   #copyright

Scots language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Scots
   Spoken in: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, England
   Region: Parts of the Scottish Lowlands, Caithness, the Northern Isles,
   Ulster
   Total speakers: over 1.5 million:
   — Scotland: 1.5 million ( General Register Office for Scotland, 1996).
   — Northern Ireland: 30,000 (Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey,
   1999).
   — Republic of Ireland: no official figures, but several thousand in
   eastern County Donegal.
   Language family: Indo-European
     Germanic
      West Germanic
       Anglo-Frisian
        Anglic
        Scots
   Official status
   Official language of: None.
   — Classified as a "traditional language" by the Scottish Executive.
   — Classified as a "regional or minority language" under the European
   Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ratified by the United
   Kingdom in 2001.
   — Classified as a "traditional language" by The North/South
   Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999.
   Regulated by: — Scotland: None, although the Dictionary of the Scots
   Language carries great authority (the Scottish Executive's Partnership
   for a Better Scotland coalition agreement, 2003, promises "support").
   — Ireland: None, although the cross-border Ulster-Scots Agency,
   established by the Implementation Agreement following the Good Friday
   Agreement promotes and invents usage.
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: none
   ISO 639-2: sco
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: sco
   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   Scots refers to the Anglic varieties spoken in parts of Scotland. In
   Scotland it is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from
   Scottish Gaelic spoken by some in the Highlands and Islands (especially
   the Hebrides). Scots is also spoken in parts of Northern Ireland and
   border areas of the Republic of Ireland, where it is known in official
   circles as Ulster Scots or Ullans.

   Since there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing
   languages from dialects, scholars and other interested parties often
   disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots.
   Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and
   dialects do exist these often render contradictory results (See
   Dialect). Consequently Scots has, on the one hand, been traditionally
   regarded as one of the ancient dialects of English but with its own
   ancient and distinct dialects. Scots has often been treated as part of
   English as spoken in Scotland but differs significantly from the
   Standard Scottish English taught in schools. On the other hand, it has
   been regarded as a distinct Germanic language the way Swedish is
   distinct from Danish. Its subordination to Anglo-English has also been
   compared to the subordination of Frisian to Dutch in the Netherlands.
   Thus Scots can be interpreted as a collective term for the dialects of
   English spoken or originating in Scotland, or it can be interpreted as
   the autochthonous language of Lowland Scotland. See Status below for
   further discussion.

   Native speakers in Scotland and Ireland usually refer to their idiom as
   (braid) Scots (Eng: Broad Scots) or use a dialect name such as the
   Doric or the Buchan Claik. The old fashioned Scotch occurs
   occasionally, especially in Ireland. Some literary forms are often
   referred to as Lallans (Lowlands).

History

   The word Scot was borrowed from Latin to refer to Scotland and dates
   from at least the first half of the 10th century. Up to the 15th
   century Scottis (modern form: Scots) referred to Gaelic (a Celtic
   language and tongue of the ancient Scots, introduced from Ireland
   perhaps from the 4th century onwards). Since the late 15th century ,
   Anglic speakers in Scotland also started occasionally referring to
   their vernacular as Scottis and increasingly called Gaelic Erse (from
   Erisch, or "Irish"), now often considered pejorative.

   Northumbrian Old English had been established in southeastern Scotland
   as far as the River Forth by the 7th century. It remained largely
   confined to this area until the 13th century, continuing in common use
   while Gaelic was the court language. English then spread further into
   Scotland via the burghs, proto-urban institutions which were first
   established by King David I. The growth in prestige of English in the
   14th century, and the complementary decline of French in Scotland, made
   English the prestige language of most of eastern Scotland.

