85-531: Rousay ( / ˈ r aʊ z iː / , Scots : Rousee ; Old Norse : Hrólfsey meaning Rolf's Island) is a small, hilly island about 3 km (1.9 mi) north of Mainland , the largest island in the Orkney Islands of Scotland . It has been nicknamed " Egypt of the north", due to its archaeological diversity and importance. Like its neighbours Egilsay and Wyre , it can be reached by ro-ro ferry MV Eynhallow from Tingwall. This service
170-452: A medieval church and a stately home at Trumland . Over 100 archaeological sites have been identified. Only a small fraction have been excavated and characterized. The most spectacular of the sites is the complex of Midhowe Broch and Midhowe Chambered Cairn . Blackhammer Chambered Cairn , Taversoe Tuick , and Knowe of Yarso chambered cairn are important tombs. Rousay placenames reflect its Norse heritage. 'Hrólfs-øy' or 'Hrolfsey'
255-923: 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
340-650: 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
425-528: A century later it had fallen to 342. Depopulation accelerated, and in the next twenty years the number fell to 181, its lowest ever. From the 1970s onward new families settled on Rousay: most came from the south, especially from England . The population is now over 200. The Yetnasteen stone is said to have once been a giant who revives every New Year at midnight and visits the Loch of Scockness to drink. A primary school enrolls 24 boys and girls aged 3 to 12. Once
510-580: A child completes his/her primary education, they attend Kirkwall Grammar School or Stromness Academy. Poet Pauline Stainer spent two years on the island, and in 1999 published a collection of her poems about Rousay, Parable Island . Robert C. Marwick (1922-2013) was a school teacher, headmaster and author born on Innister farm, in the Wasbister district. His publications about Rousay include From My Rousay Schoolbag (1995), Rousay Roots (1995) and In Dreams We Moor (2000). Actor Graham Fellows owns
595-663: A cluster of sites connected by a footpath near the western shore. Its wildlife includes grey seals and European otters . Two sites, totaling some 630 ha, have been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support breeding populations of moorland birds, including Arctic terns . Humans first made a Neolithic settlement at Rinyo . Other remnants include Bronze Age burnt mounds , Iron Age crannogs and brochs (the highest density anywhere in Scotland: three within 500 metres (547 yd) of coastline), Viking boat burials, remains of
680-469: 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
765-433: 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
850-570: A disused church there, which he intended to turn into an "artists refuge". Late artists' patron Margaret Gardiner spent a large part of her life there and in 1979 founded the Pier Art Gallery in Stromness . Astronomer, musician and author, John C Vetterlein, has lived full-time on Rousay for over 20 years. Rousay is separated from the neighbouring island of Egilsay by Rousay Sound. The sound experiences strong tides, which creates
935-415: 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
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#17327867674851020-528: A large number of improvements; the building of Trumland pier, island schools, a public market, the first steamship service, a post office, and the first resident doctor. He was known locally as 'the little general' as he was a man of short stature and the poet Edwin Muir recalled in a memoir of his childhood seeing the little general walking around his estates. Throughout the 19th century, Rousay landlords demanded higher rents from crofters, many of whom were moved in
1105-516: A more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots, especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots. Frederick Traill-Burroughs Sir Frederick William Traill-Burroughs KCB CMG (born Burroughs ; 1 February 1831 – 9 April 1905) was a British Army officer. He was born in British India, fought in Crimea at
1190-578: 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
1275-612: 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
1360-900: A series of clearances to the far side of Rousay, ordered by previous landowner George William Traill. There is a misconception that Frederick Traill-Burroughs continued this attitude towards his tenants. For example, James Leonard was elected chairman of the tenants' committee, which gave evidence against General Burroughs to Lord Napier, as well as the Royal Commission, when they came to Rousay, in order to discuss tenants' concerns. After hearing James expressing his and other local tenants' views, General Burroughs evicted James and another local man, James Grieve, along with their families. Details of this and other incidents can be found in William P.L. Thomson's book The Little General and The Rousay Crofters ( ISBN 9780859765312 ) However, there
1445-570: A startling resemblance to the family, arrives in England at the death bed of another relation, saying he is the son of Sir William. Upon his 21st birthday, he adopted the Traill surname when he succeeded to the Orcadian estates left to him by his grand-uncle, George William Traill. Aged 17, he joined the 2nd Bn. 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot , as an ensign. He served throughout
1530-506: 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
1615-562: 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
1700-712: 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,
