Scots Leid 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

“The Scots language is a mark of the distinctive identity of the Scottish people; and as such we should be concerned to preserve it, even if there were no other reason, because it is ours. This statement requires neither explanation nor apology.”
― J.Derrick McClure, Why Scots matters

“From the time when Scots ceased to be the official language of government, since King's Scots had become King's English, the lack of a central authority to promote a standard had meant the growth of a bastard Anglo-Scots as the general lingo of society.”
― Sydney Goodsir Smith, A Short Introduction to Scottish Literature

“When MacDiarmid spoke of "Synthetic Scots" he merely referred to another aspect of this necessary revolution; that we should forget the whole poverty-stricken "dialect" tradition that Burns and his immediate predecessors had been unconsciously responsible for, and use again all the rich resources of the language as Dunbar and the Makars had used it, as had Burns and Fergusson, Scott, Galt, Stevenson and George Douglas Brown.”
― Sydney Goodsir Smith, A Short Introduction to Scottish Literature

“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

“I ken very weel that I am the coarsest and most black-avised bitch in a the Court o Session.”
― Henry Home

“...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

“Rock an stane lay glisterin on aa the heichs abune.
Cool an kind an whisperin it drifted gently doon,
till hill an howe war rowed in it, an land an sea were gane.
Aa was still an saft an silent in the smoky smir o rain.”
― George Campbell Hay, Collected Poems and Songs of George Campbell Hay

“The laird o Cockpen, he’s proud an he’s great,
His mind is ta’en up wi the things o the State;
He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
But favour wi wooin was fashious to seek.”
― Carolina Oliphant

“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