Scots. No, I don’t mean the people from Scotland. I mean the language; “Scots” is a singular noun, not a plural. And yes, it is from Scotland—but it most definitely is not Gaelic.

Give up?

TIL that Scotland has four official languages: English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and British Sign Language. You don’t need an example of English, and there’s no easy way to provide an example of British Sign Language (but I have a comment about it below), so we’ll settle for Scottish Gaelic and Scots:

• Example of Scottish Gaelic: Rugadh na h-uile duine saor agus co-ionnan nan urram ‘s nan còirichean. Tha iad reusanta is cogaiseach, agus bu chòir dhaibh a ghiùlain ris a chèile ann an spiorad bràthaireil. (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic)
• Example of Scots: His mither Mary wis trystit til Joseph, but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit. (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language)

It doesn’t take a linguist to conclude that Scots is closely related to English but Scottish Gaelic is not. In fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that Scottish Gaelic is not related to English at all—though it actually is, since both languages are descended from Proto-Indo-European, but that requires going back well over 100 generations.

At this point, of course, you’re wondering whether Scottish Gaelic is closely related to Irish (which you might confusingly call Gaelic, but don’t do that!). Let’s look at the same passage as the Scottish Gaelic one above, but this time in Irish:

• Saolaítear gach duine den chine daonna saor agus comhionann i ndínit agus i gcearta. Tá bua an réasúin agus an choinsiasa acu agus ba cheart dóibh gníomhú i dtreo a chéile i spiorad an bhráithreachais.

So, it’s reasonably clear that the two Gaelics are closely related, even if not as closely as Scots is to English. In fact, as the Wikipedia article on Scots points out:

Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine. Because standard English now generally has the role of a Dachsprache (‘roofing language’), disputes often arise as to whether the varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a separate language in their own right.

Oh, I promised a comment about British Sign Language. Surprisingly, it’s not closely related to American Sign Language! In fact, American Sign Language is much more closely related to French Sign Language than it is to British.

Finally, not only does Scotland have four official languages, it also has two flags!

Categories: Linguistics