1785-465: Is operated by Orkney Ferries , and can take up to 95 passengers (reduced to 50 in winter), and 10 cars. The ferry links the islands of Rousay, Egilsay, and Wyre with each other, and with the mainland of Orkney. In the 2001 census, Rousay had a population of 212. Most employment is in farming, fishing or fish-farming; craft businesses and seasonal tourism-related work are present. It is separated from mainland Orkney by Eynhallow Sound. One road circles
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#17327867674851870-652: Is significant evidence that the two men who were evicted were not legal tenants of Traill and had both refused legal tenancies when offered, furthermore when the crofters were unable to make their own way to Mainland Orkney to give evidence at the Commission General Traill-Burroughs had them taken on his own boat to enable them to raise their grievances. Burroughs was appointed a Vice-Lieutenant of Orkney and Shetland on 17 January 1900. Traill-Burroughs died in London on 9 April 1905, and
1955-591: 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
2040-567: 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
2125-540: 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
2210-584: The Crimean War with his Regiment, fighting at the Battle of Alma and the Battle of Balaclava where the 93rd were part of The Thin Red Line . Despite many casualties caused by fever, cholera and dysentery, as well as enemy action, his own health was usually good. The Regiment was in the front line at Sebastopol when the war ended. They were preparing to assault the town - it is said with Burroughs leading
2295-481: 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
2380-509: 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
2465-501: 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
2550-682: 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
2635-469: 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
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2720-594: 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
2805-627: 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
2890-555: 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",
2975-683: The Battle of Alma, at the siege town of Lucknow in India and in the North West Frontier. After a spell in command at Edinburgh Castle he retired from the army. On his return from India, he visited Rousay, Orkney, where he built a large house at Trumland; he had inherited much of the island and gradually bought more of it, carrying out many improvements. He died in London and is buried there in Brompton Cemetery. Traill-Burroughs
3060-554: 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
3145-454: 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
3230-574: The MPA, and no dredging , beam trawling , demersal trawling or Seine fishing is permitted. 59°10′N 3°02′W / 59.167°N 3.033°W / 59.167; -3.033 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
3315-720: 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
3400-575: 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
3485-480: 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
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3570-471: 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
3655-581: 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
3740-638: 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
3825-553: 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
3910-704: 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
3995-529: 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
4080-521: 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
4165-575: 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
4250-456: The century, Rousay's landlords demanded high rents from crofters , many of whom became homeless in a series of clearances along the western coast, ordered by landowner George William Traill in the 1820s and 1830s. Traill's nephew General Sir Frederick Traill-Burroughs inherited much of the island and bought more. Traill-Burroughs built a large house at Trumland , designed by David Bryce of Edinburgh. From 1870 to 1883, improvements transformed
4335-403: 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
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#17327867674854420-749: 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"),
4505-525: 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
4590-461: 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
4675-581: The first wave of the Highland Brigade - but discovered next morning that the enemy had withdrawn during the previous night, so he missed his moment of potential glory. Burroughs was also one of the first – if not the very first – through the breaches at the besieged town of Lucknow in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 , for which he was recommended by the men of his Regiment for a Victoria Cross , although due to internal military politics this
4760-752: The island, about 14 miles (23 kilometres) long, and most arable land lies in the few hundred yards between it and the coastline. With an area of 4,860 hectares (18.8 square miles), it is the fifth largest of the Orkney Islands. Among several freshwater lochs on the island, the biggest is Muckle Water . Rousay is a ' Site of Special Scientific Interest ' with notable cliff formations and wildflower colonies, and has an RSPB bird reserve. The hilliest Orkney island after Hoy , it offers good views of neighbouring islands from Blotchnifiold 249 metres (817 ft), and Keirfea or Knitchen (both over 229 metres (750 ft)). Archaeological remains are present, especially
