Scots - Dialect or Language

I was just reading Sander's thread about West Flemish and Dutch. It made me think of English and Scots. I know that this is not a hotly contested issue, but are they different languages, or is Scots a dialect of English?

Here is an artical about Scots in Scots, followed by the Enlgish translation:

Scots is a leid that awns kinrent wi English and a muckle dale o thon leid’s vocabular. Doon the centuries it has kythed apairt fae English and has wrocht oot its ain byordinar grammatical kenmerks, syntax and vocabular.

By the 15t century, Scots wis the leid o the State and wis the heidmaist leid used by the Coorts and Pairliament. State records were scrievit in Scots and the leid wis the speak o ilka body in Scotland that didna hae the Gaelic. Different airts had different soonds but the harigals and hert o the leid wis the same.

Frae as early as the 15t century, Scots has been a pouerfu medium for expression for scrievers and makars the like o Robert Henryson (c1430-1506), Robert Burns (1759-1796), Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), William Dunbar (c1465-1520), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1901-1935) and Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978).

English translation:

Scots is a language which shares a common ancestry with English and a large amount vocabulary in common. Over the centuries it has developed separately from English and has evolved its own distinctive grammatical features, syntax and vocabulary.

By the 15th-century, Scots was the language of the State and was the principal language used by the Courts and Parliament. State records were kept in Scots and it was spoken by everyone in Scotland who did not speak Gaelic. There were local variations but the essential core of the language was the same.

From as early as the 15th century, Scots has provided a powerful medium for expression for writers and poets such as Robert Henryson (c1430-1506), Robert Burns (1759-1796), Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), William Dunbar (c1465-1520), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1901-1935) and Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978).

I'd say Scots is a seperate language. Even though I saw a lot of similar words, I couldn't really understand the Scots article. I DO understand British & Aussie.

It saddens me that the local Gaelic dialects overall are dying from the influence of the English language. Well there are some attempts to save the survioring dialects and langauges from the brink of Death.

Scots English is considered to be one of the three dialects of English along with Cockney and Queens. I agree with the 1988 PBS series on English which said that "had Scotland remained politically separated from England long enough, Scots English might have become a different language, as different as Swedish from Danish" but this did not happen.

I myself would consider Scots a separate language from English; I have not very much understanding of written Scots for that matter, and if intelligibility is very lacking for me just for *written* Scots, I wonder if *spoken* Scots would be really intelligible to me at all. Don't confuse Scots though with Scottish English (which I can understand perfectly well), which is a dialect of English, though, Brennus.

I don't have much experience with Danish and Swedish, but I do know that they are, for the most part, mutually intelligable. I've heard Scots spoken, I actually watched a Scottish movie once (can't remember the name) that was filmed in Scots. I didn't realize it was anything close to English at first, but even after I did, I couldn't follow a lot of it.

Brennus, I still don't know where the hell you got that "Scots English is considered to be one of the three dialects of English along with Cockney and Queens" thing from anyways; since when're Scottish English, Cockney, and "Queen's English" the only dialects of English anyways (and anyways, that seems to be a very, very UK-centric view of things, really).

I agree with Travis. I can understand maybe half of the *written* Scots (still very low to be considered a "dialect') and doubt I'd get anywhere near half of spoken Scots.

Politics aside (and I'm pretty removed from that, since I have no direct connections to Scots or speakers of it), from a linguistic point of view English and Scots are separate languages. Also, as Travis said, Scottish English is quite another thing, as I understand Scottish English just fine. If the language varieties spoken in Scandinavia (which have a considerable, altho not anywhere near perfect, level of mutual intelligibility) get to be called languages, then Scots and English are separate languages, as they're further apart than the Scandinavian languages.

Brennus, English has way more than three dialects, even in the largest, broadest sense of the word "dialect." No one who seriously studies English dialects or linguistics would hold that English only has three diaects.

Oops, typo--that should be "dialects" above. And while I'm back at it, which of the three English dialects do you speak, Brennus? I wonder if the American Pacific Northwest speaks Cockney, Scottish, or Queens.... :/

I don't know where Brennus got that number from. As everyone has said: he's wrong but UK centric? These aren't the only dialects even in the UK.

I could understand what was written but I'd tend towards calling Scots a seperate language ... maybe. I once heard a definition along the lines that a language was a dialect with an army and a navy. Do linguists have a better definition?

Well, "Dialect" is one of these words that means something a little different to a linguist than to the layman.

A similar example is the word "theory" which means something different to a scientest than it does to a lay person. For example, when he talks about the "theory of evolution" he doesn't mean what most people think he means (a conjecture that people evolved from fishes or monkeys etc.) but rather a working hypothesis which is substantiated by a lot of 1) fossil evidence (the discovery in a Greek cave of a skeleton midway-between Homo Erectus and Homo-Sapiens), 2) genetic evidence (Humans have 98% the same Genetic make-up as chimpanzees; 50 % the same makeup as common bacteria) and DNA testing evidence (Human DNA is more similar to a monkey's than a squirrel and a squirrel's than an turtle's, more similar to a turtle's than a jelly fish etc.).

It's kind of the same way with linguists when using certain words. Much of the differences within a language which we call "dialects" in layman's language would be called "variations" by a linguist. Thus, by this standard, every variety of English spoken in North America is a "variation" of "Queens" (sometimes called King's depending on who the reigning monarch is). Jamaican would probably be called an English pidgin which has become modified by Queens; Australian, a Cockney which is being modified by Queens and so forth.

It's true that "dialect" can be somewhat of a hazy concept. In linguistics "dialects" are usually indeed (usually) mutually intelligible variations of a language. In many cases the lines between "dialects" and "languages" are blurred, and are often influenced by political divisions or unions. Here's a good wikipedia article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect

However, even in popular usage (however that may differ from a technical linguistic definition), "dialects" aren't broad enough to include all English varieties to the point that there are only "three English dialects." People all around the world talk about "English" "American" "Australian" and "South African" dialects of English. Plus, Brennus, I don't know where you ever got that number but it was supposedly from a linguist, right? No matter what popular usage is, a linguist would never split English into "three dialects." That's simply ridiculous. Even the broadest, most simplistic (and inadequate) explanations of American English allow for "three US dialects," and of course there are far more than that even without picking hairs over small differences.

I would classify my dialect as North American-Californian, or possibly Western General American if pressed to use that term (still not specific enough), but I would laugh at the prospect of saying I speak a variation of the Queen's English :)

Also, since when do linguistics make a distinction between "dialects" and "variations", Brennus; I myself've never heard of such a thing at all except from you, ever. You obviously are speaking with such a tone as if you thought that most or all linguists happen to agree with you, which for some reason I happen to strongly doubt such. Also, I'm not sure where the hell you got the idea that there are "three dialects of English" anyways, or that North American English is a "variety" of "Queen's English", whatever that's supposed to be. Also, Scots is not a dialect of English, and Scottish English could probably be called English with a Scots substratum.

I completely agree with Travis.