Languages in Scotland

English and Scottish English are the two official languages of Scotland. But this is not the only spoken languages which exist. There are also the Celtic languages, the Scots, the Goidelic languages and the Brittonic.

Celtic Languages

The Celtic languages of Scotland can be divided into two groups: Goidelic (or Gaelic) and Brittonic.

The Goidelic language spoken in Scotland is Scottish Gaelic. It is still spoken in parts of the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides. Scottish Gaelic, along with modern Manx and Irish, are descended from Middle Irish, the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages. This form of the language is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet in Ireland and western Britain up to about the 6th century. Goidelic languages were once the most prominent by far among the Scottish population, but now are restricted to the West. The majority of the vocabulary of modern Scottish Gaelic is native Celtic. There are a large number of borrowings from Latin, ancient Greek, especially in the religious domain, Norse, Hebrew, French and Lowland Scots. The influence of Scottish Gaelic can be seen particularly in surnames and toponymy.

None of the Brittonic languages of Scotland survive to the modern day, though they have been reconstructed to a degree.

The ancestral Common Brittonic language was likely spoken in southern Scotland in Roman times and earlier. It was certainly spoken there by the early medieval era, and Brittonic-speaking kingdoms, emerged in what is now Scotland. Eventually Brittonic evolved into a variety known as Cumbric, which survived in southwestern Scotland until around the 11th century.

Germanic languages

Two West Germanic languages in the Anglic group are spoken in Scotland today : Scots, and Scottish English. The Norn language, a North Germanic language, is now extinct.

Scots has its origins in the variety of Early northern Middle English. Later influences on the development of Scots were from Romance languages, Latin, Norman, and later Parisian French due to the influences due to trade and immigration from the low countries. Scots also includes words resulting from contact with Scottish Gaelic. Contemporary Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features.

This modern literary dialect, once again gave Scots orthography of its own. During the twentieth century a number of proposals for spelling reform were presented.

Spoken Scots comprises many dialects, so much so that no one may be said to be true Scots more so than any other. This diversity is often seen as a mark of local pride among Scots. There are four dialect groupings:

• Insular Scots, spoken in Orkney and Shetland.

• Northern Scots, spoken in Caithness, Easter Ross, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Angus.

• Central Scots, spoken in the Central Lowlands and South west Scotland.

• Southern Scots, spoken in the Scottish Borders and Dumfriesshire. A Jewish hybrid of the early 20th century is Scots-Yiddish.

Scottish English

English is the first language of 98% of Scottish. It is English with strong Scots accents and some grammatical particularities.

The Scottish English is the result of the combination between the English and the scots in the 17^th century. The English of the Highlands is a bit different that the one of the Lowlands because there is a bigger influence of the Scottish Gaelic. There are not much grammatical differences with the other English spoken, although, the progressive form is uses more often.  

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