Talk:Scots language

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This article was nominated for deletion on 1 April 2020. The result of the discussion was keep.

This page is not a forum for general discussion about Scots and whether it is or isn't a language. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Scots and whether it is or isn't a language at the Reference desk.

Scots language was one of the Language and literature good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 20, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
June 7, 2009	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

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This article is written in Scottish English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, realise, travelled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Lead sentence removal question

Does anyone have qualms with me removing the three instances of "Scots" in a row in the first sentence to reduce redundancies? As it currently reads: Scots (Scots: Scots; Scottish Gaelic: Albais/Beurla Ghallda) is a West Germanic language variety, when we could just have Scots (Scottish Gaelic: Albais/Beurla Ghallda) is a West Germanic language variety. Wolfdog (talk) 11:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not redundant, it notes the term for the tongue in Scots. That in this instance a term in Scots is the same as the term in English wouldn't be evident unless it is noted. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What about Scots (endonym: Scots; Scottish Gaelic: Albais/Beurla Ghallda) ...? –Austronesier (talk) 12:03, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, am pondering it. Your suggestion is ~~It's~~ clear to me, provides the information about the term for Scots in Scots, though I know what endonym means. It may be less clear to those who don't know what endonym means but all they have to do is click. It may be preferable to those who are confused about what is being conveyed, per the earlier thread above. Mutt Lunker (talk) 12:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear to me as well, but only because I frequently edit WP language pages. My kneejerk feeling is that it's perplexing. I'd be on board for Austronesier's endonym workaround. Wolfdog (talk) 18:23, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, just realised I was being ambiguous. Though the current version is clear to me it does seem to perplex some people and in my last post I was meaning that Austronesier's suggestion is (also) clear to me. Go for it. Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:41, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Erm.. not directly about there being three but.. 'Beurla Ghallda' from looking around it means to 'speak with foreign tongue'.. yes that's original research and I am not going to change it myself, but couldn't that apply to any foreign language? Google translates 'Berula' as 'English'.. so is it a slight against the Scots language and so would be disqualified as hate speech on wikipedia. just some thoughts there.

Dava4444 (talk) 17:20, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All I can say is that in Gaeilge "Bérla" simply refers to the english language even if the literal meaning is different. Similar to the way "Sasanach" may literally mean foreigner but is only used to mean "English Person". WikiLearnedMeGood (talk) 19:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indigenous

Should it actually be classified as an indigenous language when it came from german settlers? Shouldn't the indigenous language be a celtic language like Gaelic? Malcolmmwa (talk) 00:39, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By that logic, celtic languages wouldn't count either as the celtic settlers didn't spring from the Scottish soil either. Or the pre-celtic ones. Mutt Lunker (talk) 10:28, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The term 'indigenous' can be used in various ways, and ideally, the qualification as 'indigenous' should always be attributed to a given source. In this case, the source is the Scottish government, as can be read in the linked web page. FWIW, the category "indigenous languages of Scotland" also includes Gaelic and English. So the ideal phrasing would be: "Scots is recognised by the Scottish government as an indigenous language of Scotland (next to Gaelic and English)". But this is just too heavy for the lede section, I guess. –Austronesier (talk) 19:02, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lead sentence

@Agtx: Hi, I'm not sure what your problem was with my edit. Your criticism doesn't make sense to me. I never changed how language was or wasn't used in the lead sentence. All I did was specify the type of West Germanic variety to make the connection to English clearer. Wolfdog (talk) 21:53, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit changed it from "language variety" as a noun to being a "language variety of" another language. Frankly, I'd rather just use the word language and ditch "variety," but to say "variety of" is a bridge too far. agtx 02:05, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As there seems to be a diversity of authoritative and reliable opinion as to whether Scots should be termed a language, a dialect or variety and as to whether this is even a particularly meaningful distinction to make, I'm wary of moving away from "language variety" as this coining has been stable. The article has been a chronic target of those who wish to declare it definitively a language and to expunge any notion it is a dialect and conversely those who wish to declare it definitively a dialect and to expunge any notion it is a language, or even that it exists at all. This edit does not reflect the diversity of view on the matter discussed later in the article and is likely to attract the ire of the latter division of axe-grinder. Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:12, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Like Wolfdog, I have no strong feelings (but certainly an opinion that is not of importance now) about the question whether Scots is best labeled as "language" or "language variety", but I support the "taxonomic" detail that is the actual rationale of the initial edit. If the preposition "of" (which may imply a sort of dependency) provides a problem, I guess this is easily remedied by a different preposition. Otherwise I would love to see a substantial objection against the addition of the taxonomic detail. –Austronesier (talk) 13:34, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the level of detail is probably too much for the lead (consider that we don't even say it in the lead of English language, the most Anglic of languages) But I don't feel that strongly about it even in the lead, and I have no problem explaining it in later in the article.

As far as the perennial language/dialect debate, I agree that it's been stable and am not going to fight the clunky "language variety" as a compromise, as long as it doesn't slide into "variety of," which doesn't mean the same thing. It is the dependent meaning that I was trying to avoid. agtx 05:16, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Again, though, my intention was to highlight immediately Scots's intimate connection to English. So is "language variety" the preferred term among the group here? How about explicitly just saying "language or dialect" in the lead sentence -- might that be a useful route to go? Wolfdog (talk) 12:32, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The references on the page strongly support Scots being a language, the article is called "Scots language", why would you confuse the introduction by saying that it's a "language or dialect"? The articles for other closely related and to some extent mutually intelligble languages which have an "intimate connection" do not this. To take some example, Afrikaans and Dutch language, Scottish Gaelic and Irish language, Czech language and Slovak language do not do this and any change to one of this pages claiming it was just a dialect would be swiftly reverted. JaggedHamster (talk) 18:41, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As discussed "the references on the page strongly support" there being a diversity of views on the matter and we should continue to reflect this.

@JaggedHamster, please be patient while the discussion is ongoing. I'm going to do a straight rv of your edit, to "language or dialect" (which personally I'm content enough with) but if your preference is the status quo ante, as a less contentious course, I'd also be content with a return to "language variety", until consensus is reached. Unless and until, the article should not state unequivocally that it is simply a "language". Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:18, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Second sentence

The second sentence of the lead section reads It is sometimes called Lowland Scots or Broad Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Goidelic Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Highlands, the Hebrides and Galloway after the 16th century. It strikes me as odd that we are so quickly taking time to define a topic that is NOT the focus of this page. Can anyone instead specify here where Scots is spoken rather than where Gaelic is spoken, which isn't particularly relevant. If Scots is indeed common throughout the entire nation of Scotland, let's specify that. Wolfdog (talk) 12:35, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See Scots_language#Geographic_distribution. Mutt Lunker (talk) 14:10, 30 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Danelaw influence

This article is missing any mention of Dano-English influence (from the Danelaw) on Scots, but I routinely encounter mention of this is source material (especially etymological). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:00, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Distinct from the influence of Northumbria? Mutt Lunker (talk) 16:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article mention it "It began to further diverge from the Middle English of Northumbria due to twelfth and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English-speakers from the North and Midlands of England." Nogger (talk) 18:54, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]