   Modern Scots thus grew out of the early northern form of Middle English
   spoken by the people of southeastern Scotland and northern England.
   Scots, or more accurately, Middle English, made its first literary
   appearance in Scotland in the mid-14th century, when its form differed
   little from other northern Anglic dialects, and so Scots shared many
   Northumbrian borrowings from Old Norse and Anglo-Norman French. Later
   influences include Dutch and Middle Low German through trade with and
   immigration from the low countries, as well as Romance via
   ecclesiastical and legal Latin and French owing to the Auld Alliance.
   Scots has loan words resulting from contact with Gaelic. Early medieval
   legal documents show a language peppered with Gaelic legal and
   administrative loans. Today Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical
   and cultural features, such as ceilidh, loch and clan. Many Scots words
   have also become part of English: flit, 'to move home', greed, eerie,
   cuddle, clan, stob, 'a post'.

Status

   Lufe God abufe al and yi nychtbour as yi self (Love God above all and
   your neighbour as yourself) an example of Early Scots on John Knox
   House, Edinburgh
   Enlarge
   Lufe God abufe al and yi nychtbour as yi self (Love God above all and
   your neighbour as yourself) an example of Early Scots on John Knox
   House, Edinburgh

   Before the Treaty of Union 1707, when Scotland and England joined to
   form the Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots
   was widely held to be an independent language as part of a pluricentric
   diasystem.

   Today, in Scotland, most people's speech is somewhere on a continuum
   ranging from traditional broad Scots to Scottish Standard English. Many
   speakers are either diglossic and/or able to code-switch along the
   continuum depending on the situation in which they find themselves.
   Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes
   Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine. (see language
   change below). Consequently it is often disputed whether or not the
   varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a
   separate language in their own right.

   The British government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has
   recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or
   Minority Languages. 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 original Parliament of Scotland. Since Scotland
   retained distinct political, legal and religious systems after the
   Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. For instance,
   libel and slander, separate in English law, are bundled together as
   defamation in Scots law.

   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. Many leading Scots of the period, such
   as David Hume, considered themselves Northern British rather than
   Scottish. They attempted to rid themselves of their Scots in a bid to
   establish standard English as the official language of the newly formed
   Union. Enthusiasm for this new Britishness waned over time, and the use
   of Scots as a literary language was revived by several prominent
   Scotsmen such as Robert Burns. There is no current institutionalised
   standard literary form. During the second half of the 20th century,
   enthusiasts developed regularised cross-dialect forms following
   historical orthographic conventions, but these have had a limited
   impact. In the written Scots language, local loyalties often prevail,
   and the written form usually contains some Standard English adapted to
   represent the local pronunciation. However, many Scots words (which do
   not appear in Standard English) are still used in everyday speech.

   No education takes place through the medium of Scots, though English
   lessons may cover it superficially, which usually entails reading some
   Scots literature and observing local dialect. Much of the material used
   is often Standard English disguised as Scots, which has upset both
   proponents of Standard English and proponents of Scots alike. 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.)", whereas guidelines
   for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly
   with accurate spelling and punctuation." . On the one hand, this can be
   seen as revealing the institutionalised disregard for the idea of
   treating Scots as a language on a par with English. On the other hand,
   it can be seen as a teaching method to get around the fact that the
   pupils, the teachers, and the teachers' parents alike have been taught
   in school that Scots is 'bad spelling', and thus that pupils will
   self-censor any Scots that they do know. Scots can also be studied at
   university level. The educational system often fails to further the
   objective to produce people able to read, write, and speak Scots as an
   autonomous alternative to English, thus contributing to its perceived
   status by non-Scots speakers as a series of local dialects of English.

   The use of Scots in the media is scant and is usually reserved for
   niches where local dialect is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy, Burns
   Night, or representations of traditions and times gone by. Serious use
   for news, encyclopaedias, documentaries, etc. rarely occurs in Scots,
   although the Scottish Parliament website offers some information on it.
   Attitudes towards Scots in the media vary widely, as may be seen by
   contrasting this sober official BBC Ulster article with this satirical
   H2G2 entry.

   It is often held that, had Scotland remained independent, Scots would
   have remained and been regarded as a separate language from English.
   This has happened in Spain and Portugal, where two independent
   countries developed standardised languages, Portuguese originating from
   a common Galician-Portuguese language, which itself originated from a
   common Iberian Romance language shared with Castilian Spanish. On the
   other hand a situation similar to that of Swiss German and standard
   German might have occurred. Equally, the present situation might have
   occurred, where the social elites and the upwardly mobile adopted
   Standard English, causing institutional language shift. A model of
   language revival to which many enthusiasts aspire is that of the
   Catalan language in areas spanning parts of Spain, France, Andorra and
   Italy, particularly as regards the situation of Catalan in Catalonia.

