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Scots is the Anglic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language which was historically restricted to most of the Highlands, the Hebrides and Galloway after the Middle Ages. Because there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots.〔A.J. Aitken in ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', Oxford University Press 1992. p.894〕 Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects do exist, these often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with Scottish Standard English at the other.〔Stuart-Smith J. ''Scottish English: Phonology'' in Varieties of English: The British Isles, Kortman & Upton (Eds), Mouton de Gruyter, New York 2008. p.47〕 Scots is often regarded as one of the ancient varieties of English, yet it has its own distinct dialects.〔 Alternatively, Scots is sometimes treated as a distinct Germanic language, in the way Norwegian is closely linked to, yet distinct from, Danish.〔 A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards the Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals being a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", but it also found that "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)". In the 2011 Scottish census, a question on Scots language ability was featured. ==Nomenclature== Native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as ''braid Scots'' (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the "Doric", or the "Buchan Claik".〔Peter Buchan, David Toulmin, ''Buchan Claik: A Compendium of Words and Phrases from the North-east of Scotland'', Steve Savage Publishers Limited〕 The old-fashioned ''Scotch'', an English loan,〔A.J. Aitken in ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', Oxford University Press 1992. p.892〕 occurs occasionally, especially in Northern Ireland.〔Traynor, Michael (1953) ''The English dialect of Donegal'' Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, p244〕〔Nic Craith M. (2002) Plural Identities—singular Narratives. Berghahn Books. p.107〕 The term ''Lallans'', a variant of the Modern Scots word ''lawlands'' , is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form. Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots (''Ulstèr-Scotch'' in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recent neologism merging Ulster and Lallans.〔Tymoczko M. & Ireland C.A. (2003) Language and Tradition in Ireland: Continuities and Displacements, Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 159〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Scots language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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