ABSTRACT
English has been spoken in the south-east of Scotland for as long as it has been spoken in England. In the south-west of Scotland, it dates from the Middle Ages. A standardized language based on southern Scottish varieties and known as Scots was used at the Scottish court and in literature until the Reformation. Since that time, however, Scots has at least partly lost its status as a separate language and has gradually been replaced in most educated usage by Scottish Standard English. In the Highlands, where English was initially learned only in school, forms relatively close to Scottish Standard English are used by all speakers. The vocabulary of Scots and nonstandard Scottish dialects differs considerably from that of Standard English, to the extent that dictionaries or glossaries may be necessary for reading literature in Scots. Until the seventeenth century, almost the whole of Ireland was Irish Gaelic–speaking, with English speakers confined for the most part to a few towns.