Language change

   After the Union of Scotland and England, the issue of language became
   topical, and foremost was the question of whether Scottish people
   should speak English or Scots. Gaelic was never considered an option;
   at the time, it was mostly relegated to the Highlands and Islands.
   Scots became considered to have a substratal relationship to English,
   as opposed to an adstratal relationship.

   On one hand, well-off Scots took to learning English through such
   activities as those of the Irishman Thomas Sheridan (father of Richard
   Sheridan), who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution.
   Charging a guinea at a time (about £65 in today's money), they were
   attended by over 300 men, and he was made a freeman of the City of
   Edinburgh. Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed the
   Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English
   Language in Scotland. This was not universally welcomed, as was
   illustrated by the summary by F. Pottle, James Boswell's 20th century
   biographer, concerning James' view of his father Alexander Boswell's
   speech habits: 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.

   On the other hand, the education system also became increasingly geared
   to teaching English, though this was initially impaired by the
   teachers' and students' lack of knowledge of English pronunciation
   through lack of contact with English speakers. Aspects of English
   grammar and lexis could be accessed through printed texts. By the 1840s
   the Scottish Education Department's language 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".
   Students, of course, reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the
   reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever
   since, is a process of language attrition, whereby successive
   generations have adopted more and more features from English. This
   process has accelerated rapidly since wide-spread access to mass media
   in English, and increased population mobility, became available after
   the Second World War. It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale
   language shift. These processes are often erroneously referred to as
   language change, convergence or merger.

   A rather more positive take on this is that, rather than reject English
   culture, the Scots mastered and conquered it, becoming bilingual and
   writing some of the greatest works of the time, such as Adam Smith's
   Wealth of Nations, in what was still a foreign language. However, most
   younger Scots today see a Scottish accent, that is, Scottish English,
   as a sufficient marker of their Scottishness, and are generally not
   interested in retaining bilingualism in a language they consider
   old-fashioned, parochial, or simply uncool. Residual features of Scots
   are often regarded as slang.

Literature

   Examples of the first English literature include Christ's Prayer in
   Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon from c. 650, which begins "Faeder ure, Thu the
   eart on heofonum,". Some Scottish and Northumbrian folk still say "oor
   faither" and "thoo art". The Genesis Poem attributed to Cædmon of
   Whitby in Northumbria opens with the words "Us is riht mikel" which is
   translated as "We are mighty great", but in Scots could appear as "Us
   is richt muckle". The words were written around 675 by a monk trained
   by the Celtic church of Iona taking dictation from the illiterate
   herdsman Caedmon singing in Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon in a monastery
   then known by the Gaelic name of Streaneshalch. Cædmon's name is
   Brythonic, and some scholars think that he may have been bilingual.

   Among the earliest Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (fourteenth
   century), Whyntoun's Kronykil and Blind Harry's Wallace (fifteenth
   century). From the fifteenth century, much literature based around the
   Royal Court in Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews was produced
   by writers such as Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Douglas and David
   Lyndsay. The Complaynt of Scotland was an early printed work in Scots.

   After the seventeenth century, anglicisation increased, though Scots
   was still spoken by the vast majority of the population. At the time,
   many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East were
   written down. Writers of the period were Robert Sempill, Robert Sempill
   the younger, Francis Sempill, Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie.

   In the eighteenth century, writers such as Alan Ramsay, Robert Burns,
   Robert Fergusson and Walter Scott continued to use Scots. Scott
   introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels.

   Following their example, such well-known authors as Robert Louis
   Stevenson, William Alexander, George MacDonald and J. M. Barrie also
   wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue.

   In the Victorian era popular Scottish newspapers regularly included
   articles and commentary in the vernacular, often of unprecedented
   proportions.

