research materials, quite a few people in Scotland.

Note, I’m not talking about Scots English, but actual Scots, the variant of Middle English.

An illustration: https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_leid

It is a bit unclear from my sources whether Scots (Lallands) is actually spoken, or if it has suffered such a language disintigration that what people call Lallands now is in fact a variant of Scots English.

Could anyone shed some light on this? Thank you!
 
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oceansoul

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I think this website: http://www.scotslanguage.com/site/view/page/dialect might help you a lot.

Some people might say that they speak Scots, but it's definitely not the 15th century variant although very distinct. Some people might use a lot of Scots words, have a very distinctive dialect and still say they speak English. Gaelic is also spoken as a second language in some parts of the country.

I'd even say that in the lead up to the referendum, calling it Scots or Scottish English can be as much a political decision as a reflection of language.
 

williemeikle

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I think this website: http://www.scotslanguage.com/site/view/page/dialect might help you a lot.

Some people might say that they speak Scots, but it's definitely not the 15th century variant although very distinct. Some people might use a lot of Scots words, have a very distinctive dialect and still say they speak English. Gaelic is also spoken as a second language in some parts of the country.

I'd even say that in the lead up to the referendum, calling it Scots or Scottish English can be as much a political decision as a reflection of language.

As any Scot knows, there's always been many different variants of Scots - for example, I'm from Ayrshire, and we have many, many words and phrases that are not used by folks down the road in the Borders, yet are still mainly English speaking, although we'd both claim to be Lallands at a push :)
 

oceansoul

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As any Scot knows, there's always been many different variants of Scots - for example, I'm from Ayrshire, and we have many, many words and phrases that are not used by folks down the road in the Borders, yet are still mainly English speaking, although we'd both claim to be Lallands at a push :)

This is true, but I think that claim is based more on nationalism and political choices than linguistics. Even the Scottish government usually classifies modern Scots as a 'dialect' but not a language. I live in Edinburgh and I agree with you that the dialect is totally different than what you'd hear in Inverness.

Maybe this classification will change if we go independent.