Is there a Scottish language?

Show all answers

monkeyface

Although Gaelic is widely accepted as the official language of Scotland each area have their own unique languages.
For example, I live in Aberdeenshire in NE Scotland & we speak Doric.
It really is just a bastardised form of english but even people from other parts of Scotland find it impossible to understand.

As for our currency, we use the same as in England but do have Scottish banknotes in the same denominations as England. We accept english notes but they will not accept ours, even though both are legal tender anywhere in the British Isles.

Bagpuss

Whilst Scots is based on english, there are loads of Scottish words that are unique to Scotland such as gret, dither, haver, etc, and we certainly don't have phlegm when we speak

Scottish currency is legal in England. We still have the pound note, which England used to have but choose to get rid off many years ago. English notes are accepted in Scotland, unfortunately due to the ignorance of some people south of the border, Scottish notes are not always accepted in England. Oh well I guess that will all change when we get the euro :)

David N

Yes there is, it's Gaelic (Say: Gah-lick) the irish language is gaelic(say gay-lick) < wow wierd but still it's how u pronounce it.

Hardly anyone speaks it up here anymore *Evil Glare* but still yeah there is.

Johnny

Gaelic is a language still spoken in the Highlands. The dialect of English spoken in the rest of Scotland is called Scots.

Biedronka

There is the Gaelic language, but as far as I know, nobody speaks it as a mother tongue except maybe on the outer Hebrides.

Jock

Langauges:- Gaelic, Scots & of course English
Currency - we have our own bank notes

RichB

Scots Gaelic is still spoken by many people in rural parts of Scotland, but English is the primary language, of which there are numerous different dialects in Scotland. Nevertheless, Scotland is officially a bilingual country and you'll see signs written in both English and Gaelic.

Scotland is part of the UK so it doesn't have its own currency, it uses the UK Pound Sterling (GBP). The major Scottish banks print their own sterling banknotes though, and these are very different in design to the notes issued by the Bank of England and by the various Northern Irish banks.

Scottish banknotes are widely accepted in Northern England, but not (in my experience) in the South of England. And the Northern Irish notes are not widely accepted outside of Northern Ireland. However, the Bank of England notes are accepted everywhere in the UK, including Scotland.

younosygit

There's actually two Scottish languages - "Scots" which is a Germanic language very closely related to English, and "Gaelic" which is a Celtic language closely related to Irish.

There's a joke that goes "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy", but linguists nowadays do consider that Scots is a language in its own right, about as close to English as Danish is to Norwegian. With languages there's often a continuum of dialects where as you travel along the language changes a little bit, and every now and again someone declares there's a standard national language - for example, with West Germanic languages you can start in Belgium with Flemish, which is not quite the same as Dutch, then when you get to the borderland between the Netherlands and Germany there's not much difference in the language the people on the two sides of the border speak, though people on one side will say they're speaking Dutch and people on the other side will say they're speaking German. The dialects continue to change over distance, so eventually you get to the stage where people in north Germany think Bavarians talk funny, and vice versa, and it goes on into Austria, and when you get into the Swiss mountains no outsiders can understand the local dialects even though they're supposed to be German. Heading in the other direction, Frisian is close to Dutch, and until around about 1400, Frisian and English-speakers were supposed to be able to understand each other. Dialects continued to develop on this side of the sea too - Chaucer wrote that in the late 1300s some merchants from London were travelling to the continent, and stopped off in Kent to buy some eggs, but had great difficulty making known what they wanted because the word in London was "egges", but in Kent it was "eyren". Eventually the Oxford/Cambridge dialect became standard English, but the Scottish version which developed from Northumbrian English was considerably different, so it's effectively a separate language. Most people will of course use an accented version of Standard English when talking to strangers or foreigners, but may use Scots among themselves.

As for Scottish currency, no, it's the same as the currency in the rest of the UK, the Pound Sterling (GBP). Scottish banknotes are not legal tender anywhere (and neither are English banknotes legal tender outside England and Wales), but this does not prevent people accepting the local notes if they want to.

Sting

Well there's Dorick (don't know if that's spelt right) my Granada can speak it...
And there's what a majority of people call Scottish (English with a northern accent)
I'm not sure if there is an 'Official' Scottish language...
There are loads of words that are unique to Scotland and have different meanings. I actually have a copy of Roald Dahl's The Twits translated into The Eejits
Eg;
Mr Eejit wis an eejit. He wis boarn an eejit. And noo at the graund auld age o sixty, he wis a bigger eejit than ever.
Another eg;
English - Mr twit was horrible and hairy and his wife Mrs Twit was just plain ugly.
North east scotch - The Eejits they are honkin, maukit, bowfin and clarty and Mrs Eejit's hackitness is revealed in all its manky glory.

Both my grandparents can understand it fine (I had to ask their help loads of times - really tricky to read)

music boy

Gaelic but doesn't seem to be used a great deal. They also have there own version of English

executioner_bolan

There was a form of Gaelic ,but it is not in common use anymore.
There are Scottish bank-notes yes.

scoutma53

There is Gaelic, which not many know nowadays. Also there are many dialects of English.
Currency: same as England but you can also get bank notes printed by Scottish banks.

hatorihansotanaka

isn't it Gaelic or Celtic, one of those

when I visited Edinburgh last year I was able to use English pounds, although you may also want to get a hold of Scottish Notes

Mansell

No, its the English Language with lots of phlegm in your throat.

Please punctuate properly folks.

Doo', cah-yeh, can-Ah keck-aye.

a mouse is not a hotel

yes

the most popular phrases are a-hay-da-hoo-da-hey-da-hee and i'll cit ye fackin heed opan

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: