Scots Language Quotes

“Historically, the language we call Scots was a development of the Anglian speech of the Northumbrians who established their kingdom of Bernicia as far north as the Firth of Forth in the seventh century. This northern Anglo-Saxon language flourished in Lowland Scotland and emerged into a distinct language on its own, capable of rich expansion by borrowing from Latin, French and other sources with its own grammatical forms and methods of borrowing. By the time of the Makars of the fifteenth century it was a highly sophisticated poetic language, based on the spoken speech of the people, but enriched by many kinds of expansion, invention and 'aureation'. Distinct from literary English, but having much in common with it, literary Scots took its place in the late Middle Ages as one of the great literary languages of Europe.”
― David Daiches, Literature and Gentility in Scotland

“Surely our language is the image of our soul”
― William Soutar

“Fra banc to banc, fra wod to wod, I rin
Ourhailit with my feble fantasie,
Lyk til a leif that fallis from a trie
Or til a reid ourblawin with the wind.
Twa gods gyds me: the ane of tham is blind,
Ye, and a bairn brocht up in vanitie;
The nixt a wyf ingenrit of the se,
And lichter nor a dauphin with hir fin.

Unhappie is the man for evirmair
That teils the sand and sawis in the aire;
Bot twyse unhappier is he, I lairn,
That feidis in his hairt a mad desyre,
And follows on a woman throw the fyre,
Led be a blind and teichit be a bairn.”
― Mark Alexander Boyd

“That's richt. When we were campaignin' wi' Marlborough oor lads had mony time to sleep wi' the canon dirlin' aboot them. Ye get us'd to't, as Annalpa says aboot bein' a weedow woman. And if ye hae noticed it, Coont, there's nae people mair adapted for fechtin' under difeeculties than oor ane; that's what maks the Scots the finest sogers in the warld. It's the build o them, Lowlan' or Hielan', the breed o' them; the dour hard character o' their country and their mainner o' leevin'. We gied the English a fleg at the 'Forty-five,' didnae we? That was where the tartan cam' in: man, there's naethin' like us!”
― Neil Munro, Doom Castle

“...the prose tradition had died two centuries before and the recreation of a full canon of all-purpose Scots was beyond even Scott's skill, nor did he attempt it, except, perhaps in the magnificent Wandering Willie's Tale. He took the only course open to him, of writing his narrative in English and using Scots only for those who, given their social class, would still be speaking it: daft Davie Gellatley in Waverley, the gypsies and Dandie Dinmont in Guy Mannering, the Headriggs in Old Mortality, Edie Ochiltree and the fisher-folk of Musselcrag in The Antiquary, Andrew Fairservice in Rob Roy, the Deanses in The Heart of Midlothian, Meg Dods in St. Ronan's Well, and so on.

The procedure gave reality to the Scots characters whose ways and ethos it was Scott's main purpose to portray, and the author in his best English, which lumbered along rather badly at times, did little more than lay out the setting for the action and act as impressario for the characters as they played their roles...

...Scott's felicity in conveying character and action through their Scots speech inspired his imitators for the next hundred years - Susan Ferrier, Hogg, Macdonald, Stevenson, Barrie, Crockett, Alexander, George Douglas, and John Buchan. The tradition of narrative in standard English and dialogue in various degrees of dialect has been the usual procedure since.”
― David Murison, Grampian Hairst: An Anthology of Northeast Prose

“To rouse the countra frae the caul' morality o' a deid moderation.”
― William Alexander, Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk in the Parish of Pyketillim, with Glimpses of the Parish Politics about AD 1843

“On the whole popular fiction in Victorian Scotland is not overwhelmingly backward-looking; it is not obsessed by rural themes; it does not shrink from urbanisation or its problems; it is not idyllic in its approach; it does not treat the common people as comic or quaint. The second half of the nineteenth century is not a period of creative trauma or linguistic decline; it is one of the richest and most vital episodes in the history of Scottish popular culture.”
― William Donaldson, Popular Literature in Victorian Scotland: Language, Fiction and the Press

“Sa men may se wit is nane
To despis utheris natioun,
For men may weil se, be resoun,
That they ar men as weil as thay,
And quhilis perchance pruve as weil may
As thay, therfor suld nane despise
Thair fais, for the victorie lyis
In his wirschip as weil as his.”
― Andrew of Wyntoun, The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun

“Ye canna mak a pudden oot o pig's meat,
Ye canna big a hoose wi twa-three stays,
Ye canna plant a tattie when the grund's weet,
Ye canna ploo the hillside wi yer taes,
And is it like, my love to be
Thoo'll kin to mak a wife o me?

