90-640: The Cowgate ( Scots : The Cougait) is a street in Edinburgh , Scotland, located about 550 yards (500 m) southeast of Edinburgh Castle , within the city's World Heritage Site . The street is part of the lower level of Edinburgh's Old Town , which lies below the elevated streets of South Bridge and George IV Bridge . It meets the Grassmarket at its west end and Holyrood Road to the east. The Cowgate developed around 1330 and represented Edinburgh’s first municipal extension. The original settlement on
180-923: A 1996 trial before the Census, by the General Register Office for Scotland (GRO), suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding "Yes" to the question "Can you speak the Scots language?", but only 17% responding "Aye" to the question "Can you speak Scots?". It was also found that older, working-class people were more likely to answer in the affirmative. The University of Aberdeen Scots Leid Quorum performed its own research in 1995, cautiously suggesting that there were 2.7 million speakers, though with clarification as to why these figures required context. The GRO questions, as freely acknowledged by those who set them, were not as detailed and systematic as those of
270-650: A Scots language listing. The Ferret, a UK -based fact-checking service, wrote an exploratory article in December 2022 to address misconceptions about the Scots language to improve public awareness of its endangered status. In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles , Caithness , Arran and Campbeltown . In Ulster , the northern province in Ireland , its area
360-469: A collection of children's nursery rhymes and poems in Scots. The book contains a five-page glossary of contemporary Scots words and their pronunciations. Alexander Gray 's translations into Scots constitute the greater part of his work, and are the main basis for his reputation. In 1983, William Laughton Lorimer 's translation of the New Testament from the original Greek was published. Scots
450-433: A continuum ranging from traditional broad Scots to Scottish Standard English . Many speakers are diglossic and may be able to code-switch along the continuum depending on the situation. 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
540-507: A form often associated with poets and poetry. Hamilton won the competition and the foundation stone was laid in 1820, but the project was shelved and debated for years. It was resumed in 1825 and completed in 1828. A bust of Burns by Patrick Park was added in the memorial in 1854. This was replaced in 1884 by a bust donated by the prominent Scots sculptor Sir John Steell . Following a large subscription in 1817 from Scottish expatriates in India
630-677: A major venue for the Edinburgh Fringe , and offices for both the Gilded Balloon and Underbelly venues housed in an 1823 listed warehouse by Thomas Hamilton . The Gilded Balloon later moved to premises in Teviot Row House . The site was temporarily used as a Fringe venue again when it became the C venues' Urban Garden during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival. The owners and displaced tenants together with Edinburgh City appointed McGregor CS to act as lead to piece together
720-635: A mausoleum on the grave of Robert Burns in Dumfries in 1815 was followed by a general move to erect memorials and statues of the bard in other Scottish towns and cities. In October 1817 a competition was announced in Ayrshire seeking designs for a monument at Burns' birthplace at Alloway. Hamilton had been working on just such a project. His design is based on the Monument to Lysicrates in Athens, Greece ,
810-608: A monument in Edinburgh was funded and after a debate lasting over a decade Thomas Hamilton won this commission in 1831. While largely repeating the design of the Alloway monument, he designed the Edinburgh monument to contain a full sized statue of Burns by John Flaxman . The statue was later removed to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery where it remains on display. Whilst the Alloway monument
900-456: A more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots, especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots. Thomas Hamilton (architect) Thomas Hamilton (11 January 1784 – 24 February 1858) was a Scottish architect, based in Edinburgh where he designed many of that city's prominent buildings. Born in Glasgow , his works include:
990-696: A name for the Lowland vernacular. The Gaelic of Scotland is now usually called Scottish Gaelic . Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the River Forth by the seventh century, as the region was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria . By the tenth century, Middle Irish was the language of the Scottish court , and the common use of Old English remained largely confined to this area until
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#17327719086851080-413: A number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects exist, they often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum , with Scottish Standard English at the other. Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects; other scholars treat Scots as a distinct Germanic language, in the way that Norwegian
1170-554: A poor, often overcrowded slum area. In the 19th century it was home to much of the city's Irish immigrant community and nicknamed "Little Ireland". In the evening of 7 December 2002, a fire started above the Belle Angele nightclub off the Cowgate. It swept up through the eight storey structure to other buildings on Cowgate and above it on South Bridge . The complicated nature of the buildings, with narrow alleys and entrances from
