132-908: The King's Buildings (colloquially known as just King's or KB) is a campus of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland . Located in the suburb of Blackford , the site contains most of the schools within the College of Science and Engineering , excepting only the School of Informatics and part of the School of Geosciences , which are located at the central George Square campus. The campus lies south of West Mains Road, west of Mayfield Road and east of Blackford Hill , about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of George Square. Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) and Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) also have facilities there. In 1919 Edinburgh University bought
264-580: A public research university based in Edinburgh , Scotland . Founded by the town council under the authority of a royal charter from King James VI in 1582 and officially opened in 1583, it is one of Scotland's four ancient universities and the sixth-oldest university in continuous operation in the English-speaking world . The university played a crucial role in Edinburgh becoming
396-923: 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
528-525: A Faculty of Law in 1707, a Faculty of Arts in 1708, and a Faculty of Medicine in 1726. In 1762, Reverend Hugh Blair was appointed by King George III as the first Regius Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres . This formalised literature as a subject and marks the foundation of the English Literature department, making Edinburgh the oldest centre of literary education in Britain. During
660-650: 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
792-469: 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
924-433: 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
1056-724: A government visitation in 1690. The university was subsequently led by Principal Gilbert Rule , one of the inquisitors on the visitation committee. "You are now in a place where the best courses upon earth are within your reach... Such an opportunity you will never again have. I would therefore strongly press on you to fix no other limit to your stay in Edinborough than your having got thro this whole course. The omission of any one part of it will be an affliction & loss to you as long as you live." Thomas Jefferson , writing to his son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. in 1786. The late 17th and early 18th centuries were marked by
1188-415: 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 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
1320-733: A leading intellectual centre during the Scottish Enlightenment and contributed to the city being nicknamed the " Athens of the North ". The three main global university rankings ( ARWU , THE , and QS ) place the University of Edinburgh within their respective top 40. It is a member of several associations of research-intensive universities, including the Coimbra Group , League of European Research Universities , Russell Group , Una Europa , and Universitas 21 . In
1452-685: A partnership with the Centre for Genomic & Experimental Medicine and the ECRC to create the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (renamed the Institute of Genetics and Cancer in 2021) on the same site. In April 2008, the Roslin Institute – an animal sciences research centre known for cloning Dolly the sheep – became part of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. In 2011,
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#17327918000811584-399: A power struggle between the university and town council, which had ultimate authority over staff appointments, curricula, and examinations. After a series of challenges by the university, the conflict culminated in the council seizing the college records in 1704. Relations were only gradually repaired over the next 150 years and suffered repeated setbacks. The university expanded by founding
1716-578: 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 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
1848-612: 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
1980-600: A series of corridors. The Easter Bush campus, located seven miles south of the city, houses the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education, Roslin Institute , Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and Veterinary Oncology and Imaging Centre. The Roslin Institute is an animal sciences research institute which is sponsored by BBSRC . The Institute won international fame in 1996, when its researchers Sir Ian Wilmut , Keith Campbell and their colleagues created Dolly
2112-467: A single regent; and the lack of land endowments as its source of income, which meant its faculty operated in a more competitive environment. Between 1750 and 1800, this system produced and attracted key Enlightenment figures such as chemist Joseph Black , economist Adam Smith , historian William Robertson , philosophers David Hume and Dugald Stewart , physician William Cullen , and early sociologist Adam Ferguson , many of which taught concurrently. By
2244-506: 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
2376-540: A university court and a general council, and redefined the roles of key officials like the chancellor, rector, and principal. The Edinburgh Seven were the first group of matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university. Led by Sophia Jex-Blake , they began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869. Although the university blocked them from graduating and qualifying as doctors, their campaign gained national attention and won them many supporters, including Charles Darwin . Their efforts put
2508-510: Is a reference to then-king George V . During World War II , the Genetics Institute part of King's Buildings was used as the location for the first War Office Selection Board . University of Edinburgh celebrated more than 100 years of the site in 2021 with their KB101 campaign which included a lecture series and newly commissioned artworks by Katie Paterson . All the campus properties shared one of two addresses until, in 2014,
2640-562: 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
