When Scots Was King: A Royal History

If you ask a global audience to imagine the Scots language today, their minds likely go straight to the gritty, phonetic prose of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. They might hear the urban dialect of Glasgow or the slang of the modern Edinburgh streets. It is often perceived as a “vernacular”—a language of the pub, the football terrace, and the working class.

But rewind the clock five hundred years, and the linguistic landscape looks radically different. There was a time when Scots was not merely a dialect spoken at home, but the language of high court, legal decree, and diplomacy. It was the “State English” of the north, spoken by kings who commanded respect across Europe.

To understand the journey of Scots, we have to look past the modern debates about slang versus language and delve into a history of kings, poets, and political unions. This is the story of how a Germanic dialect rose to royal prestige, only to be dethroned by the stroke of a pen.

From Anglian Roots to “Inglis”

To understand Scots, one must first clear up a common misconception: Scots is not a corruption of Standard English. Rather, they are siblings—close relatives descending from the same parent.

The story begins in the 7th century with the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which straddled what is now the border between Scotland and England. The Angles brought with them a variety of Old English. Over time, the political border hardened, but the linguistic roots remained deep. While Southern English was heavily influenced by the Norman conquest of 1066 (absorbing massive amounts of French vocabulary), the language north of the Humber River evolved differently.

For centuries, this northern language was referred to simply as “Inglis.” Ironically, during this period, the term “Scottis” referred to Gaelic, the Celtic language spoken by the monarchs and people of the Highlands. However, as trade burghs were established in the Lowlands and the influence of the Anglo-Normans spread, the prestige of Gaelic began to wane.

By the late 14th century, the linguistic shift was undeniable. The Lowland tongue—rich with words from Old Northumbrian, Old Norse, and Dutch due to trade across the North Sea—became the dominant language of the Scottish people.

The Golden Age: When Scots Was the Law

The 15th and early 16th centuries marked the zenith of the Scots language. It was widely distinct from the neighbor to the south. In fact, if you were to read court records from 1500, the spelling, grammar, and vocabulary of Scots were standardized enough to be considered a fully functioning state language.

During the reign of the Stewart kings, particularly James IV and James V, Scots was the language of the court at Holyrood and Linlithgow. It was used in:

• Parliamentary Acts: The laws of the land were written in Scots, not Latin or Southern English.
• Diplomacy: While Latin was the international lingua franca, Scots was used for domestic administration and correspondence with England.
• Literature: This was the era of the “Makars” (poets). Writers like William Dunbar and Robert Henryson produced complex, high-register poetry that rivaled Chaucer.

The Auld Alliance and French Influence

Linguistically, this era was fascinating because the Scottish court was outward-looking. Through the “Auld Alliance” with France, Scots absorbed a unique vocabulary that never made it into Southern English. This usage filters down to today. For example:

• Ashet (a large serving plate) comes from the French assiette.
• Douce (gentle or sedate) comes from doux.
• Fash (to trouble or annoy) comes from fâcher.

This wasn’t the slang of the street; this was the refined vocabulary of a European court.

The Great Shift: 1603 and the Union of Crowns

If Scots was flying high in 1550, what happened? The decline was slow, agonizing, and almost entirely political. The first major blow was the Reformation. When Scotland broke with Rome in 1560, it needed a Bible. However, there was no Scots translation available. Instead, the Scots adopted the Geneva Bible, written in English. Suddenly, the word of God—the most read text in the nation—was in Southern English.

The death knell, however, rang in 1603. When Elizabeth I of England died without an heir, James VI of Scotland became James I of England. This was the Union of the Crowns.

James VI was a scholar and a writer who had previously published works in Scots on the art of poetry (Reulis and Cautelis). But upon moving his court to London, his linguistic loyalty shifted instantly. He began writing in English to appeal to his larger, wealthier southern realm. Where the King goes, the patronage follows. The Scottish poets and courtiers, desperate for royal favor, began wildly anglicizing their speech and writing.

1707 and the Stigma of “Scotticisms”

While 1603 removed the court, the Acts of Union in 1707 removed the Parliament. Scotland was no longer an independent political entity. The center of power was firmly Westminster.

Throughout the 18th century, a phenomenon known as the “Scottish Enlightenment” took place. Intellectual giants like David Hume and Adam Smith were changing how the world thought about economics and philosophy. Paradoxically, these men were embarrassed by their mother tongue.

Eager to be accepted by the London establishment, Scottish intellectuals compiled lists of “Scotticisms”—words and phrases to be avoided. They took elocution lessons to scrub the Scots from their tongues. The language that had once written the laws of the kingdom was now banished to the barn, the kitchen, and the playground. It became a marker of the uneducated.

The Refusal to Die: From Burns to Lallans

Despite the efforts of the elite to eradicate it, Scots survived. It survived because it was the language of the people. Robert Burns proved in the late 18th century that Scots could still convey deep emotion and complex thought, though he often wrote in a “light Scots” accessible to English readers.

In the 20th century, a literary revival known as the Scottish Renaissance attempted to reverse the decline. Led by Hugh MacDiarmid, poets sought to recreate a high-register literary Scots, often called “Lallans” (Lowlands). MacDiarmid famously looked to dictionaries to find archaic words to reintroduce, synthesizing a “Synthetic Scots” that transcended regional dialects.

MacDiarmid’s famous line, “I’ll be the thistle o’ Scotland’s love”, wasn’t just poetry; it was a linguistic manifesto. He argued that English could not express the Scottish psyche.

Scots in the Modern Era

Today, the status of Scots is complex. In the 2011 census, over 1.5 million people claimed they could speak Scots. It is recognized by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the Scottish government has taken steps to promote it in education.

However, the ghost of standardisation still haunts it. To many, it remains “bad English” or simply “slang.” Yet, linguists argue that the grammar (such as the distinct use of negatives like dinna and canna), the vocabulary, and the vowel systems (Scots preserved different vowel sounds during the Great Vowel Shift) mark it as a distinct language system.

From the royal decrees of James IV to the modern tweets of Scottish Twitter, the language has shifted from a tool of monarchy to a badge of identity. It may no longer be the language of the King, but it remains, stubbornly and triumphantly, the language of the Kingdom.