The whitemae's filings arena done in wan nest,
The minnow's aten by the eel alive,
When cat and dog lie doon there's poor rest,
The wild bee maks a fight within the hive,
And is it like, my love, to be
I'll can mak a wife to thee?”
― Ann Scott-Moncrieff

“What we have at present in Scotland is a linguistic continuum between Scots-English - the cumulative result of the attempts of several generations of Scots to speak English - and what is left of our own language, now largely confined to those who have not been deracinated by the influwnce of educational policy. Nevertheless, the Scots language still survives, incipient and fragmented, in the speech of the people and in a substantial body of recorded literature, although what is left of spoken Scots is coming under increasing pressure from English as a result of the influence of British radio and television. The problem for those who are interested in the survival and further evolution of Scots, is not how best to doctor it so that is can masquerade as English, but how to distinguish it clearly from English in writing, as a language which has a character and rules of its own.”
― David Purves, Thrawart Threipins

“Sen Alexander our king wes deid
That Scotland left in luf & le
Away wes sons of aill & breid
Off wyne & walx of gamyn & gle
The gold wes changeit all in leid
The frute falzeit on everilk tre
Ihesu succour and send Remeid
That stadt Is in perplexite”
― Andrew of Wyntoun, The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun

“THE PUDDOCK

A puddock sat by the lochan's brim,
An he thought there was never a puddock like him.
he sat on his hurdies, he waggled his legs,
An cockit his heid as he glowered through the seggs.
The biggsy wee cratur was feelin that prood,
He gapit his mou an he croakit oot lood:
'Gin ye'd a like tae see a richt puddock,' quo he,
'Ye'll never, I'll sweer, get a better nor me.
I've femlies an wives an a weel-plenished hame,
Wi drink for my thrapple an meat for my wame.
The lasses aye thocht me a fine strappin chiel,
An I ken I'm a rale bonny singer as weel.
I'm nae gaun tae blaw, but th' truth I maun tell -
I believe I'm the verra McPuddock himsel.'...

A heron was hungry an needin tae sup,
Sae he nabbit th' puddock an gollupt him up;
Syne runkled his feathers: 'A peer thing,' quo he,
'But - puddocks is nae fat they eesed tae be.”
― John M. Caie, The Puddock

“There is a definite linkage between the Humanist legacy and the vernacular movement, in the sense that those scholars who did most to preserve the prestige of Buchanan as a classic text for Latin classes in Scotland were also the same men who did most to encourage the idea of the Scottish tongue as being as suitable as a vehicle for classic poetry as any other modern language.”
― George Elder Davie, The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and her Universities in the Nineteenth Century

“Our peers and gentrie were content
To bide at hame and spend their rent:
But now to travel they are bent
Baith ane and a';
And cracks their credit ere they stint,
Sin' Wont's awa.”
― Alexander Nicol, The Rural Muse; or, A Collection of Miscellany Poems, both Comical and Serious

“Ye wha are fain to hae your name
Wrote in the bonny book o fame,
Let merit nae pretension claim
To laurel'd wreath,
But hap ye weel, baith back and wame,
In guid Braid Claith.”
― Robert Fergusson, Poems of Fergusson

“When I left home, I faithfully carried my copy of Sunset Song onward into life. Each reading brought a new layer and deeper understanding, but it was the notion of Two Chrisses that always echoed in my soul. Through Chris Guthrie, I understood the inferiority complex I felt as a working-class Scot as I began to move in different circles. I remember arriving at drama school with Doric words in my mouth, as other students looked blankly at my attempts to find an English equivalent. I'd then return home and feel 'posh' amongst my Scots speaking family. I was part of two worlds, but felt like I belonged in neither.

