Re: CHAT: Multi-Lingos

Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:

> I think I need an explanation on this Scots language. I would have guessed
> that were some kind of Gaelic, but that's called 'Scots Gaelic', right?
Yes.

> So Scots is a lingo too different from English to be a mere dialect or just
> accent?
Depends on who's talking (literally).   *Some* Scots dialects are certainly
hard to understand, and up to about 1600 Scots had a separate written standard,
which fell into disuse with the Union of the Crowns and has only recently been revived.

The New Testament was translated into Scots in the 1970s (only the Devil speaks
Standard English :-)), and there are many enthusiasts for Scots-as-separate
language.  Certainly the slogan "Scotland: a twa-leidit fowkreik" (Scotland:
a bilingual nation) is not English!

For lots more detail, some in Scots, some in English, see www.scots-online.org.

> And close enough to Frisian for some comprehensibility!? Tell me
> more about this, please.
Scots didn't undergo the full strength of the Great Vowel Shift:  "house"
and "mouse" are /hus/ and /mus/ still, and the offglides so characteristic
of English are not present.

Scots also has various grammatical constructs that are familiar in the other
Germanic languages but not in Standard English, though it is probably fair
to say that no one grammatical construct is unique to Scots: they are found
in English dialects too.

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