   In the early twentieth century, a renaissance in the use of Scots
   occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid. Other
   contemporaries were Douglas Young, Sidney Goodsir Smith, Robert Garioch
   and Robert McLellan. However, the revival was largely limited to verse
   and other literature.

   In 1983 William Laughton Lorimer's translation of the New Testament
   from the original Greek was published.

   Highly anglicised Scots is often used in contemporary fiction, for
   example, the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in Trainspotting by Irvine
   Welsh (later made into a motion picture of the same name, though with
   language allegedly anglicised even more to make it suitable for an
   international audience).

   But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt is a cyberpunk novel written entirely
   in what Wir Ain Leid (Our Own Language) calls "General Scots". Like all
   cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative neologisms.

Dialects

   There are at least five Scots dialects:
     * Northern Scots, spoken north of Dundee, often split into North
       Northern, Mid Northern—also known as North East Scots and referred
       to as "the Doric"—and South Northern.
     * Central Scots, spoken from Fife and Perthshire to the Lothians and
       Wigtownshire, often split into North East and South East Central,
       West Central and South West Central Scots.
     * South Scots or simply "Border Tongue" or "Borders' Dialect" spoken
       in the Border areas.
     * Insular Scots, spoken in the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands.
     * Ulster Scots, spoken by the descendants of Scottish settlers (and
       also many of Irish and English descent) in littoral Northern
       Ireland and County Donegal in the Irish Republic, and sometimes
       described by the neologism "Ullans", a conflation of Ulster and
       Lallans. However, in a recent article, Caroline Macafee, editor of
       The Concise Ulster Dictionary, stated that Ulster Scots was
       "clearly a dialect of Central Scots".

   As well as the main dialects, Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow (see
   Glasgow patter) have local variations on an anglicised form of Central
   Scots. In Aberdeen, Mid Northern Scots is spoken.
   Wee Donald Angus. "Please, Sirr, what time wull it be?" Literal
   Gentleman. "When?" Cartoon from Punch magazine, August 25th 1920
   Enlarge
   Wee Donald Angus. "Please, Sirr, what time wull it be?"
   Literal Gentleman. "When?"
   Cartoon from Punch magazine, August 25th 1920

Pronunciation

   Many writers now strictly avoid apostrophes where they supposedly
   represent "missing" English letters. Such letters were never actually
   missing in Scots. For example, in the 14th century, Barbour spelt the
   Scots cognate of 'taken' as tane. Since there has been no k in the word
   for over 700 years, representing its omission with an apostrophe seems
   pointless. The current spelling is usually taen. The following is more
   a guide for readers. How the spellings are applied in practice is
   beyond the scope of such a short description. Phonetics are in IPA.

Consonants

   Most consonants are usually pronounced much as in English but:
     * c: /k/ or /s/, much as in English.
     * ch: /x/, also gh. Medial 'cht' may be /ð/ in Northern dialects.
       loch (Lake), nicht (night), dochter (daughter), dreich (dreary),
       etc. Similar to the German "Nacht".
     * ch: word initial or where it follows 'r' /tʃ/. airch (arch), mairch
       (march), etc.
     * gn: /n/. In Northern dialects /gn/ may occur.
     * kn: /n/. In Northern dialects /kn/ or /tn/ may occur. knap (talk),
       knee, knowe (knoll), etc.
     * ng: is always /ŋ/.
     * nch: usually /nʃ/. brainch (branch), dunch (push), etc.
     * r: /r/ or /ɹ/ is pronounced in all positions, i.e. rhotically.
     * s or se: /s/ or /z/.
     * t: may be a glottal stop between vowels or word final. In Ulster
       dentalised pronunciations may also occur, also for 'd'.
     * th: /ð/ or /θ/ much as is English. Initial 'th' in thing, think and
       thank, etc. may be /h/.
     * wh: usually /ʍ/, older /xʍ/. Northern dialects also have /f/.
     * wr: /wr/ more often /r/ but may be /vr/ in Northern dialects. wrack
       (wreck), wrang (wrong), write, wrocht (worked), etc.
     * z: /jɪ/ or /ŋ/, may occur in some words as a substitute for the
       older <ȝ> ( yogh). For example: brulzie (broil), gaberlunzie (a
       beggar) and the names Menzies, Finzean, Culzean, MacKenzie etc. (As
       a result of the lack of education in Scots, MacKenzie is now
       generally pronounced with a /z/ following the perceived realisation
       of the written form, as more controversially is sometimes Menzies.)

