Hello! I'm learning Scots because I find the language fascinating and I've had an interest in Scotland since I was a child.

I already have copies of Luath Scots Language Learner: An introduction to contemporary spoken Scots by L Colin Wilson (revised edition, Luath Press Limited, 2012) and Whit Like the Day?: understanding Orkney dialect by Gregor Lamb (Bellavista Publications, 2005). I've also ordered copies of The Orkney Dictionary by Margaret Flaws and Gregor Lamb (Orkney Language and Culture Group, 2005) and The Orkney Wordbook by Gregor Lamb (Byrgisey, 2012), which will arrive in November.

I've considered buying Concise Scots Dictionary by Scottish Language Dictionaries (2nd edition, Edinburgh University Press, 2017) since I read it at a university library. People on the Discord server The Scots Leid have also recommended Scots: The Mither Tongue by Billy Kay (Mainstream Publishing, 2006), The Essential Scots Dictionary: Scots-English/English-Scots by Scottish Language Dictionaries (Edinburgh University Press, 2005), and Scots Thesaurus by Scottish Language Dictionaries (Edinburgh University Press, 1999).

Concice Scots Dictionary, The Essential Scots Dictionary: Scots-English/English-Scots, and Scots Thesaurus are part of the Scots Language Dictionaries series, which includes Concise English-Scots Dictionary by Scottish Language Dictionaries (Edinburgh University Press, 1999), Grammar Broonie by Susan Rennie and Matthew Fitt (2nd edition, Edinburgh University Press, 2000), and Pocket Scots Dictionary by Scottish Language Dictionaries (Edinburgh University Press, 1999).

Scots: The Mither Tongue has a Kindle edition and an audiobook edition narrated by the author himself. I'm interested in the audiobook, since he has stated in the article "Scottish author Billy Kay releases Scots: The Mither Tongu on Audible" on The National: "It will be the first time that iconic passages from the great Scots literary tradition have been recorded and made available in the one place. For most people it will be the first time they have heard the work of writers from Barbour's Brus to RL Stevenson's Thrawn Janet read out loud by someone steeped in that tradition, who has a deep knowledge of Scots as both a living and a literary language. The combination is powerful with memorable moments from e.g. MacDiarmid and the Border Ballads, from Burns's only letter in Scots and from rich examples of every Scots dialect. Scots and Scottish literature enjoy a global following, but outwith Scotland few people know how the language sounds, so this will fill a big gap in those people’s knowledge and appreciation of a great tradition."

I'm interested in a pan-dialectal orthography for Scots, which Scots Online and Mak Forrit aim at. This topic seems to be covered in Written Scots in Scotland and Ulster: A review of traditional spelling practice and recent recommendations for a normative orthography by Andy Eagle, edited and with a foreword and afterword by Michael Everson (Evertype, 2022).

Which book should I buy to learn Scots? Do you know any other books to recommend?

Hi everyone!

I'm currently learning Scots and need a bit of help with using "dinna" in an imperative way. For instance, in English, if someone says, "I'm going to close the window," and you want them not to, you might just reply with "don't." In Scots, would I just say "dinna" on its own in this context? I've also read that adding "that" can emphasize the command, so would "dinna that" be appropriate here? I'm finding it a bit confusing and my learner's book doesn't cover this exact scenario. Or maybe it's not used like that at all. Could someone please clarify this for me?

Thanks so much for your help!

I’ve been researching my regions culture/way of speaking, and came across a controversy with whether the northumberland accent is English, Scot’s or a whole new language. Personally I think it’s more similar to Scot’s than English but not so dissimilar that it should be classed as another language.

I am not referring to English spoken with a northumberland accent, I’m referring to a standard ‘slang’ heavy northumberland accent

I just wanted to know what everyone’s own personal opinions on this is.

Attached is an example text from Northumberland language society

Can someone interpret the inscription on this heirloom silver ladle for me? It probably came to Brisbane, Australia from Govan, Scotland with my husband’s Great Grandfather, Henry Monteith in about 1882.

The inscription says

“This spune I leave in legacie Tae the maist-mou’d Monteith after me”

https://preview.redd.it/qzinrch26yed1.jpg?width=2190&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3cb39190d626f69f6bb95b45c5785484d89c9ebb

I grew up in Glasgow, but moved to Canada in 2017. There have been a few times when I was shocked to learn a word/phrase wasn’t traditional english, the biggest one til now being “outwith”. My fiancé occasionally comments on my phrasing of things, asking if I’m just speaking oddly (I am also autistic), or if my phrasing is influenced by having grown up speaking Glaswegian Scots / being taught Standardised Scottish English in primary and secondary school.