2772-709: Is located nearby, as is Edinburgh College of Art in Lauriston . North of George Square lies the university's Old College housing Edinburgh Law School , New College on The Mound housing the School of Divinity, and St Cecilia's Hall . Some of these buildings are used to host events during the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe every summer. Pollock Halls, adjoining Holyrood Park to
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#17327918000812904-767: 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,
3036-401: Is popular with student and local club runners and usually attracts around 250 participants. 55°55′22″N 3°10′30″W / 55.92278°N 3.17500°W / 55.92278; -3.17500 University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( Scots : University o Edinburgh , Scottish Gaelic : Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann ; abbreviated as Edin. in post-nominals ) is
3168-534: 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
3300-538: Is the eighth-largest university in the UK by enrolment and receives over 69,000 undergraduate applications per year, making it the third-most popular university in the UK by application volume. In 2021, Edinburgh had the seventh-highest average UCAS points among British universities for new entrants. The university maintains strong links to the royal family , with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , serving as its chancellor from 1953 to 2010, and Anne, Princess Royal , holding
3432-484: Is the university's governing body and the legal person of the university, chaired by the rector and consisting of the principal, Lord Provost of Edinburgh , and of Assessors appointed by the rector, chancellor, Edinburgh Town Council , General Council, and Senatus Academicus . By the Universities (Scotland) Act 1889, it is a body corporate, with perpetual succession and a common seal. All property belonging to
3564-567: 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
3696-540: 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
3828-853: The Edinburgh Cowgate fire destroyed a number of university buildings, including some 3,000 m (32,000 sq ft) of the School of Informatics at 80 South Bridge . This was replaced with the Informatics Forum on Bristo Square , completed in July 2008. Also in 2002, the Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre (ECRC) was opened on the Western General Hospital site. In 2007, the MRC Human Genetics Unit formed
3960-481: 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
4092-665: The Joseph Black Building), housing the Department of Chemistry . The campus was named King's Buildings in honour of George V. New College on The Mound was originally opened in 1846 as a Free Church of Scotland college, later of the United Free Church of Scotland . Since the 1930s it has been the home of the School of Divinity. Prior to the 1929 reunion of the Church of Scotland , candidates for
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4224-509: 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
4356-734: The Little France area of Edinburgh. The new campus was named the BioQuarter . The Chancellor's Building was opened on 12 August 2002 by Prince Philip , housing the new Edinburgh Medical School alongside the new Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. In 2007, the campus saw the addition of the Euan MacDonald Centre as a research centre for motor neuron diseases , which was part-funded by Scottish entrepreneur Euan MacDonald and his father Donald. In August 2010, author J. K. Rowling provided £10 million in funding to create
4488-501: 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 , the medieval Brittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are
4620-735: 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
4752-640: The School of Chemistry ), Royal Observatory , Swann Building (the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology), Waddington Building (the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh), William Rankine Building (School of Engineering's Institute for Infrastructure and Environment), and others. Until 2012, the KB campus was served by three libraries: Darwin Library, James Clerk Maxwell Library, and Robertson Engineering and Science Library. These were replaced by
4884-469: 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
5016-592: The Senatus is to regulate and supervise the teaching and discipline of the university and to promote research. The Senatus elects four Assessors on the University Court. The Senatus meets three times per year, hosting a presentation and discussion session which is open to all members of staff at each meeting. The university's three most significant officials are its chancellor, rector, and principal, whose rights and responsibilities are largely derived from
5148-536: 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
5280-479: The fiscal year ending 31 July 2023, the university had a total income of £1.341 billion, with £339.5 million from research grants and contracts. It has the third-largest endowment in the UK, behind only Cambridge and Oxford . The university occupies five main campuses in the city of Edinburgh, which include many buildings of historical and architectural significance, such as those in the Old Town . Edinburgh
5412-627: 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
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5544-555: 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] , 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",
5676-512: The 18th century, the university developed a particular forte in teaching anatomy and the developing science of surgery , and it was considered one of the best medical schools in the English-speaking world. Bodies to be used for dissection were brought to the university's Anatomy Theatre through a secret tunnel from a nearby house (today's College Wynd student accommodation), which was also used by murderers Burke and Hare to deliver
5808-498: The 18th century, the university was at the centre of the Scottish Enlightenment . The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment fell on especially fertile ground in Edinburgh because of the university's democratic and secular origin; its organization as a single entity instead of loosely connected colleges, which encouraged academic exchange; its adoption of the more flexible Dutch model of professorship, rather than having student cohorts taught by