1260-612: A representative sample of Scotland's adult population) claim to speak Scots to varying degrees. The 2011 UK census was the first to ask residents of Scotland about Scots. A campaign called Aye Can was set up to help individuals answer the question. The specific wording used was "Which of these can you do? Tick all that apply" with options for "Understand", "Speak", "Read" and "Write" in three columns: English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots. Of approximately 5.1 million respondents, about 1.2 million (24%) could speak, read and write Scots, 3.2 million (62%) had no skills in Scots and
1350-506: A suitable medium of education or culture". Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process of language attrition , whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from Standard English. This process has accelerated rapidly since widespread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after
1440-476: A vulnerable language by UNESCO . In a Scottish census from 2022, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported being able to speak Scots. Given that there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect , scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to English . Although
1530-527: A workshop at Allan's Close on the Royal Mile in the Old Town. Hamilton was by then apprenticed to his father. His mother Jean died approximately at the time of this move or shortly before. In 1804 his father remarried: to Margaret McAra. By this time young Thomas seems largely to have been working under the wing of his uncle. John Hamilton (d.1812), a builder living and operating from 4 Dundas Street in
1620-542: 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 restricted to most of
1710-591: Is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form . Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots ( Ulstèr-Scotch in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recent neologism merging Ulster and Lallans. Scots is a contraction of Scottis , the Older Scots and northern version of late Old English : Scottisc (modern English "Scottish"), which replaced
1800-604: Is closely linked to but distinct from Danish . Native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as braid Scots (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the " Doric " or the " Buchan Claik ". The old-fashioned Scotch , an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Ulster. The term Lallans , a variant of the Modern Scots word lawlands [ˈlo̜ːlən(d)z, ˈlɑːlənz] ,
1890-428: Is derived from the medieval practice of herding cattle down the street on market days; a number of other streets in the old town of Edinburgh (such as Grassmarket and Lawnmarket) also reflect their market roots. Gate is a Scots language word for "way" or "road", a cognate of similar words in other Germanic languages (compare with gait ). Cowgate Port, a gatehouse in the city wall , was erected in 1516 and stood at
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#17327719086851980-562: Is in Scots, for example. Scott introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels. Other well-known authors like Robert Louis Stevenson , William Alexander, George MacDonald , J. M. Barrie and other members of the Kailyard school like Ian Maclaren also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the Victorian era popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular, often of unprecedented proportions. In
2070-767: Is lykest to our language..." ( For though several have written of (the subject) in English, which is the language most similar to ours... ). However, with the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England, most writing in Scotland came to be done in the English fashion. In his first speech to the English Parliament in March 1603, King James VI and I declared, "Hath not God first united these two Kingdomes both in Language, Religion, and similitude of maners?" . Following James VI's move to London,
2160-534: Is sometimes used in contemporary fiction, such as the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (later made into a motion picture of the same name ). But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt is a cyberpunk novel written entirely in what Wir Ain Leed ("Our Own Language") calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative neologisms . The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
2250-567: Is used to describe the Scots language after 1700. A seminal study of Scots was undertaken by JAH Murray and published as Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland . Murray's results were given further publicity by being included in Alexander John Ellis 's book On Early English Pronunciation, Part V alongside results from Orkney and Shetland, as well as the whole of England. Murray and Ellis differed slightly on
2340-540: Is usually defined through the works of Robert John Gregg to include the counties of Down , Antrim , Londonderry and Donegal (especially in East Donegal and Inishowen ). More recently, the Fintona -born linguist Warren Maguire has argued that some of the criteria that Gregg used as distinctive of Ulster-Scots are common in south-west Tyrone and were found in other sites across Northern Ireland investigated by