The most recent phrase that my partner pointed out was the saying “they should do”. (For example, my partner asked me if I thought she would be getting called back even if she didn’t get a specific job and I responded with “they should do”.) I did some googling but nothing came up, so I was wondering if anyone here would know the source of the phrase or if I’m just making stuff up, which has been known to happen.

Does anybody have any good recommendations for books with Scottish English dialogues (especially books that have never been translated in Italian!)? I’m looking for a challenging book to translate for my thesis, so anything that includes Scottish English/humour/not-basic prose and so on. Any genre, except for fantasy and sci-fi

Thank you in advance!

Not sure if this is the right forum because it is not about Scots (the language, a somewhat separate development of northern European roots to that found in England's English) but rather about how a word is spoken in Scotland whether in Scots-speaking areas or in English-speaking areas such as the West Highlands and Islands which previously spoke Gaelic and never to any extent spoke Scots.

I am married to an American who says "yoh-gurt". I lived for over 30 years in Scotland and suspect I had already learned this pronunciation there (as opposed to the English "yog-gurt").

In your opinion, how common are the two pronunciations in your area of Scotland? I now live in England, where my adopted pronunciation "yoh-gurt" is looked at blankly and repeated after the English fashion as if I was, well, a little thick!

I'm not sure if there's any place that would actually do this but I've learned a decent part of my Spanish and Portuguese from looking at subs in those languages just while watching random things in English. I think it would be a great help if I could watch movies or videos in English with scots subtitles so I can hear and see the comparison of the languages side by side!

Would any know of any sites where this is possible? Or even if anyone would know any youtube channels that make videos like this.

I'm writing a story set in Shetland but my Scots dialogue is crap, is there any resources where I can put my dialogue in and it changes it to Scots, so that I'm writing like Irvine Welsh?

I’m listening to an audiobook, and Lord Thomas Cochrane (famous captain) comes up as a character. The man reading it pronounced the name as ko-KRAIN instead of KOK-ran. As a Canadian, I’m familiar with the name, there’s a town of that name in my province and I know some people with that last name. I have never heard of it pronounced in that way, and I’m curious as to where the reader may have gotten that notion. Is it period pronunciation? Or is that how you guys say it? Thanks for your time.

Fit like? My Dad is from Aberdeen, I grew up in Hampshire so have an English accent. We visited Aberdeen annually, family there and all...I can understand Doric Scots, and I could speak it if I tried more. However, I have always felt "imposter syndrome" if I was to start using Scots, and I did, and at times have a wandering accent when speaking with family. Even though being half Scottish, I would feel like a Sassenach imposter! Although, I'm not actually half English. (My mother is French in this case)

What's the sentiment of people turning up and "getting found out", if it is a language and not a dialect...it would be no different than me going to France and speaking a CEFR B1 level French to mother's French family? What are your feelings and point of view on this?

I'd imagine Scots speakers would approve once they know I'm half and half, and not "doing an impression" or anything like that.

FYI I do believe Doric is a language, not dialect.

Hey guys I am an Australian singaporean awake at 12am and deciding i would like to learn Scot’s. I am learning a few other languages in the meantime and would like some audible resources to learn the language. I’m sure as an english native i won‘t struggle too much and may just need to learn some grammar here and there but if there are any audiobooks or long audio compilation style videos i could use to learn to listen to over long periods of time that would be fantastic

I’m not a citizen of Scotland, nor have I ever set foot in the UK. Let me get that out of the way first. I am a Dutchman with a fascination for languages from around the world, especially if they overlap with each other a lot. When I discovered Scots, I was immediately fascinated by how similar yet different it was from English and I wanted to learn it. I am immersing myself in the language, but it feels weird for me to actually learn and speak Scots when I am not from Scotland. It feels like cultural appropriation with Scots feeling like it has such a personal connection with the people of Scotland. On the contrary, when I am learning a language like Swedish I would feel quite comfortable speaking that language in Sweden, but not Scots in Scotland.

So my question is, do any of you native Scots speakers feel like me learning Scots is cultural appropriation and strange? Or is me learning the language welcomed as a part of preserving the culture (even though it is not my own).