4845-462: The island: Trumland pier, island schools, a public market, the first steamship service, a post office, and the first resident doctor. He was known locally as "the little general" as he was a man of short stature. Poet Edwin Muir recalled in a memoir of his childhood seeing the little general walking around his estates. Rousay's population in the mid-19th century was over 900, but emigration following land clearances reduced that to 627 by 1900, and half
4930-622: 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,
5015-574: 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
5100-591: 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
5185-571: 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
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#17327867674855270-415: 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
5355-420: 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
5440-401: 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
5525-401: 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
5610-497: 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
5695-431: The perfect conditions for maerl beds to form. The maerl beds in turn provide a sheltered habitat for species such as peacock worms and various sponges , as well as small fish, shrimps, gobies and crabs . Since 2014 the sound, along with the neighbouring Wyre Sound (which separates Rousay from Wyre ), has been designated as a Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area (NCMPA). Fishing activities are controlled within
5780-404: 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
5865-413: 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
5950-462: 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 "
6035-408: 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
6120-820: 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
6205-422: 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
6290-604: 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,
6375-489: 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
6460-515: Was based on the male name 'Hrolf' (Rolf). Hugh Marwick's work showed the name developing from 'Rollesay' in the 14th century, through 'Rolsay' in the 15th, and 'Rowsay' in the early 16th, with the spelling 'Rousay' first recorded in 1549. Most Rousay people earned their living from farming and/or fishing. In the 19th century, records reflect tradespeople supplying the needs of a rural community: blacksmiths and joiners, shoemakers and shopkeepers, with women making dresses and plaiting straw . Throughout
6545-565: Was born at Fatehgarh (a military post) on the banks of the Ganges not far from Cawnpore in 1831, the eldest of five children to General Frederick William Burroughs and Caroline de Peyron. His mother was the only daughter Capt. Charles Adolphus Marie de Peyron and Mary Colebrooke, eldest daughter of Sir George Colebrooke . His mother's grandfather was killed in a duel in Paris by Auguste Marie Raymond, Prince d'Arenberg, Comte de la Marck . He
6630-659: 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
6715-408: Was keen that Frederick William (Traill-Burroughs' father) took his name, and indeed, Frederick William spent a lot of energy 'proving' himself in battle in order to inherit the baronetcy, to no avail, as it died with Sir William. He is mentioned in the biography written by Sir William Burroughs' granddaughter, Louisa Mure, 'Recollections of By-Gone Days', this unknown relation (Frederick William) bearing
6800-682: Was not awarded. In 1864 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and commanded the regiment in bitter fighting on the North West Frontier , particularly during the Ambela/Umbeyla Campaign . He returned home with the Rlllegiment in 1870 and after a spell in command at Edinburgh Castle he eventually retired from the command of the 93rd Highlanders in October 1873, being replaced by Colonel William McBean VC. He
6885-415: 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
6970-595: Was promoted to major general on 16 March 1880 and lieutenant-general on 1 July 1881. From 1897 to 1904, he was colonel-in-chief of the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers . On his return from India, he and his wife, Eliza, visited Rousay , Orkney in July 1870. Traill-Burroughs had inherited much of the island and gradually bought more of it. He also built a large house at Trumland , designed by David Bryce of Edinburgh . From 1870 to 1883, there were
7055-815: Was the grandson of Sir William Burroughs of Castle Bagshaw. His mother was of Capt. Charles Adolphus Marle de Peyron. Several reputable sources, including the Dictionary of National Biography , describe him as the grandson of Sir William Burroughs , Advocate-General of Bengal. However, Traill-Burroughs was born 16 years after the death of Sir William's only son. Sir William Burroughs appears to have had several illegitimate children in India, including Harriet Caroline Gordon, Edward Williamson Gordon (provided for in Sir William Burroughs' will), and Frederick William Burroughs (Trail-Burroughs' father). As Sir William's only legitimate son died in battle in 1814, he
7140-432: 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 ,
7225-497: 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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