The feeling persistently lingered but surfaced in earnest during the pandemic. At that time, I was working with the Scots Language Centre on their 'Scots Wark' project, and I was asked to deliver a creative learning resource. My offering was called 'The Twa Chrisses: A Love Letter to Sunset Song', a cathartic and empowering story to scrieve, but it also made my fingers itch to write a full theatrical adaptation. Somehow, gorgeous synchronicity ensued when Andrew Panton, Artistic Director of Dundee Rep, and Finn den Hertog contacted me with this very idea.”
― Morna Young, Sunset Song: 2024 Tour

“Auld Reekie's sons blyth faces wear,
September's merry month is near,
That brings in Neptune's caller chere,
New oysters fresh;
The halesomest and nicest gear
Of fish or flesh.

Whan big as burns the gutters rin,
Gin ye hae catcht a drookit skin,
To Luckie Middlemist's loup in,
And sit fair snug
O'er oysters and a dram o' gin,
Or haddock lug.”
― Robert Fergusson, Poems of Fergusson

“Auld Reekie, Wale o' ilka Town,
That Scotland kens beneath the Moon,
Where couthy Chiels at E'ening meet
Their bizzing craigs and mous to weet;
And blythly gar auld Care gae bye
Wi' blinkit and wi' bleering Eye:”
― Robert Fergusson, Poems of Fergusson

“Ye ken, man laird, while I just dive richt to the bottom o a linn, and set doon there; ye'd think it was the inside o the Fairy Hill. Trooties, ye ken, and saumon, and they awfu pike, a comin round ye, and they bits o water weeds, waggin aboot like lairch trees in the blast. I mind ae time I stoppit doon nigh aboot half an hour. Maybe no just sae much, ye ken, but time gaes awfu quick when ye're at the bottom o a linn.”
― R.B. Cunninghame Graham, The Scottish Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame Graham

“Win

Ower hill an brae
He comes tae play,
The rantin roarin Win;
He cowps the trees
An lachs tae hear the din,

He sweels the spate
The deil's ain gate
Oot ower the feckless banks.
An Tilly's stooks
Furl roon like deuks
Wi panic i the ranks!

Wi jaggit shears
The duds he tears
Aff lines she filled sae croose,
An reek an flaws
Doon lums he ca's
A' steerin throwe the hoose.

Ower yard an closs.
A sair-like loss
He spreads o hay an strae;
The hens he blaws
Like feather ba's
Tae gie his humour play.

An neist he's aff
Tae tig an daff
Wi' quinies fae the skweel;
Like sails o ships
He fulls their slips -
Syne dooks them i the peel!

Ower hill an brae
He comes tae play,
The rantin roarin Win;
An grannies tell
His pooers sae fell,
An dra their airmchairs in.”
― Jean Baxter, A' Ae 'Oo'

“Wee Wullie Waggletail, what is a' your stishie?
Tak a doup o' water and courie on a stane:
Ilka tree stands dozent, an' the wind without a hishie
Fitters in atween the fleurs and shogs them, ane be ane.

What whigmaleerie gars ye jow and jink amanf the duckies,
Wi' a rowsan simmer sin beekin on your croun;
Wheeple, wheeple, wheeplin like a wee burn owre the chuckies,
An wagglin here, an wagglin there, an wagglin up an' doun.”
― William Soutar, Seeds in the Wind: Poems in Scots for Children

“But now to begin about the jaunt. When a'thing was put in an order, me and the guidwife, with Clemy, your lady mother, after an early breakfast, steppit into our own carriage, whereto, behind, divers trunks were strappit; and we trintlet awa down the north road, taking the airt of the south wind that blaws in Scotland. At first it was very pleasant; and I had never been much in the country in a chaise, I was diverted to see how, in a sense, the trees came to meet us, and passed, as if they had been men of business having a turn to do.

...we journeyed on with a sobriety that was heartsome without banter; for really the parks on both sides were salutory to see. The hay was mown, and the corn was verging to the yellow. The haws on the hedges, though as green as capers, were a to-look; the cherries in the gardens were over and gone; but the apples in the orchards were as damsels entering their teens.