Silent letters

     * The word final 'd' in nd and ld: but often pronounced in derived
       forms. Sometimes simply 'n' and 'l' or 'n'' and 'l''. auld (old),
       haund (hand), etc.
     * 't' in medial cht: ('ch' = /x/) and st and before final en. fochten
       (fought), thristle (thistle) also 't' in aften (often), etc.
     * 't' in word final ct and pt but often pronounced in derived forms.
       respect, accept, etc.

Vowels

   In Scots, vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scots vowel length
   rule. Words which differ only slightly in pronunciation from Scottish
   English are generally spelled as in English. Other words may be spelt
   the same but differ in pronunciation, for example: aunt, swap, want and
   wash with /a/, bull, full v. and pull with /ʌ/, bind, find and wind v.,
   etc. with /ɪ/.
     * The unstressed vowel /ə/ may be represented by any vowel letter.
     * a: usually /a/ but in south west and Ulster dialects often /ɑ/.
       Note final a in awa (away), twa (two) and wha (who) may also be /ɑ/
       or /ɔ/ or /e/ depending on dialect.
     * au, aw and sometimes a, a' or aa: /ɑː/ or /ɔː/ in Southern, Central
       and Ulster dialects but /aː/ in Northern dialects. The cluster
       'auld' may also be /ʌul/ in Ulster. aw (all), cauld (cold), braw
       (handsome), faw (fall), snaw (snow), etc.
     * ae, ai, a(consonant)e: /e/. Often /ɛ/ before /r/. In Northern
       dialects the vowel in the cluster -'ane' is often /i/. brae
       (slope), saip (soap), hale (whole), ane (one), ance (once), bane
       (bone), etc.
     * ea, ei, ie: /iː/ or /eː/ depending on dialect. /ɛ/ may occur before
       /r/. Root final this may be /əi/ in Southern dialects. In the far
       north /əi/ may occur. deid (dead), heid (head), meat (food), clear,
       speir (enquire), sea, etc.
     * ee, e(Consonant)e: /iː/. Root final this may be /əi/ in Southern
       dialects. ee (eye), een (eyes), steek (shut), here, etc.
     * e: /ɛ/. bed, het (heated), yett (gate), etc.
     * eu: /(j)u/ or /(j)ʌ/ depending on dialect. Sometimes erroneously
       'oo', 'u(consonant)e', 'u' or 'ui'. beuk (book), ceuk (cook),
       eneuch (enough), leuk (look), teuk (took), etc.
     * ew: /ju/. In Northern dialects a root final 'ew' may be /jʌu/. few,
       new, etc.
     * i: /ɪ/, but often varies between /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ especially after 'w'
       and 'wh'. /æ/ also occurs in Ulster before voiceless consonants.
       big, fit (foot), wid (wood), etc.
     * i(consonant)e, y(consonant)e, ey: /əi/ or /aɪ/. 'ay' is usually /e/
       but /əi/ in ay (yes) and aye (always). In Dundee it is noticeably
       /ɛ/.
     * o: /ɔ/ but often /o/.
     * oa: /o/.
     * ow, owe (root final), seldom ou: /ʌu/. Before 'k' vocalisation to
       /o/ may occur especially in western and Ulster dialects. bowk
       (retch), bowe (bow), howe (hollow), knowe (knoll), cowp (overturn),
       yowe (ewe), etc.
     * ou, oo, u(consonant)e: /u/. Root final /ʌu/ may occur in Southern
       dialects. cou (cow), broun (brown), hoose (house), moose (mouse)
       etc.
     * u: /ʌ/. but, cut, etc.
     * ui, also u(consonant)e, oo: /ø/ in conservative dialects. In parts
       of Fife, Dundee and north Antrim /e/. In Northern dialects usually
       /i/ but /wi/ after /g/ and /k/ and also /u/ before /r/ in some
       areas eg. fuird (ford). Mid Down and Donegal dialects have /i/. In
       central and north Down dialects /ɪ/ when short and /e/ when long.
       buird (board), buit (boot), cuit (ankle), fluir (floor), guid
       (good), schuil (school), etc. In central dialects uise v. and uiss
       n. (use) are [jeːz] and [jɪs].

