Scots Wikipaedia

[gilmore]

What won't they think of next?

http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

[george7]

That's fun... but how many people actually speak Scots?

[Fougasse]

That's fun... but how many people actually speak Scots?

You would be surprised just how much it is still spoken in the some of the rural areas, e.g. Ayrshire. Like other dialects/languages it has suffered from modern communication and transport, but much still remains. I moved from Glasgow to Ayr when I was fourteen, only thirty miles or so, and had to expand my vocabulary and grammar very quickly to keep up. The town itself wasn't too bad, but I went to school with many kids from the smaller country towns and villages who spoke very different English from me.

[thescot]

That's fun... but how many people actually speak Scots?

I used to be a consultant for a software company, and one of our clients had a plant in Ayrshire. It was a great gig, going to Scotland and Northern Ireland on someone else's dime.

Anyway, the team in Scotland had a very attractive young lady who led it, and another young guy from the plant.

Honest to God, I couldn't understand about 1/2 of what he said. I pulled the young lass aside one day and said, "I don't mean to sound rude, but I really have trouble understanding him. Can you help me whenever I give you that blank expression?"

She answered, "To tell you the truth, I can't understand a lot of it myself."

He was a great guy, but he spoke another language from me.

[skauwt]

That's fun... but how many people actually speak Scots?

"A recent Scottish Executive survey estimates that there are 1.6 million active Scots speakers in Scotland today" quote from this site http://www.scotland.org/about/histor...ure/scots.html

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I am always wary of government statistics concerning "secondary" languages. In Ireland the Department of Education and the Department of Arts, Culture, and the Gealtacht could never agree on the percentage of Irish speakers (something between 12% and 60% depending on who did the counting!). With a population of 5.1 million I would be surprised if 1.6 million (or roughly one third of the population) spoke Scots. I would concede that easily that number would be conversant with some words and phrases, although not fluent in the patois.

If these figures were not, in large part, supplied by private companies, fueled by a desire for funding by various state bodies, perhaps I would have a less skeptical view of the statistics.

[skauwt]

I am always wary of government statistics concerning "secondary" languages. In Ireland the Department of Education and the Department of Arts, Culture, and the Gealtacht could never agree on the percentage of Irish speakers (something between 12% and 60% depending on who did the counting!). With a population of 5.1 million I would be surprised if 1.6 million (or roughly one third of the population) spoke Scots. I would concede that easily that number would be conversant with some words and phrases, although not fluent in the patois.

If these figures were not, in large part, supplied by private companies, fueled by a desire for funding by various state bodies, perhaps I would have a less skeptical view of the statistics.

the figures as you say could be wrong i reckon perhaps more than 1.6 million speak scots ,
im assuming who ever made the amount up just based it on regional areas for example it makes sense to say that the glasgow region along side north and south lanarkshire (whose population amount to about 1.2 million folk) more or less speak scots on a daily basis
you could add dumbartonshire and those areas adjoining the central belt to the tally

either way i know i speak scots and everyone in this part of scotland speak scots but i`ll be the first to admit if i was asked to write in scots i wouldn't know where to begin as its almost a dead written form these days

[Heming]

Firstly, Scots is not a form of English, its actually just as closely related to Scandianvian languages and Dutch, but has been under English influence for so long that you really have to look deep to see it. There's a really interesting article here: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/scots.htm

From my experience of being a foreigner in Scotland, I can only agree with Skauwt. My impression is that all over the lowlands, and on the islands, those not speaking Gaelic (which are only a few) speak scots most of the time. Apart from in the larger cities, that is. I have no difficulty believing that a third of the population speak Scots.

I think the situation is somewhat comparable to Norway before WW2 - everyone spoke Norwegian, apart from the aristocracy and the church officials, but everyone wrote Danish. Eventually the written language seeps over into the spoken, and you "water out" the spoken language.

OT:
Norway now has two written languages, one based on Danish and one based on spoken Norwegian. Only problem being that with over 200 quite distinct dialects, you get to the point where you have to choose which dialects not to include in the written. For instance, the simple word "I" can be very different from one area to the other (jeg, eg, ek, i, e, æh, je), and two have been chosen as written forms. Some linguists have argued that the differences between western Norwegian and northern Norwegian (dialects of same language) are greater than those between Bosnian and Croatian (separate languages).

BACK ON TRACK:
This is what happens to Scots now, hopefully they'll start teaching Scots in schools so that a proud people can reclaim their beautiful language.

[scottishcurryfan]

Scots is just english spoken in an old fashioned scottish dialect. Nobody talks like the broons in scotland anymore. It actually makes me kind of cringe. Differant cities in scotland have differant accents and dialects but you could not lump them all together and call it scots (nowdays anyway).

Half the words in that wikipedia page I have never heard anyone speak.

[thanmuwa]

Firstly, Scots is not a form of English, its actually just as closely related to Scandianvian languages and Dutch, but has been under English influence for so long that you really have to look deep to see it. There's a really interesting article here: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/scots.htm

Your article makes the point that it is an early offshoot (ie, it is a form of) of English. At the very least, English is by far its closest relative.
My personal opinion is that Scots is clung onto for use as an excuse for the utterly abysmal standard of spelling in this country (the list goes on and on and on!). The only place I have seen worse spelling on shop-signs and so on is on websites like this. The continued existence of the Scots language is convenient, it allows the lowland Scots to justifiably claim that English is a foreign language to them!