2430-560: The Court of the Exchequer met. The Exchequer Rolls mention that she and her nobles were provided with wine, bread, beer, meat fish, spices, pewter, and napkins. After her abdication , her enemies and George Buchanan described her visits to the Earl of Bothwell in an adjacent house, facilitated by Margaret Beaton, Lady Reres . Between the mid 18th and mid 20th centuries the Cowgate was
2520-481: The English Dialect Dictionary , edited by Joseph Wright . Wright had great difficulty in recruiting volunteers from Scotland, as many refused to cooperate with a venture that regarded Scots as a dialect of English, and he obtained enough help only through the assistance from a Professor Shearer in Scotland. Wright himself rejected the argument that Scots was a separate language, saying that this
2610-509: The Linguistic Survey of Scotland . Dialects of Scots include Insular Scots , Northern Scots , Central Scots , Southern Scots and Ulster Scots . It has been difficult to determine the number of speakers of Scots via census, because many respondents might interpret the question "Do you speak Scots?" in different ways. Campaigners for Scots pressed for this question to be included in the 2001 UK National Census . The results from
2700-735: The Protestant Church of Scotland adopted the 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible; subsequently, the Acts of Union 1707 led to Scotland joining England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain , having a single Parliament of Great Britain based in London. After the Union and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education, as
2790-791: The Romance languages via ecclesiastical and legal Latin , Norman French , and later Parisian French , due to the Auld Alliance . Additionally, there were Dutch and Middle Low German influences due to trade with and immigration from the Low Countries . Scots also includes loan words in the legal and administrative fields resulting from contact with Middle Irish , and reflected in early medieval legal documents. Contemporary Scottish Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as cèilidh , loch , whisky , glen and clan . Cumbric and Pictish ,
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2880-632: The Royal Scottish Academy in 1826. In the 1830s he is listed as living at 57 York Place, on the eastern edge of the Edinburgh New Town . He trained John Henderson in the 1820s. The architect John Starforth trained under Hamilton in the 1830s. In 1852, he submitted a design for improving the Bank of Scotland 's Head Office, which was unpopular and described as a "prominent deformity" by Lord Cockburn in 1849. The design
2970-597: The Scottish Highlands , the Hebrides , and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English . Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English , as the two diverged from the same medieval form of English. Scots is recognised as an indigenous language of Scotland by the Scottish government, a regional or minority language of Europe, and
3060-469: The Second World War . It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift , sometimes also termed language change , convergence or merger . By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of language death over much of Lowland Scotland . Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang. A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards
3150-594: The University of Aberdeen , and only included reared speakers (people raised speaking Scots), not those who had learned the language. Part of the difference resulted from the central question posed by surveys: "Do you speak Scots?". In the Aberdeen University study, the question was augmented with the further clause "... or a dialect of Scots such as Border etc.", which resulted in greater recognition from respondents. The GRO concluded that there simply
3240-1080: The Burns Monument in Alloway ; the Royal High School on the south side of Calton Hill (long considered as a possible home for the Scottish Parliament ); the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh ; the George IV Bridge , which spans the Cowgate; the Dean Orphan Hospital, now the Dean Gallery ; the New North Road Free Church, now the Bedlam Theatre ; Cumstoun, a private house in Dumfries and Galloway ; and
3330-436: The Cowgate was concentrated on the south side because of a burn on the north, though that was filled in around 1490 and built upon. Archaeological excavations in the 2006 and 2007 found a boundary ditch, dating to the 14th century, near St Patrick's Church which might have been the full extent of the Cowgate at that time. The street's name is recorded from 1428, in various spellings, as Cowgate and in 1498 as Via Vaccarum. It
3420-554: The Crowns in 1603, the Standard English of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After the Acts of Union in 1707 the emerging Scottish form of Standard English replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland. The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new literary language descended from
3510-693: The Friends of Parliamentary Reform in England and Scotland, 1844. It includes the following quotation: I have devoted myself to the cause of The People. It is a good cause - it shall ultimately prevail - it shall finally triumph. (Speech of Thomas Muir in the Court of Judiciary on 30 August 1793.) Hamilton also designed the Doric column for the statue of John Knox (1825) in the Glasgow Necropolis (see Glasgow's public statues ). The building of
