Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
>...>--- Joe <joe@...> scrievit an scraulit:
>
>
>
>>But some dialects of English have
>>characteristics borrowed(or of common
>>descent) from Scots, so even a monoglot speaker
>>of Scottish English, or
>>maybe even Northern English, could understand
>>Scots fairly well.
>>
>>
>
>Which is why I also specified "American", even
>though many Merkins are descended from Scots
>speakers. Problem here is "English" is so broad a
>term as to be practically useless.
>
>
Indeed. The distinction between languages and dialects is a false
dichotomy anyway, so it's rather pointless arguing. Can we say that
Scots is at the far end of a dialect continuum of some kind?