5940-467: The 19th century, Old College was becoming overcrowded. After a bequest from Sir David Baxter , the university started planning new buildings in earnest. Sir Robert Rowand Anderson won the public architectural competition and was commissioned to design new premises for the Medical School in 1877. Initially, the design incorporated a campanile and a hall for examination and graduation, but this
6072-699: The 2020s was the conversion of some of the historic Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh buildings in Lauriston Place, which had been vacated in 2003 and partially developed into the Quartermile . The £120 million project created a home for the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI), an interdisciplinary hub linking arts, humanities, and social sciences with other disciplines in the research and teaching of complex, multi-stakeholder societal challenges. The EFI officially opened its doors to
6204-533: The 79th regiment to be called from Edinburgh Castle to quell the disturbance. This was later immortalised in a 92-page humorous account written by the students entitled The University Snowdrop and then later, in 1853, in a landscape by English artist, Samuel Bough . After 275 years of governance by the town council, the Universities (Scotland) Act 1858 gave the university full authority over its own affairs. The act established governing bodies including
6336-717: The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, which was officially opened in October 2013. The Centre for Regenerative Medicine (CRM) is a stem cell research centre dedicated to the development of regenerative treatments, which was opened in 2012. CRM is also home to applied scientists working with the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) and Roslin Cells. In December 2002,
6468-794: The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the School of Informatics . The highest concentration of university buildings is around George Square , which includes 40 George Square (formerly David Hume Tower), Appleton Tower , Main Library , and Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre , the area's largest lecture hall. Around nearby Bristo Square lie the Dugald Stewart Building , Informatics Forum , McEwan Hall , Potterrow Student Centre , Teviot Row House , and old Medical School , which still houses pre-clinical medical courses and biomedical sciences. The Pleasance , one of Edinburgh University Students' Association 's main buildings,
6600-554: 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
6732-440: The IT skills training room was named in honour of Xia Peisu . The KB 5 Road Race is organised every year by the Edinburgh University Hare and Hounds Running Club. It is usually held in late February or early March. The race starts and finishes inside the King's Buildings campus. The course consists of a 5-mile (8.0 km) road loop around the streets of south Edinburgh, with quite a few hills, though none of them steep. The race
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#17327918000816864-399: 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
6996-489: 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 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
7128-452: The National Robotarium. The deal also included creation of the Edinburgh International Data Facility, which performs high-speed data processing in a secure environment. In September 2020, the university completed work on the Richard Verney Health Centre at its central area campus on Bristo Square. The facility houses a health centre and pharmacy, and the university's disability and counselling services. The university's largest expansion in
7260-425: The Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library opened for the academic year 2012/13. The campus also hosts the National e-Science Centre (NeSC), Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE), Scottish Microelectronics Centre (SMC), and Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC). The BioQuarter campus, based in the Little France area, is home to the majority of medical facilities of
7392-409: 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
7524-418: The Polish School of Medicine is located in the Quadrangle of the old Medical School in Teviot Place. On 10 May 1951, the Royal (Dick) Veterinary College , founded in 1823 by William Dick , was reconstituted as the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies and officially became part of the university. It achieved full faculty status as Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1964. In 1955 the university opened
7656-408: The Science and Medicine buildings had suffered from a lack of repairs or upgrades, which was exacerbated by an influx of students after the end of the war. In 1919, the university bought the land of West Mains Farm in the south of the city for the development of a new satellite campus specialising in the sciences. On 6 July 1920, King George V laid the foundation of the first new building (now called
7788-480: 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
7920-419: 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
8052-512: 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
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#17327918000818184-505: 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
8316-440: The UK and Scottish governments, six local authorities and all universities and colleges in the region. The university committed to delivering a range of economic benefits to the region through the Data-Driven Innovation initiative. In conjunction with Heriot-Watt University , the deal created five innovation hubs: the Bayes Centre, Edinburgh Futures Institute, Usher Institute, Easter Bush, and one further hub based at Heriot-Watt,
8448-497: 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
8580-511: The Universities (Scotland) Act 1858. The office of chancellor serves as the titular head and highest office of the university. Their duties include conferring degrees and enhancing the profile and reputation of the university on national and global levels. The chancellor is elected by the university's General Council , and a person generally remains in the office for life. Previous chancellors include former prime minister Arthur Balfour and novelist Sir J. M. Barrie . Princess Anne has held
