(Replying to PARENT post)

I really enjoyed this article. Scots is certainly a language of its own - to hear it in the wild you must venture out of the more populous areas (Inverness and Aberdeen are exceptions) of Scotland and into the highlands and rural areas. It is also used much more by older, poorer or more isolated demographics within Scotland: as a farmers' son, I met many Scots-speaking people when I went to the market with my father.

People who claim Scots is "just an accent" don't know what they're talking about.

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(Replying to PARENT post)

I'd say it's a dialect, not a language. It's more than an accent for sure, for starters scotland has a load of different accents not just one, as I'm sure many teuchters going to Glasgow have found out the hard way.

But I find it difficult to get to the idea that people "speak scots" in rural areas.

I've lived and worked in Scotland my entire life and in 40+ years, not once has someone start speaking in a language I didn't get in general conversation... not once, and I would not regard myself as multi-lingual.

There's local terms that are used for sure, "you ken"

But that's not a language, that's a variety of local dialects.

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(Replying to PARENT post)

> People who claim Scots is "just an accent" don't know what they're talking about.

Such definitions are largely political. "A language is a dialect with an army and navy"

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(Replying to PARENT post)

Not so much of the highlands speak Scots. Here is a map [1]. Indeed, the Wikipedia article states it is sometimes called "Lowland Scots".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ScotsLanguageMap.png

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(Replying to PARENT post)

People in Aberdeen might well get upset if you collapsed Doric into just being Scots.
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