3600-454: The Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be an independent sister language forming a pluricentric diasystem with English. German linguist Heinz Kloss considered Modern Scots a Halbsprache ('half language') in terms of an abstand and ausbau languages framework, although today in Scotland most people's speech is somewhere on
3690-642: The New Town, helping with building projects such as Heriot Row . During this time he acquired considerable knowledge of stone masonry. In 1812 his uncle John died and left the bulk of his estate to Hamilton who was 28 years old. This included several houses on Heriot Row and Dundas Street, built by them both. Since the move to Princes Street, however, his father's affairs had been in disarray, with Hamilton possibly supporting him to some degree. In 1813 his uncle James Hamilton of Springhill agreed to pay £40 towards his father's debts to fend off creditors, but this
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3780-520: The Philosopher's Stane , a Scots translation of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , was published by Matthew Fitt . The vowel system of Modern Scots: Vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scottish vowel length rule . The orthography of Early Scots had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century. After the Union of
3870-480: The Scots language was also featured. It was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. The Scottish Government set its first Scots Language Policy in 2015, in which it pledged to support its preservation and encourage respect, recognition and use of Scots. The Scottish Parliament website also offers some information on
3960-471: The Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", also finding "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)". Before the Treaty of Union 1707 , when Scotland and England joined to form
4050-623: The Scottish Political Martyrs' Monument in Old Calton Cemetery , Edinburgh. He was one of the leading Greek Revivalists in Scotland, "more imaginative than his peers and more refined in his detailing". He was a favourite of the church for his Gothic designs, being commissioned to design many Free Churches after the Disruption of 1843 . He also designed shops and banks, many of which survive. Hamilton
4140-581: The Scottish Executive recognises and respects Scots (in all its forms) as a distinct language, and does not consider the use of Scots to be an indication of poor competence in English. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature, its independent – if somewhat fluid – orthographic conventions , and in its former use as the language of the original Parliament of Scotland . Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after
4230-505: The Standard English cognate . This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the King James Bible , and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of Augustan English poetry . Consequently, this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries. This modern literary dialect, "Scots of
4320-497: The Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. During the 2010s, increased interest was expressed in the language. The status of the language was raised in Scottish schools, with Scots being included in the new national school curriculum . Previously in Scotland's schools there had been little education taking place through the medium of Scots, although it may have been covered superficially in English lessons, which could entail reading some Scots literature and observing
4410-467: The activities of those such as Thomas Sheridan , who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution . Charging a guinea at a time (about £200 in today's money ), they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh . Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed the Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. These eighteenth-century activities would lead to
4500-521: The book" or Standard Scots, once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author". This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster, embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Murray , David Herbison , James Orr, James Hogg and William Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921 Manual of Modern Scots . Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in
4590-435: The border between English and Scots dialects. Scots was studied alongside English and Scots Gaelic in the Linguistic Survey of Scotland at the University of Edinburgh , which began in 1949 and began to publish results in the 1970s. Also beginning in the 1970s, the Atlas Linguarum Europae studied the Scots language used at 15 sites in Scotland, each with its own dialect. From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots
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#17327719086854680-508: The complementary decline of French made Scots the prestige dialect of most of eastern Scotland. By the sixteenth century, Middle Scots had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England. From 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster , some 200,000 Scots-speaking Lowlanders settled as colonists in Ulster in Ireland. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one. The name Modern Scots
