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Scots [note 1] is a language variety descended from Early Middle English in the West Germanic language family.Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, the Northern Isles of Scotland, and northern Ulster in Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots), it is sometimes called: Lowland Scots, to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language that was historically ...
Modern Scots" is used to describe the language after 1700, when southern Modern English was generally adopted as the literary language. There is no institutionalised standard variety, but during the 18th century a new literary language descended from the old court Scots emerged.
Lowland Scots is still a popular spoken language with over 1.5 million Scots speakers in Scotland. [115] Scots is used by about 30,000 Ulster Scots [116] and is known in official circles as Ullans. In 1993, Ulster Scots was recognised, along with Scots, as a variety of the Scots language by the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages. [117]
Official membership is down some 66.5% from its peak in 1957 of 1.32 million. [66] In the 2011 national census, 32% of Scots identified their religion as "Church of Scotland", more than any other faith group, but falling behind the total of those without religion for the first time. [64]
Scotland has three indigenous languages: English, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic. [169] [170] Scottish Standard English, a variety of English as spoken in Scotland, is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with broad Scots at the other. [171] Scottish Standard English may have been influenced to varying degrees by Scots.
English is the most widely spoken and de facto official language of the United Kingdom. [13] A number of regional and migrant languages are also spoken. Indigenous regional languages include the Celtic languages Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh and the West Germanic Scots and Ulster Scots.
A language that uniquely represents the national identity of a state, nation, and/or country and is so designated by a country's government; some are technically minority languages. (On this page a national language is followed by parentheses that identify it as a national language status.) Some countries have more than one language with this ...
Scotland also has its own unique family of languages and dialects, helping to foster a strong sense of "Scottish-ness". See Scots language and Scottish Gaelic language. An organisation called Iomairt Cholm Cille (Columba Project) has been set up to support Gaelic-speaking communities in both Scotland and Ireland and to promote links between ...