Suffixes

     * Negative na: /ɑ/, /ɪ/ or /e/ depending on dialect. Also 'nae' or
       'y' eg. canna (can't), dinna (don't) and maunna (mustn't).
     * fu (ful): /u/, /ɪ/, /ɑ/ or /e/ depending on dialect. Also 'fu'',
       'fie', 'fy', 'fae' and 'fa'.
     * The word ending ae: /ɑ/, /ɪ/ or /e/ depending on dialect. Also 'a',
       'ow' or 'y', for example: arrae (arrow), barrae (barrow) and windae
       (window), etc.

Some grammar features

   Not all of the following features are exclusive to Scots and may also
   occur in other " Anglic varieties".

The definite article

   The is used before the names of seasons, days of the week, many nouns,
   diseases, trades, occupations, sciences and academic subjects. It is
   also often used in place of the indefinite article and instead of a
   possessive pronoun: the hairst (autumn), the Wadensday (Wednesday), awa
   til the kirk (off to church), the nou (at the moment), the day (today),
   the haingles (influenza), the Laitin (Latin), The deuk ett the bit
   breid (The duck ate a piece of bread), the wife (my wife) etc.

Nouns

   Nouns usually form their plural in -(e)s but some irregular plurals
   occur: ee/een (eye/eyes), cauf/caur (calf/calves), horse/horse
   (horse/horses), cou/kye (cow/cows), shae/shuin (shoe/shoes). Nouns of
   measure and quantity unchanged in the plural: fower fit (four feet),
   twa mile (two miles), five pund (five pounds), three hunderwecht (three
   hundredweight). Regular plurals include laifs (loaves), leafs (leaves),
   shelfs (shelves) and wifes (wives), etc.

Diminutives

   Diminutives in -ie, burnie small burn (brook), feardie/feartie
   (frightened person, coward), gamie (gamekeeper), kiltie (kilted
   soldier), postie (postman), wifie (woman), rhodie (rhododendron), and
   also in -ock, bittock (little bit), playock (toy, plaything), sourock
   (sorrel) and Northern –ag, bairnag (little) bairn (child), Cheordag
   (Geordie), -ockie, hooseockie (small house), wifeockie (little woman),
   both influenced by the Scottish Gaelic diminutive -ag (-óg in Irish
   Gaelic).

Modal verbs

   The modal verbs mey (may), ocht tae (ought to), and sall ( shall), are
   no longer used much in Scots but occurred historically and are still
   found in anglicised literary Scots. Can, shoud (should), and will are
   the preferred Scots forms. Scots employs double modal constructions
   He'll no can come the day (He won't be able to come today), A micht
   coud come the morn (I may be able to come tomorrow), A uised tae coud
   dae it, but no nou (I could do it once, but not now).

Present tense of verbs

   The present tense of verbs adhere to the Northern subject rule whereby
   verbs end in -s in all persons and numbers except when a single
   personal pronoun is next to the verb, Thay say he's ower wee, Thaim
   that says he's ower wee, Thir lassies says he's ower wee (They say he's
   too small), etc. Thay're comin an aw but Five o thaim's comin, The
   lassies? Thay've went but Ma brakes haes went. Thaim that comes first
   is serred first (Those who come first are served first). The trees
   growes green in the simmer (The trees grow green in summer).

   Wis 'was' may replace war 'were', but not conversely: You war/wis
   thare.

