[spuz]

This version of Firefox is also the first major piece of software to be translated into Scots - a language spoken / understood by 1.3m people in Scotland.

My previous company worked on the translation and they told me they had fun trying to come up with suitable equivalents for technical words such as "minimise" and "maximise".

https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2021/08/10/firefox-91-intr...

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19494171.major-web-browser...

[clydethefrog]

I hope they had a bit less fun than the American teenager that edited most of the Scottish Wikipedia pages with nonsense Scottish!

https://slate.com/technology/2020/09/scots-wikipedia-languag...

[amelius]

> Despite his well-meaning enthusiasm, AG admitted to making many mistakes. For example, AG used the Scots Online Dictionary to look up specific words in Scots. But the content that AG added to Wikipedia was not a true translation because he did not fully understand Scots grammar and syntax.

Reminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke

[howolduis]

this version o' firefox is an' a' th' foremaist major piece o' software tae be translated intae scots - a leid spoken / understaun by 1.3m fowk in bonnie scotland.

Mah afore company worked oan th' translation 'n' thay tellt me thay hud fin trying tae come up wi' suitable equivalents fur tekky wurds sic as 'minimise' 'n' 'maximise'.

[walteweiss]

Now I want to study this wonderful language! Any books I can (try to) read in Scots? Serious question! :)

[donbrae]

Not a book but I run a blog written in Scots: https://makforrit.scot.

[eigart]

Not a book, but https://twitter.com/Lenniesaurus?s=20 does a fun “scots word of the day” series!

[mgkimsal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qeWbC7XtO0

See how much of that series you can get through. :)

[JohnicBoom]

I've heard the Scots version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is really well done, and is fun to read even as an American. That said, I have no experience at all with Scots, so my opinion should have very little weight!

[yorwba]

How about some 19th-century songs? https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Scottish_Song

[wryun]

I've been reading some of Roald Dahl's Matilda in Scots (scribd subscription). It's fun!

[ricardo81]

As a Southern Scot I'm familiar with muckle, many a mickle makes a muckle.

I believe the CSS equivalent of a pixel in browser rendering here is a "baw hair".

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

Hopefully not by the same guy who ran the scots version of wikipedia.

[dkdbejwi383]

So does "enhanced cookie clearing" become "pure biscuit clearin'"?

[ricardo81]

chuck aw them biscuity hings right oot.

[jefftk]

Did you mean to post this on the general Firefox 91 thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28128305

[spuz]

I would have if I had seen it!

[dheera]

I suppose cookies become biscuits?

[deanclatworthy]

I’m English, and lived in England for 23 years. I have never ever heard of Scots before.

[lentil]

As a Scot, I find that a bit sad. We’re really not that far away!

Does that also mean you never learned about Rabbie Burns in school?

[deanclatworthy]

I know his name and who he is. I vaguely recall some of his poems being recited at school.

I like to think I'm a man of the world. I watch a lot of Scottish TV (Burnistoun etc.), have done the NC500 and have plenty of Scottish friends. Of course there is dialect there, but I didn't realise this was a "thing".

[macfaran]

There's a whole cannon of literature written in it (Dunbar, Ferguson, Ramsay, MacDairmid, Henryson, Kelman, Leonard, Souter etc.) as well as a bit of a discussion whether the literature reflected or embellished Scots (Burns and MacDairmid both made up words for example). When people think of Scots they usually think of the Glaswegian dialect of English you commonly hear on the TV. But there's still a whole set of words in common use today around Scotland. You hear it more in rural areas and less in the central belt.

[jahnu]

That's really a pity. In England there is a terrible lack of knowledge of the other parts of the Union. It's because of decisions like the not quite full on Scots but truly brilliant Limmy's Show only being shown on BBC Scotland.

[ladon86]

Don’t leave us hanging, what words did they come up with?

[spuz]

'mak muckle' and 'mak tottie'

[bennysomething]

Lived in Scotland for 20 years, really doubt 1.3m people even know what Scots is let alone speak it.

[lucideer]

It's a self-reported stat (census answers), so that many of people at the very least believe they know what Scots is (as they responded that they do speak it).

I did find it striking that the same stat for Gaelic was just over 50k in contrast: while I know the level of Gaelic spoken in Scotland is extremely low, it's at least a better known language internationally than Scots is, so I would've expected it to be the more spoken of the two.

[HPsquared]

Most people know a little bit. That's the thing with Scots, it's highly miscible with English so it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

[Fomorian]

Because it's basically a dialect OF English.

In fact, literally the only reason it's called "Scots" and not "Inglis", as it originally was, is as the Lowlander Scots gradually developed a sense of national identity separate from the English, they decided that they wanted a national label of their own. But of course, they still didn't want to share a national label or identity with the hated native Celtic-speaking population.