When I was nota-beneing in this way, your grandmother consternated a great deal to Clemy, saying she never thought that I had such a beautiful taste for the poeticals, and that I was surely in a fit of the bucolicks. But I, hearing her, told her I had aye a notion of the country; only that I had soon seen fallen leaves were not coined money, which, if a man would gather, it behoved him to make his dwelling-place in the howffs and thoroughfares of the children of men.”
― John Galt, Selected Short Stories

“Wan decade frae wir last self-defeatin referendum, we're close tae hae the centenary ae MacDiarmid's masterpiece, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. Oan the man's daith, Norman MacCaig said they should observe twa minutes' pandemonium. Fine description ae MacDiarmid himself, as much as whit he unleashed. MacDiarmid wiss Scotland's ultimate political poet. We winna rehearse the man's mony faults here - "problematic", says Heaney. Aye. And in spite ae this, MacDiarmid's mair important tae the cause ae Scots and Scotland than ony ither poet frae the previous century. "My job, as I see it, has never been to lay a tit's egg, but to erupt like a volcano, emitting not only flame, but a lot of rubbish." And that's hou Mount MacDiarmid maun be regarded: tempted as we may be tae tak oot the rubbish, we canna thraw the hail lot awa, as wull shairly be settin the bins ablaze. An whit's mair self-defeatin nor a bin fire?”
― Colin Bramwell, Irish Pages, Vol. 12, No. 2: Scotland

“Scots is a West Germanic language with a literature going back more than 800 years, yet Scotland is a country where only English is compulsory in school, and where Scotland's history is barely taught beyond primary school, and where (non-Scottish) newspaper owners have been known to prohibit the reviewing of Scottish books on the grounds that this would be 'provincial', while the myopic hegemony of the Anglocentric media enshrines a set of attitudes which routinely ignores or belittles our culture.”
― Brian Holton, Irish Pages, Vol. 12, No. 2: Scotland

“When my grandmother makes a mistake, she says 'Ah tell a leh'... But I feel the same whenever I use conversational English picked up after fourteen years at Oxford. Or whenever I lapse into a full-throated Dundonian Scots at home and someone announces, 'Ye've no lost yir accent'. Herbert speak with forked tongue.”
― W.N. Herbert, Don't Ask Me What I Mean: Modern Poets in their Own Words

“Ach!" cried Emmeline impatiently, "you had aye a saft side to Madge. Onybody wi' their twa een in their heid cud a' seen the road she was like to tak. Wi' her palaverin' an' her pooderin' an' her this an' that. She had a' her orders, had Madge. An' a stink o scent 'at wad knock ye doon. Foozlin' her face wi' pooders. Eneuch to pit faces ooten fashion. I wadna be seen ga'in' the length o' masel wi' a face like yon. A wadna ging the midden sic a sicht.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Quarry Wood

“Braid Scots is still in most Scottish communities (in one or other Anglicised modification) the speech of bed and board and street and plough, the speech of emotional ecstasy and emotional stress. But it is not genteel. It is to the bourgeoisie of Scotland coarse and low and common and loutish, a matter for laughter, well enough for hinds and the like, but for the genteel to be quoted in vocal inverted commas... But for the truly Scots writer it remains a real and haunting thing, even while he tries his best to forget its existence and to write as a good Englishman.”
― Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish Scene: or, The Intelligent Man's Guide to Albyn

“Some airt the linties maun be singan,
Here the winds are toom,
And aye the rain is dingan, dingan,
Dingan on the toun.”
― Sydney Goodsir Smith

“Now Scots, it must be observed, is not English badly spelled; nor is it a dialect of English. To simplify, but not in a direction away from the truth; the Scots language was a development - and by now is a degeneration - of the Anglian branch of what is called Old English, and was originally spoken from the Forth to the Humber - that's to say, on both sides of the Border. The Saxon branch to the South flourished and became what we call English. With the establishment of the Border, the Anglian branch developed as Scots. Scots and English, therefore, are cousin languages with a common ancestor, and it is as absurdto call Scots a dialect of English as it would be to call English a dialect of Scots.”
― Norman MacCaig, Scottish Eccentrics

“The language of this Poeme is (as thou seeist) mixt of the English and Scottish Dialects; which perhaps may be vnpleasant and irksome to some readers of both nations. But I hope the gentle and judicious English reader will beare with me, if I retaine some badge of mine owne countrie, by vsing sometimes words that are peculiar therevnto, especiallie when I finde them propre, and significant. And as for my owne countrymen, they may not justly finde fault with me, if for the more parte I vse the English phrase, as worthie to be preferred before our owne for the elegance and perfection thereof. Yea I am perswaded that both countrie-men will take in good part the mixture of their Dialects, the rather for that the bountiful providence of God doth invite them both to a staiter vnion and conjunction aswell in languages as in other respectes.”
― William Alexander, The Tragedie of Darius