A Review of the Historical Origins of Scots

【Abstract】This paper examines the historical roots of Scots and its modern argument over its status as a language. By reviewing the historical changes of Scots， a quick glimpse can be gained into the relationship between English and Scots.

【Key words】Historical linguistics； Scots； language autonomy

Scots， the language， now often regarded as having a relationship of heteronomy with English， which was formerly the national language of Scotland.

Scots is， to put it simply， the descendant of the Northumbrian form of Old English which has undergone a multitude of modifications over the long process of history.

Before the twelfth century the English-speaking part of Scotland was limited to these south-eastern and southern areas（A.J. AITKEN， 1984b）. Wheras Gaelic was， doubtlessly， the dominant language in light of its broadest spread within the whole Scotland. This trend was not evidently reversed until the reign of King David I（1124-53）. He and his immediate successor follow the Normans practice continued to establish burghs， resuling in greater influx of Anglo-Scandinavian-speaking people into Scotland who previously settled in eastern England since the Vikings setting foot on the British Isles from eighth century onwards. This ‘Anglo-Scandinavian variety expanded across Lowland Scotland in the medieval period， replacing Gaelic.

By the fourteenth century the dominant spoken tongue of all ranks of Scotsman east and south of the Highland Line was the northern dialect of English known to its users first as ‘Inglis（originally the Gaelic term for ‘English） but later （from 1494） also as ‘Scots， and to modern philologists as ‘Older Scots（A.J. AITKEN， 1984b）. Older Scots， serving as generic term， can further be divived into three phases of scots， namely Pre-literary Scots， Early Socts and Middle Scots. As its name indicates， Pre-literay scots only functioned as a lingua franca of people who traded in the burghs at the daily conversational level， while written forms are restricted in Latin and French. By the second half of the fifteenth century， Older Scots had become the principal literary and record language of the Scottish nation， having successsfully completed in this function with Latin （A.J. AITKEN， 1984b）. This marked the transition from Pre-literary Scots to Early Scots（Inglis）.

Middle Scots Period， roughly starting from 1450 to 1700， saw most ups and downs of the status of Scots as a originally autonomous language being gradually marginalized due to a variety of reasons. Up until the sixteeth century， Scots was an autonomous variety（albiet one closely related to English and part of the same dialect continuum）， but with the considerable political changes in subsequent centuries， Scots became heteronomous with respect to English， which was adopted by the upper classes of Scottish sociey（Corbett et al. 2003； 11-14）. Plus， the lack of a complete Protestant Bible in Scots and the expanding prestige of London-based Standard English also accelerated the decline of Scots together with the rejection of Scottish nationalism by the urban upper classes in the wake of the Union in 1707. Though being reduced as a local vernacular， written scots saw its revival in literature in eighth century. However， meanwhile， the strong urge of middle-class to edit out their ‘scotticism in the speech gave rise to a new refined pronunciation of English， Scottish Standard English（SSE）. As a compromising system between the Southern Standard English and the local Scots， SSE coexists with broad scots well into the present days， serving for people of different social classes.endprint

Whether any form of speech is generally seen as a language or not is essentially a political question， since it depends to a large extent on the socio-political status of those who speak it. The loss of prestige of Scots is therefore a direct consequence of Scotlands loss of political independence. Because Scots has always been closely related to English（though no more closely than the Scandinavian languages are to one another）， this political development make it possible to represent Scots as no more than an incorrect or corrupt form of English， rather than the language of a whole people， with a unique character of its own.

References：

[1]Aitken，A.J.1984.Scottish accents and dialects.In：Trugill.P.ed.Language in the British Isles.Cambridge：Cambridge University Press.

[2]Corbett，J.et al.2003.A Brief History of Scots.In：Corbett，J.et al.eds.The Edinburgh Companion to Scots.Edinburgh：Edinburgh University Press，pp.1-16.

作者簡介：李美，女，陜西西安人，西安醫學院英語系教師，雙碩士：英國愛丁堡大學語言學碩士；西安外國語大學口譯碩士，研究方向：英語語言學與英語教學法。endprint