4770-502: The control of MacQueen's widow, Janet Rynd until her death in 1553, when it passed to the Incorporation of Hammermen (metalworkers). The entrance as seen from the Cowgate was rebuilt in 1613. The spire was added in 1620. St Cecilia's Hall by Robert Mylne was built for the Musical Society of Edinburgh in 1763. It now houses a small Georgian concert space and an important collection of early keyboard instruments owned by Edinburgh University . St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church stands at
4860-403: The creation of Scottish Standard English . Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of Scots as a literary language was revived by several prominent Scotsmen such as Robert Burns . Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm. Scots terms were included in
4950-419: The development are a small Sainsbury's supermarket, a 259-bed Ibis Hotel , shops, restaurants, a nightclub and a vennel . In 2016, protesters (including local homeless people) camped out in Cowgate to prevent the building of luxury hotel by Jansons Property. The protesters argued that the development might damage Edinburgh's UNESCO status, would displace homeless people, would remove a medical facility for
5040-434: The earlier i-mutated version Scyttisc . Before the end of the fifteenth century, English speech in Scotland was known as "English" (written Ynglis or Inglis at the time), whereas "Scottish" ( Scottis ) referred to Gaelic . By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the English language used in Scotland had arguably become a distinct language, albeit one lacking a name which clearly distinguished it from all
5130-694: The early twentieth century, a renaissance in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid whose benchmark poem " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle " (1926) did much to demonstrate the power of Scots as a modern idiom. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young , John Buchan , Sydney Goodsir Smith , Robert Garioch , Edith Anne Robertson and Robert McLellan . The revival extended to verse and other literature. In 1955, three Ayrshire men – Sandy MacMillan, an English teacher at Ayr Academy ; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain of Ayr ; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to write Bairnsangs ("Child Songs"),
5220-515: The east end of the Cowgate. It dates from 1772 but was extensively remodelled in 1929 following demolition of the tenements along the north side of the Cowgate which previously obscured its frontage. Both the National Library of Scotland and the Edinburgh Central Library have their lower floors on the Cowgate, with public access being on George IV Bridge above. 55°56′55″N 3°11′18″W / 55.94861°N 3.18833°W / 55.94861; -3.18833 Scots language Scots
5310-401: The fifteenth century, much literature based on the Royal Court in Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews was produced by writers such as Robert Henryson , William Dunbar , Gavin Douglas and David Lyndsay . The Complaynt of Scotland was an early printed work in Scots. The Eneados is a Middle Scots translation of Virgil 's Aeneid , completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. After
5400-423: The ground floor being occupied by William Vair, a stocking maker. Hamilton's father received many City commissions between 1796 and 1803 allowing Hamilton to attend the old High School in High School Yards from 1800 to 1801. The rector at the time was Alexander Adam . In 1803 the family moved to a newly built house of 47 Princes Street in Edinburgh's New Town . His father (listed as a "wright") still retained
5490-413: The homeless and would block the natural light of the Edinburgh Central Library . MSP Andy Wightman offered his support to the campaign. On November 2nd 2024 a severed head was discovered in the Cowgate. The head is believed to be that of a 74 year old man who had been hit by a bus. Police were called around 7:25 PM, closed off the area, blocked the view of the scene from the South Bridge and evacuated
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#17327719086855580-413: The interests so that the site could be redeveloped. The site was then marketed widely and six developers were shortlisted. The gap site was then acquired by the property developer Whiteburn, who were granted planning permission in January 2009 to build a new mixed-use development using the site and existing adjacent buildings. Construction began in 2012 and was completed in late 2013. The main components of
5670-414: The junction with St Mary’s Wynd. Describing the street in the 1581 edition of their atlas of major cities Civitates orbis terrarum , Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg said the Cow Gate was where "...the noble families and city councillors have their residences, together with other princely houses and palaces most handsome to behold." Mary, Queen of Scots , stayed for a time in 1566 in a Cowgate house where
5760-442: The language in Scots. In September 2024, experts of the Council of Europe called on the UK Government to "boost support for regional and minority languages", including the Scots Language. The serious use of the Scots language for news, encyclopaediae, documentaries, etc., remains rare. It is reportedly reserved for niches where it is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy, Burns Night or traditions' representations. Since 2016,
5850-509: The language used in different situations. Such an approach would be inappropriate for a Census." Thus, although it was acknowledged that the "inclusion of such a Census question would undoubtedly raise the profile of Scots", no question about Scots was, in the end, included in the 2001 Census. The Scottish Government's Pupils in Scotland Census 2008 found that 306 pupils spoke Scots as their main home language. A Scottish Government study in 2010 found that 85% of around 1000 respondents (being
5940-571: The local dialect. Much of the material used was often Standard English disguised as Scots, which caused upset among proponents of Standard English and proponents of Scots alike. One example of the educational establishment's approach to Scots is, "Write a poem in Scots. (It is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as you hear the sounds in your head.)", whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation". A course in Scots language and culture delivered through
6030-434: The medieval Brittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are the suspected source of a small number of Scots words, such as lum (derived from Cumbric) meaning "chimney". From the thirteenth century, the Early Scots language spread further into Scotland via the burghs , which were proto-urban institutions first established by King David I . In fourteenth-century Scotland, the growth in prestige of Early Scots and
6120-415: The medium of Standard English and produced by the Open University (OU) in Scotland, the Open University's School of Languages and Applied Linguistics as well as Education Scotland became available online for the first time in December 2019. In the 2011 Scottish census , a question on Scots language ability was featured In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , a question in relation to
6210-452: The nearby pubs. The oldest building lies to the west end, but is sandwiched between other larger buildings and easily missed. It stands on the south side of the street, just west of where George IV Bridge crosses over the Cowgate. This is the Magdalen Chapel , a 16th-century almshouse chapel built with monies left by Michael MacQueen in 1537. Work was completed in 1544 and it operated as a hospital almshouse (dedicated to Mary Magdalen ) under
6300-420: The newspaper The National has regularly published articles in the language. The 2010s also saw an increasing number of English books translated in Scots and becoming widely available, particularly those in popular children's fiction series such as The Gruffalo , Harry Potter , Diary of a Wimpy Kid , and several by Roald Dahl and David Walliams . In 2021, the music streaming service Spotify created
6390-401: The old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended. These writings also introduced what came to be known as the apologetic apostrophe , generally occurring where a consonant exists in
6480-513: The other English variants and dialects spoken in Britain. From 1495, the term Scottis was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular and Erse , meaning "Irish", was used as a name for Gaelic. For example, towards the end of the fifteenth century, William Dunbar was using Erse to refer to Gaelic and, in the early sixteenth century, Gavin Douglas was using Scottis as
6570-567: The past (e.g. Corby or the former mining areas of Kent ). In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , it was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. Among the earliest Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (fourteenth century), Wyntoun 's Cronykil and Blind Harry 's The Wallace (fifteenth century). From
6660-576: The pupils of the Royal High School placed a commemorative wall plaque inside the vault in 1929 (to mark the school's centenary). The Scottish Political Martyrs' Monument is a 90-foot (27 m) tall obelisk which is a prominent feature on the Edinburgh sky-line. It was funded by public subscription raised by the radical MP Joseph Hume . The monument bears the following inscription: To The Memory Of Thomas Muir, Thomas Fyshe Palmer, William Skirving, Maurice Margarot and Joseph Gerrald. Erected by
6750-413: The remainder had some degree of skill, such as understanding Scots (0.27 million, 5.2%) or being able to speak it but not read or write it (0.18 million, 3.5%). There were also small numbers of Scots speakers recorded in England and Wales on the 2011 Census, with the largest numbers being either in bordering areas (e.g. Carlisle ) or in areas that had recruited large numbers of Scottish workers in
6840-469: The same building onto streets at different heights, complicated efforts to fight the fire, and was later called a "rabbit warren" by Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade . It took more than a day for the fire, fought at its height by 19 fire crews, to be brought under control, and several days for it to be completely extinguished. 150 people were forced to flee the flames, but there were no deaths. The University of Edinburgh School of Informatics on South Bridge
6930-521: The seventeenth century, anglicisation increased. At the time, many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East were written down. Writers of the period were Robert Sempill , Robert Sempill the younger , Francis Sempill , Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie . In the eighteenth century, writers such as Allan Ramsay , Robert Burns , James Orr , Robert Fergusson and Walter Scott continued to use Scots – Burns's " Auld Lang Syne "
7020-536: The thirteenth century. The succeeding variety of Northern Early Middle English spoken in southeastern Scotland is also known as Early Scots . It began to further diverge from the Middle English of Northumbria due to twelfth- and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English–speakers from the North and Midlands of England . Later influences on the development of Scots came from