Past tense of verbs

   The regular past form of the verb is -(i)t or -(e)d, according to the
   preceding consonant or vowel hurtit, skelpit (smacked), Mendit,
   kent/kenned (knew/known), cleant/cleaned, scrieved (scribbled),
   telt/tauld (told), dee'd (died). Some verbs have distinctive forms:
   greet/grat/grutten (weep/wept), fesh/fuish/fuishen (fetch/fetched),
   lauch/leuch/lauchen~leuchen (laugh/laughed),
   thrash/thruish/thrashen~thruishen (thresh/threshed),
   wash/wuish/washen~wuishen (wash/washed), gae/gaed/gane (go/went/gone),
   gie/gied/gien (give/gave/given), pit/pat/pitten (put/put/put/),
   git/gat/gotten (get/got/got(ten)), ride/rade/ridden (ride/rode/ridden),
   drive/drave/driven~dreen (drive/drove/driven), write/wrat(e)/written
   (write/wrote/written), bind/band/bund (bind/bound/bound),
   find/fand/fund (find/found/found), fecht/focht/fochten (fight/fought),
   bake/bakit~beuk/baken (bake/baked), tak(e)/teuk/taen (take/took/taken),
   chuse/chusit/chusit (choose/chose/chosen).

Word order

   Scots prefers the word order He turnt oot the licht to 'He turned the
   light out' and Gie me it to 'Give it to me'.

   Certain verbs are often used progressively He wis thinkin he wad tell
   her, He wis wantin tae tell her.

   Verbs of motion may be dropped before an adverb or adverbial phrase of
   motion A'm awa tae ma bed, That's me awa hame, A'll intae the hoose an
   see him.

Ordinal numbers

   Ordinal numbers ending in -t seicont, fowert, fift, saxt— (second,
   fourth, fifth, sixth) etc. first, Thrid/third— (first, third).

Adverbs

   Adverbs are usually of the same form as the verb root or adjective
   especially after verbs. Haein a real guid day (Having a really good
   day). She's awfu fauchelt (She's awfully tired).

   Adverbs are also formed with -s, -lies, lins, gate(s)and wey(s) -wey,
   whiles (at times), mebbes (perhaps), brawlies (splendidly), geylies
   (pretty well), aiblins (perhaps), airselins (backwards), hauflins
   (partly), hidlins (secretly), maistlins (almost), awgates (always,
   everywhere), ilkagate (everywhere), onygate (anyhow), ilkawey
   (everywhere), onywey(s) (anyhow, anywhere), endweys (straight ahead),
   whit wey (how, why).

Subordinate clauses

   Verbless subordinate clauses introduced by an and expressing surprise
   or indignation She haed tae walk the hale lenth o the road an her
   sieven month pregnant, He telt me tae rin an me wi ma sair leg (and me
   with my sore leg).

Negation

   Negation occurs by using the adverb no, in the North East nae, as in
   A'm no comin (I'm not coming), or by using the suffix -na
   (pronunciation depending on dialect), as in A dinna ken (I don't know),
   Thay canna come (They can't come), We coudna hae telt him (We couldn't
   have told him), and A hivna seen her (I haven't seen her). The usage
   with no is preferred to that with -na with contractable auxiliary verbs
   like -ll for will, or in yes no questions with any auxiliary He'll no
   come and Did he no come?

Relative pronoun

   The relative pronoun is that ('at is an alternative form borrowed from
   Norse but can also be arrived at by contraction) for all persons and
   numbers, but may be left out Thare's no mony fowk (that) leeves in that
   glen (There aren't many people who live in that glen). The anglicised
   forms wha, wham, whase 'who, whom, whose', and the older whilk 'which'
   are literary affectations; whilk is only used after a statement He said
   he'd tint it, whilk wis no whit we wantit tae hear. The possessive is
   formed by adding 's or by using an appropriate pronoun The wifie that's
   hoose gat burnt, the wumman that her dochter gat mairit; the men that
   thair boat wis tint.

   A third adjective/adverb yon/yonder, thon/thonder indicating something
   at some distance D'ye see yon/thon hoose ower yonder/thonder? Also thae
   (those) and thir (these), the plurals of this and that.

   In Northern Scots this and that are also used where "these" and "those"
   would be in Standard English.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