Hello, please kick me out of here if this question is not related enough. I'm not sure where else to ask.

I'm not a native speaker of either of the languages and I got curious about something. I know that words such as loch are pronounced differently in BBC than in Scots. So I'd like to know how it works in Scottish dialect. Are they pronounced the same way as in BBC or as in Scots? I'm not looking for a universal rule just some personal experience. My thanks to anyone who answers!!

I really want to read scottish poems in their originals. so, i am willing to learn scots but i don't know how. are there any online resources that i can read? open to any recommendations.

Hello!

Trying to write a poem about Auld Lang Syne and wanted to include the opposite of that phrase. How would someone say something along the lines of "times yet to come" or even just "future" in Scots?

I tried a translator but I don't know enough of the language to know if what I was getting was any good or if there were better ways to word my search. I figured it wouls be better to ask a real human brain.

Althocht mony wirds a dinnae ken or a dinnae onnerstaun hou tae pronownce :(

Working on a Child ballad, Sheath and Knife,

https://mainlynorfolk.info/tony.rose/songs/sheathandknife.html

In Ewan McColl's version

“Sister we’ll gang tae the broom,

O sister, I would lay thee doon.”

A footnote indicates that "gang tae the broom" means "make love."

Is this correct?

This would tend to add another layer of meaning to the refrain in other versions

O the broom blooms bonny and the broom blooms fair,

...

And they’ll never go down to the broom anymore.

Does Scots feature stress in the same way as English? Would make sense since they're sisters languages, but I genuinely can't tell

I have been researching historically used terms for intersex people. I was directed in my query to this link for The Historical Thesaurus of English:

https://ht.ac.uk/category/#id=8630

One of the terms listed is "Scarth", year listed as 1578.

Clicking on the term gives links within the historical thesaurus to these definitions:

cource/principle of life :: Hermaphroditism :: hermaphrodite scarth (a1578 Scots)

01.03.01.06|04 n.

Ill-health :: Deformity :: monstrous birth scarth (1508 + 1508)

01.16.07.04.01|19.01 n.

Wholeness :: Part of whole :: a separate part :: a fragment scarth (a1340–1482).

The thing is, I've noticed that Merriam-Webster and the historical thesaurus seem to differ on the years in which terms first appeared, and I think there might be errors in the Historical Thesaurus.

My own dives into Google revealed this:

From Merriam-Webster:

dialectal, England

: a bare rough rock.

Of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse skarth notch, mountain pass.

The Middle English Compendium says:

scarth(e)

Forms scarth (e n. Also skarth & (in place names) scharth, scart, sgarth, start, start (e.EtymologyON: cp. OI skarð notch, mountain pass & OSwed. scarþer shiver, splinter.

Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)

1.(a) A pottery fragment, shard; (b) in place names

Surnameb.com states:

This interesting and unusual surname is of Old Norse origin, and is found mainly in Northern England and Scotland, especially the Orkneys, and has two possible sources. The first source is locational from any of the various places named with the Old Norse topographical term "skarth", gap, notch. The second source is from the Old Norse byname "Skarthi", meaning hare-lipped, a derivative of "skarth", as before.

^None of this seems to have anything to do with intersex people.

Can anyone tell me if this word does or ever did refer to intersex people? Only the historical thesaurus makes any connection.

Thank you in advance.

​

I’m an American actor cast in a comedy as a Scottish constable. I am looking for a suitable exclamation when the poor fellow is shot in the foot. So far I’ve come up with “Och mo dhia a chronachadh!” But it seems a bit long? I could also use some help with pronunciation on that last word…. Thanks in advance, hope this is on topic.

I don’t speak Scots and I’m trying to write the lyrics of Ewan MacColl – Johnnie O’Breadisley for Musixmatch. I’m writing it based on the lyrics I found on the Internet, mainly those on Genius. I fixed some spellings and added some things I understood that lacked from the lyrics I found. For those interested, here’s the full text I have: https://pastebin.com/raw/3Phj3uPN (if someone wants to correct it, I’d appreciate it, although it’s outside the scope of this post).

But my question only regards the last verse. This is what I have:

Johnnie showed the six o’ them

And the seventh he wounded ser

And he swung his [?] oer his horses’ back

And he swore that he would hunt more, more

He swore that he would hunt more

I can’t understand the missing word. Can someone?