ABSTRACT
Latin was the lingua franca in the middle ages and beyond, enabling communication across different language communities. Despite obvious advantages, a gradual shift from Latin to the vernaculars in written texts took place all over Europe. Schendl as well as Pahta and Taavitsainen use the term vernacularisation to refer to the expanding range of vernaculars in comparison to Latin. While such in-depth analyses exist for certain text types, research on this topic has focused on English, with Scots remaining under-researched with regard to vernacularisation. Both English and Scots descended from the Anglian dialect of Old English and both were certainly used in speech prior to any preserved records written in these languages. In the Early Scots and Early Middle Scots periods, Scots developed into what Smith calls an ‘elaborated language, i.e. a variety that could be used in more than one register, including writing as well as speech’.
