Scots (language)
Scots is the name of a language (see also Scots - Scotch - Scottish for a discussion of different forms and meanings of the word.) Scots is descended from Old English, and is therefore a member of the West Germanic family. There is an on-going argument about whether it counts as an independent language or a dialect: this is, as usual, an argument based in politics, and Scots lies somewhere in the continuum between a separate language and a purely local variety. What is certain is that speakers of Scots and of English in England can understand each other pretty well.
Those who are new to Scots should be aware that it is the ancestral language (or dialect) of the lowland areas of Scotland, and is very closely akin to Modern English. The ancestral language of the Highlands (the area north and west of a line drawn roughly northeast from the Firth of Clyde) is Gaelic, a Celtic (language). These two languages should not be confused. Traditionally, speakers from the Highlands and those from the Lowlands could not understand each other, and this contributed to the conflicts between the two which only ended physically in 1746, with the battle of Culloden which brought an end to the Jacobite claim to the throne, and still exists in mild prejudice between the two to this day. Nowadays, all Scots speak a Scottish version of English, by far the most as their first language, and all learn it in school. Some also learn Gaelic in school, as a second language or, in a comparatively few schools in Highland areas, as the language in which pupils are taught.
Because of where it is spoken, Scots is sometimes called Lallans, the Scots form of 'Lowlands'. This word was used by Burns. It was popularized by the great twentieth century poet Hugh MacDiarmid (the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve, 1892-1978), who was largely responsible for something of a revival of writing in the language called 'The Scottish Renaissance'.
It was more dismissively known as 'Doric' from the 17th century onwards, with connotations of 'uneducated', 'peasant' and 'unsophisticated' - but also 'honest', 'unaffected' and 'natural'.