8712-415: The University approached the City of Edinburgh Council , as the road naming authority, with a request to name all the individual roads within the campus to honour famous scientists and mathematicians associated with the University. When the proposed changes were discussed in City of Edinburgh Development Management Sub-Committee, it was pointed out that some of the names were overly long and cumbersome. Two of
8844-467: 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
8976-416: The area's historic houses and erecting modern buildings such as 40 George Square , Appleton Tower and the Main Library . On 1 August 1998, the Moray House Institute of Education , founded in 1848, merged with the University of Edinburgh, becoming its Faculty of Education. Following the internal restructuring of the university in 2002, Moray House became known as the Moray House School of Education . It
9108-419: 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 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
9240-521: 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
9372-435: 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
9504-565: The city. Most of the Science and Engineering College's research and teaching activities take place at the campus, which occupies a 35-hectare site. It includes the Alexander Graham Bell Building (for mobile phones and digital communications systems), James Clerk Maxwell Building (the administrative and teaching centre of the School of Physics and Astronomy and School of Mathematics), Joseph Black Building (home to
9636-529: The corpses of their victims during the 1820s. The Edinburgh snowball riots of 1838 also known as the ' Wars of the Quadrangle ' occurred when University of Edinburgh students engaged in what started as a snowball fight in "a spirit of harmless amusement" before becoming a two-day 'battle' at Old College with local Edinburgh residents on South Bridge which led to the Lord Provost calling from
9768-403: 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
9900-749: 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"),
10032-418: The east, is the university's largest residence hall for undergraduate students in their first year. The complex houses over 2,000 students during term time and consists of ten named buildings with communal green spaces between them. The two original buildings, St Leonard's Hall and Salisbury Green , were built in the 19th century, while the majority of Pollock Halls dates from the 1960s and early 2000s. Two of
10164-580: 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 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
10296-461: 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
10428-559: The first department of nursing in Europe for academic study. This department was inspired by the work of Gladys Beaumont Carter and a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation . By the end of the 1950s, there were around 7,000 students matriculating annually, more than doubling the numbers from the turn of the century. The university addressed this partially through the redevelopment of George Square , demolishing much of
10560-399: The former principal of the university Sir Timothy O'Shea and was opened by Princess Anne in 2017, providing a living and social environment for postgraduate students. The Outreach Centre, Institute for Academic Development (University Services Group), and Edinburgh Centre for Professional Legal Studies are also located at Holyrood. The King's Buildings campus is located in the south of
10692-823: The land of West Mains Farm in the south of the city with the intention of building a satellite campus specialising in the Sciences. The first building was the Chemistry Building (renamed the Joseph Black Building) designed by Arthur Forman Balfour Paul in 1919. Building started in 1920 and was completed after 1924 by John Fraser Matthew. This was followed by the Zoology Building (renamed the Ashworth Laboratories) dating from 1929, also by Matthew. The name "King's Buildings"
10824-622: 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,
10956-574: 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
11088-591: 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 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
11220-571: 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
11352-614: 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
11484-652: The ministry in the United Free Church studied at New College, whilst candidates for the Church of Scotland studied in the university's Faculty of Divinity. In 1935 the two institutions merged, with all operations moved to the New College site in Old Town. This freed up Old College for Edinburgh Law School . The Polish School of Medicine was established in 1941 as a wartime academic initiative. While it
11616-420: 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
11748-401: 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
11880-632: The older houses in Pollock Halls were demolished in 2002, and a new building, Chancellor's Court, was built in their place and opened in 2003. Self-catered flats elsewhere account for the majority of university-provided accommodation. The area also includes the John McIntyre Conference Centre opened in 2009, which is the university's premier conference space. The Holyrood campus, just off the Royal Mile , used to be
12012-620: The other ancient universities of Scotland , and in contrast to nearly all other pre-1992 universities which are established by royal charters , the University of Edinburgh is constituted by the Universities (Scotland) Acts 1858 to 1966 . These acts provide for three major bodies in the governance of the university: the University Court , the General Council , and the Senatus Academicus . The University Court
12144-456: 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 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
12276-497: 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
12408-468: The position since March 2011 succeeding Prince Philip . She is also Patron of the university's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. Scots language Scots 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
