--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@>
> wrote:
> >
> > Mine didn't. They spoke Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, Scots, German,
> > French and Dutch. The Appalachian dialect my cousins speak
> > is still closer to Scots than to English.
>
> But Scots is just a dialect of English, isn't it?
>
> ;^)
>
> David
>
On this question you might look up "Scots Language" on Wiki. I just
finished reading it. IMHO, the fact that Scots has [e] in words like
<hame> "home", <saip> "soap", <ane> "one", <bane> "bone", <hale>
"whole" where English has [o(U)]/[&U] is enough for me to think that
it must be a separate language (not to mention the many other
divergent phonetic developments). However there is a remarkable
amount of shared innovations and developments, and also more learned
vocabulary (as would be expected) between Scots and English, if you
read the article further to the grammar and beyond. BTW up to now I
had always thought Scots died out somewhere between the 17th and 19th
centuries. But it survives yet, though reduced.
Andrew