The following is the entry for this language as it appeared in the 14th edition (2000).
It was superseded by the corresponding entry in the 15th edition (2005). See also the corresponding entry in the current edition of Ethnologue.
SIL code: SCO
ISO 639-2: sco
| Population | 100,000 (1999 Billy Kay) including 60,000 in Lallans, 30,000 in Doric, 10,000 in Ulster. Population total both countries 100,000. |
| Region | All of Scotland except highlands: lowlands: Aberdeen to Ayrshire. Northern Ireland. Doric dialect in northeastern Scotland, Lallans in South Scotland lowlands, Ulster in Northern Ireland. Also spoken in Ireland. |
| Dialects | DORIC, LALLANS, ULSTER. |
| Classification | Indo-European, Germanic, West, English. |
| Comments | Difficult intelligibility among dialects. Northern Scots on the Scottish Islands is considered by some to be a different language (Shetlandic or Orcadian). Doric and Ulster are inherently intelligible to speakers, but difficulties are common in speech and writing. Lallans is the main literary dialect. Ulster Scots has its own development group. Scots is closest to English and Frisian. English is considered to be the language of education and religion. Used with family and friends. All ages. 1,500,000 speak it as second language. Dictionary. SVO; prepositions; gentivies, articles, adjectives, numerals before noun heads; relatives without noun heads; question word initial; 2 prefixes, 1 suffix; word order distinguishes subjects, objects, indirect objects, given and new information, topic and comment; affixes indicate genitive case of noun phrase; passives; comparatives; CVC; nontonal. Literacy rate in second language: 97% English. Poetry, magazines. Christian. NT 1901-1984. |
| Ireland |
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