7110-820: The twentieth-century biographer of James Boswell (1740–1795), described James's view of the use of Scots by his father Alexander Boswell (1706–1782) in the eighteenth century while serving as a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland : He scorned modern literature, spoke broad Scots from the bench, and even in writing took no pains to avoid the Scotticisms which most of his colleagues were coming to regard as vulgar. However, others did scorn Scots, such as Scottish Enlightenment intellectuals David Hume and Adam Smith , who went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings. Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through
7200-604: The varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a separate language in their own right. The UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Notwithstanding the UK government's and the Scottish Executive's obligations under part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,
7290-489: Was a "quite modern mistake". During the first half of the twentieth century, knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary norms waned, and as of 2006 , there is no institutionalised standard literary form. By the 1940s, the Scottish Education Department 's language policy was that Scots had no value: "it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as
7380-539: Was badly damaged; the school was a pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence in the 1950s and one of the world's most comprehensive archival libraries in this field was destroyed by the fire. Little current research data was lost in the fire due to offsite backups. In 2005 work began on a new building, the Informatics Forum , which was occupied mid-2008. Also destroyed was the Gilded Balloon ,
7470-485: Was born on 11 January 1784 in Glasgow to Jean Stevenson and Thomas Hamilton (1754–1824), a carpenter (wright) and cabinet-maker who also worked as an architect, His mother and father were married at the Canongate Church in 1783. His father returned to Edinburgh after his birth and was most notable for remodelling the north-west corner of St Giles' Cathedral in 1796. He was presumably watched by Hamilton who
7560-659: Was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When William Flower , an English herald , spoke with Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, they first used the "Scottyshe toung" . As he found this hard to understand, they switched into her native French. King James VI , who in 1603 became James I of England , observed in his work Some Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie that "For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk
7650-514: Was never paid. His father was then pursued through the courts from 1818-1822, resulting in the poinding of his goods. His father removed to Currie where he died in June 1824. Hamilton's earliest known architectural drawing, dated 1813, is a plan requested by the Dean of Guild for a scheme by Robert Burn (architect) (1752–1815) to remodel a house on St Andrew Street. Hamilton was a founding member of
7740-415: Was not enough linguistic self-awareness amongst the Scottish populace, with people still thinking of themselves as speaking badly pronounced, grammatically inferior English rather than Scots, for an accurate census to be taken. The GRO research concluded that "[a] more precise estimate of genuine Scots language ability would require a more in-depth interview survey and may involve asking various questions about
7830-569: Was of Greek neo-classical style, and he received 200 guineas (£12000 in today's terms). In his final years he was living at 41 York Place. Interestingly, in deference to his father, he is still referred to as "Thomas Hamilton Junior, architect". He died at 9 Howe Street (an office) on 24 February 1858. He is buried in John Hamilton's vault in Old Calton Cemetery , a few yards south of the Martyrs Monument. Originally unmarked,
7920-432: Was the notion of "Scottishness" itself. Many leading Scots of the period, such as David Hume , defined themselves as Northern British rather than Scottish. They attempted to rid themselves of their Scots in a bid to establish standard English as the official language of the newly formed union. Nevertheless, Scots was still spoken across a wide range of domains until the end of the eighteenth century. Frederick Pottle ,
8010-436: Was then 12 years old. In 1791 his father, working from premises on Brodies Close, substantially altered a building at the head of Old Assembly Close on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh to make it their family home (now known as 166 High Street). It is notable for its arched windows on the first floor, all visible from the street and unlike the other rectangular windows in the block. The Hamiltons occupied all three upper floors,
8100-497: Was translated into Scots by Rab Wilson and published in 2004. Alexander Hutchison has translated the poetry of Catullus into Scots, and in the 1980s, Liz Lochhead produced a Scots translation of Tartuffe by Molière . J. K. Annand translated poetry and fiction from German and Medieval Latin into Scots. The strip cartoons Oor Wullie and The Broons in the Sunday Post use some Scots. In 2018, Harry Potter and
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