12540-538: The position since March 2011. Notable alumni of the University of Edinburgh include inventor Alexander Graham Bell , naturalist Charles Darwin , philosopher David Hume , physicist James Clerk Maxwell , and writers such as Sir J. M. Barrie , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , Sir Walter Scott , and Robert Louis Stevenson . The university has produced several heads of state and government, including three British prime ministers . Additionally, three UK Supreme Court justices were educated at Edinburgh. As of October 2024,
12672-507: The proposed names were rejected as unsuitable as Christina Miller was deemed to be too similar sounding to Christie Miller, who already appears in three street names; and Robert Edwards did not meet the Council’s 10-year waiting period for deceased people. The University eventually substituted Marion Ross Road for Christina Miller Road and James Dewar Road for Robert Edwards Road. The final agreed street system was: Building names at KB reflect
12804-525: The public on 4 June 2024. Edinburgh has several historical links to other universities, chiefly through its influential Medical School and its graduates, who established and developed institutions elsewhere in the world. The university has five main sites in Edinburgh: The university is responsible for several significant historic and modern buildings across the city, including St Cecilia's Hall , Scotland's oldest purpose-built concert hall and
12936-518: 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 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
13068-413: 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
13200-474: The rights of women to higher education on the national political agenda, which eventually resulted in legislation allowing women to study at all Scottish universities in 1889. The university admitted women to graduate in medicine in 1893. In 2015, the Edinburgh Seven were commemorated with a plaque at the university, and in 2019 they were posthumously awarded with medical degrees. Towards the end of
13332-763: The school moved into a new £60 million building on the Easter Bush campus, which now houses research and teaching facilities, and a hospital for small and farm animals. Edinburgh College of Art , founded in 1760, formally merged with the university's School of Arts, Culture and Environment on 1 August 2011. In 2014, the Zhejiang University-University of Edinburgh Institute (ZJE) was founded as an international joint institute offering degrees in biomedical sciences, taught in English. The campus, located in Haining , Zhejiang Province, China,
13464-476: The second oldest in use in the British Isles ; Teviot Row House, the oldest purpose-built students' union building in the world; and the restored 17th-century Mylne's Court student residence at the head of the Royal Mile . The Central Area is spread around numerous squares and streets in Edinburgh's Southside , with some buildings in Old Town. It is the university's oldest area, occupied primarily by
13596-521: 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 "
13728-502: The sheep , the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. A year later Polly and Molly were cloned, both sheep contained a human gene. The Western General campus, in proximity to the Western General Hospital , contains the Biomedical Research Facility, Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility, and Institute of Genetics and Cancer (formerly the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine). In common with
13860-526: The site for Moray House Institute for Education until it merged with the university on 1 August 1998. The university has since extended this campus. The buildings include redeveloped and extended Sports Science, Physical Education and Leisure Management facilities at St Leonard's Land linked to the Sports Institute in the Pleasance . The £80 million O'Shea Hall at Holyrood was named after
13992-534: The spectrum of British science: On 5 August 2014, FloWave TT was inaugurated by Amber Rudd , UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change . The FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility is a world-unique, 25-metre (82 ft) diameter wave and current tank primarily focused on testing marine energy technologies and projects. In 2019 the data centre in the James Clerk Maxwell Building was named in honour of Mary Somerville and in 2020
14124-456: The sum, the town council petitioned King James VI and his Privy Council . The King brokered a monetary compromise and granted a royal charter on 14 April 1582, empowering the town council to create a college of higher education. A college established by secular authorities was unprecedented in newly Presbyterian Scotland, as all previous Scottish universities had been founded through papal bulls . Named Tounis College (Town's College),
14256-467: 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 the complementary decline of French made Scots
14388-607: The teaching of rhetoric and poetry , alongside more traditional subjects such as philosophy . However, the bequest was delayed by more than 25 years due to the religious revolution that led to the Reformation Parliament of 1560. The plans were revived in the late 1570s through efforts by the Edinburgh Town Council , first minister of Edinburgh James Lawson , and Lord Provost William Little . When Reid's descendants were unwilling to pay out
14520-633: The time the Royal Society of Edinburgh was founded in 1783, the university was regarded as one of the world's preeminent scientific institutions, and Voltaire called Edinburgh a "hotbed of genius" as a result. Benjamin Franklin believed that the university possessed "a set of as truly great men, Professors of the Several Branches of Knowledge, as have ever appeared in any Age or Country". Thomas Jefferson felt that as far as science
14652-820: 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
14784-478: 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 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
14916-575: The university at the passing of the Act was vested in the Court. The present powers of the Court are further defined in the Universities (Scotland) Act 1966, including the administration and management of the university's revenue and property, the regulation of staff salaries, and the establishment and composition of committees of its own members or others. The General Council consists of graduates , academic staff , current and former University Court members. It