And so "Inglis" became "Scots", while "Scottis" - the native Goidelic language - became "Erse", or Irish.

The whole thing is insidious.

[jrochkind1]

It is not unique to this case that how we divide and understand langauges is tied up with politics of nationalism. Have been since the start of modern nationalism. What we call "Italian" could be called "Florentine", it wasn't spoken in all of "Italy" until it became a political project to make it so...

And...

> Until about 1800, Standard German was almost entirely a written language. People in Northern Germany who spoke mainly Low Saxon languages very different from Standard German then learned it more or less as a foreign language. However, later the Northern pronunciation (of Standard German) was considered standard[4][5] and spread southward; in some regions (such as around Hanover), the local dialect has completely died out with the exception of small communities of Low German speakers.

> It is thus the spread of Standard German as a language taught at school that defines the German Sprachraum, which was thus a political decision rather than a direct consequence of dialect geography. That allowed areas with dialects with very little mutual comprehensibility to participate in the same cultural sphere. Currently, local dialects are used mainly in informal situations or at home and also in dialect literature, but more recently, a resurgence of German dialects has appeared in mass media

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_German

[HPsquared]

Perhaps this could be resolved in a similar way, by calling the standard language "British".

[donbrae]

As a Scots speaker I would object vehemently to my language being classified as a dialect of ‘British’, or any other language for that matter.

[jrochkind1]

What is the thing you think needs to be "resolved"? If it's dispute over the names of languages, I'm not sure that was the nature of any dispute in these 19th century examples, or if it did, if it was ever "resolved" by anything except power to impose it.

[dfawcus]

"Because it's basically a dialect OF English."

I'd suggest not, it is a peer / sibling of Modern English, and descended in parallel. Northumbrian Old English eventually became Scots, due to the 'English of the Lothians' using it (and eventually 'Inglis').

Go read some older Scots from around 1600, you'll probably have a harder time of it than the same age English because they were and are distinct. Modern media, a lack of formalised spelling, and simple economics post union has probably been the major factor in its slow decline towards death.

So Scots (in its various dialects) and Geordie/Mackem/Northumbrian are I'd suggest dialects of the same language, not being English. Speakers code switch between them.

You've also missed out the other language, which was spoken in the 'Old North' and the Kingdom of Strathclyde - i.e. the Brythonic speakers.

[throwaway2048]

Making hard and fast statements about a topic even lifelong experts don't feel comfortable making a conclusion about is unwise.

There is no meaningful line between a language and a dialect, and it mostly comes down to politics.

[GordonS]

I lot of people speak many Scots words day to day, but won't necessarily consider themselves to "speak Scots", or even realise that the dialect they speak has an official name.

To test this theory, I just asked my mother in law (who is from the central belt) about Scots, and she replied, quite seriously: "Whits that? I dinnae ken whit that is, I spik proper!"

(I'm Scottish, from the North East)

[spuz]

Oops, sorry I meant to double check that and forgot. It's apparently 1.9m people.

[sdflhasjd]

To be fair, that number is self-reported and combines "speak, read, write or understand Scots".

I'm not Scottish myself, but even I could claim to somewhat understand Scots. I wouldn't say so on a census, but I'm sure there are plenty that would. Especially when there's some national pride at stake.

[hhlbf]

I assume this is the same as the figures of how many people speak Catalan.

[occamrazor]

Not at all Catalan is the first language for a large part of the population. In Scotland, even for most native Scots speakers English is in fact the first language.

[donbrae]

That is simply incorrect. I personally know people whose first language is Scots. It was the first language they learned and they use it every day.

[kunagi7]

Well, this example is quite curious. Catalan is understood and used by most of the people who live in Catalan speaking regions, but it isn't the first language of most of the people who live there. Pretty much the 95% are bilingual (Catalan and Spanish). In fact, more people speak Spanish as their mother tongue than Catalan but they switch between them when required.

Maybe the Scots situation is similar, people learn and use both languages and change to the one they feel most comfortable with.

[dmurray]

Scots is a dialect of English. So finding idiomatic Scots expressions for technical terms, instead of importing them verbatim, really is about "having fun" rather than achieving any extra clarity in communication.

[daleharvey]

Describing Scots as a dialect of English is really about a political affiliation than any interest in linguistics, Plenty of people regard Scots as a distinct language.

(Scottish Firefox developer)

[dmurray]

I don't have any affiliation with England, or the US, and would also consider "English is a dialect of Scots". (More than one person in Galicia described the Portuguese language to me in the analogous way...).