15048-453: The university has been affiliated with 20 Nobel Prize laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners, three Turing Award winners, an Abel Prize laureate, and a Fields Medalist . Edinburgh alumni have also won a total of ten Olympic gold medals . In 1557, Bishop Robert Reid of St Magnus Cathedral on Orkney made a will containing an endowment of 8,000 merks to build a college in Edinburgh. Unusually for his time, Reid's vision included
15180-427: The university opened its doors to students on 14 October 1583, with an attendance of 80–90. At the time, the college mainly covered liberal arts and divinity . Instruction began under the charge of a graduate from the University of St Andrews , theologian Robert Rollock , who first served as Regent, and from 1586 as principal of the college. Initially Rollock was the sole instructor for first-year students, and he
15312-465: The university, alongside the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The campus houses the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, Centre for Regenerative Medicine , Chancellor's Building, Euan MacDonald Centre , and Queen's Medical Research Institute, which opened in 2005. The Chancellor's Building has two large lecture theatres and a medical library connected to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh by
15444-413: The university, and to receive an audited financial statement . The Council elects the chancellor of the university and three Assessors on the University Court. The Senatus Academicus is the university's supreme academic body, chaired by the principal and consisting of the professors, heads of departments, and a number of readers , lecturers and other teaching and research staff. The core function of
15576-625: 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,
15708-489: 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
15840-609: Was concerned, "no place in the world can pretend to a competition with Edinburgh". In 1785, Henry Dundas introduced the South Bridge Act in the House of Commons ; one of the bill's goals was to use South Bridge as a location for the university, which had existed in a hotchpotch of buildings since its establishment. The site was used to construct Old College , the university's first custom-built building, by architect William Henry Playfair to plans by Robert Adam . During
15972-560: Was established on 15 March 2016. The university began hosting a Wikimedian in Residence in 2016. The residency was made into a full-time position in 2019, with the Wikimedian involved in teaching and learning activities within the scope of the University of Edinburgh WikiProject . In 2018, the University of Edinburgh was a signatory to the £1.3 billion Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal , in partnership with
16104-461: Was established to ensure that graduates have a continuing voice in the management of the university. The Council is required to meet twice per year to consider matters affecting the wellbeing and prosperity of the university. The Universities (Scotland) Act 1966 gave the Council the power to consider draft ordinances and resolutions, to be presented with an annual report of the work and activities of
16236-420: Was expected to tutor the 1583 intake for all four years of their degree in every subject. The first cohort finished their studies in 1587, and 47 students graduated (or 'laureated') with an M.A. degree. When King James VI visited Scotland in 1617, he held a disputation with the college's professors, after which he decreed that it should henceforth be called the "Colledge [sic] of King James". The university
16368-682: Was founded in 1884 by student Robert Fitzroy Bell . In 1889, the SRC voted to establish Edinburgh University Union (EUU), to be housed in Teviot Row House on Bristo Square. Edinburgh University Sports Union (EUSU) was founded in 1866, and Edinburgh University Women's Union (renamed the Chambers Street Union in 1964) in October 1905. The SRC, EUU and Chambers Street Union merged to form Edinburgh University Students' Association (EUSA) on 1 July 1973. During World War I ,
16500-659: 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
16632-606: Was known as both Tounis College and King James' College until it gradually assumed the name of the University of Edinburgh during the 17th century. After the deposition of King James II and VII during the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the Parliament of Scotland passed legislation designed to root out Jacobite sympathisers amongst university staff. In Edinburgh, this led to the dismissal of Principal Alexander Monro and several professors and regents after
16764-415: 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
16896-598: Was originally intended for students and doctors in the Polish Armed Forces in the West , civilians were also allowed to take the courses, which were taught in Polish and awarded Polish medical degrees. When the school was closed in 1949, 336 students had matriculated, of which 227 students graduated with the equivalent of an MBChB and a total of 19 doctors obtained a doctorate or MD. A bronze plaque commemorating
17028-687: Was renamed the Moray House School of Education and Sport in August 2019. In the 1990s it became apparent that the old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh buildings in Lauriston Place were no longer adequate for a modern teaching hospital. Donald Dewar , the Scottish Secretary at the time, authorized a joint project between private finance, local authorities, and the university to create a modern hospital and medical campus in
17160-411: Was seen as too ambitious. The new Medical School opened in 1884, but the building was not completed until 1888. After funds were donated by politician and brewer William McEwan in 1894, a separate graduation building was constructed after all, also designed by Anderson. The resulting McEwan Hall on Bristo Square was presented to the university in 1897. The Students' Representative Council (SRC)
17292-432: 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 ,
17424-497: 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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