Still, I think it's silly to go all kayfabe here and treat the languages as completely distinct. I have similar thoughts on Slovenian and Slovakian and Flemish.

[conradev]

I like how Wikipedia put it:

"Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language#Decline_in_stat...

[cool_dude85]

What language is Slovenian a "dialect of" in your thoughts?

[dmurray]

Yugoslavian.

[Fomorian]

People that have a vested interest in the suppression of the indigenous Goidelic language of Scotland - on both sides of the England-Scotland border - will always insist upon the full-fledged distinctive language status of Scottish English.

[daleharvey]

Unless I misunderstood your point, that is a strange take that isn't close to being true. There is a large overlap of Scottish language enthusiasts who are advocates of both Scots as a distinct language and Gaelic, the demographic of the recent surge of popularity of Gaelic on duolingo are clear.

The overlap between political commentators who both insist that Scots is "just a dialect" and that Gaelic is a dying language that we should discourage is also very apparent.

The subtext is pro indy people are generally pro Scots and Gaelic, and unionists are against both of course.

[donbrae]

Scottish English != Scots. The former is just English with a Scottish accent; the latter is a closely related (to English) but distinct language with its own vocabulary and grammar, not dissimilar to the relationship between Norwegian and Danish, or Czech and Slovak.

Scots being a language has nothing to do with suppressing Gaelic. Generally people who hate Gaelic hate Scots equally.

[Fomorian]

The fact that you and other anglophones call the indigenous Scottish variety of Gaelic simply "Gaelic" is a pretty good example of why I continue to be very, very suspicious of those who insist upon "Scots" being a language fully distinct from English, and not a dialect - and insist upon calling it by that name.

The Irish and Scottish varieties of the Goidelic language family have far less mutual intelligibility than the English and Scottish varieties of English. Scottish English forms a pretty smooth continuum between "English with a Scottish accent", and what you'd call "Scots" or "Lallans".

But Scottish Gaelic is the tongue that gets the downgrade to "Gaelic", despite it being simply called Scottish for the vast majority of Scotland's history. Despite it literally being the reason for the country's name.

Scottish English was literally only called "Scottis" instead of "Inglis" as the Lowlanders gained a greater sense of national identity and distinctiveness from the English further south. At that point, funnily enough, the Goidelic spoken in Scotland ceased to be called "Scottis", and became "Erse" instead.

It is quite impossible to separate this insistence on distinguishing "Scots" from English, from suppressive efforts towards the indigenous Gaelic language of Scotland. You can see the exact same dynamic in Northern Ireland, where unionists play up the supposed variety of "Scots" spoken by the Ulster planters and their descendants as a fully distinctive language equal to Irish, as a means to delegitimize Irish as the primary indigenous language of the land.

I don't say all of this from a place of antipathy towards the speakers of "Scots". One need only read some Burns to see that the variety of English spoken in Scotland diverged heavily from the varieties spoken further south, and that diversity is beautiful. But the label is politically charged, and fundamentally it is a weapon - and always has been - pointed in the direction of Gaelic-speakers.

[dmurray]

On both sides of the Irish Sea, too. Hard-line unionists in the north of Ireland have been pushing "Ulster Scots" in the last ten years or so. Not out of any real cultural association with the language or with Scotland - they overwhelmingly identify as "British" - but as a tool to diminish Irish-language initiatives. Every time there's a measure proposed to support Irish, they can propose an equal amount of funds for Ulster Scots.

It actually helps them to make the language seem as ridiculous as possible, since the real goal isn't to promote their language but to mock another.

[tomrod]

Neat!

[lvxferre]

>Scots is a dialect of English

It's up to the linguistic community to decide that, if their variety should be considered a "dialect" of something else or a "language" on its own. Linguists already gave up that question, it's more useful to talk about varieties anyway.

And it's the same deal with Galician versus Portuguese, with a difference - "Scots is a dialect of English" threatens Scots, but "Portuguese is a dialect of Galician" doesn't threaten Portuguese (it threatens Galician instead).

[gsnedders]

Or whether Danish and Norwegian and Swedish are the same language, but different dialects.

Depending on how you define "dialect" or "language", they may or may not be.

To quote the obligatory quip: "A language is a dialect with an army and navy".

[dfawcus]

"Or whether Danish and Norwegian and Swedish are the same language, but different dialects."

I recently watched the Swedish production "Blue Eyes" (with English subtitles), and was amused at the amount of speech which struck me as being 'English with an odd regional dialect'. Usually these were simple 'core language' statements and / or imperatives.

I guess that is more the lasting Viking and Dane Law impact upon the English, than English feeding in modern Swedish.

[lvxferre]

>I guess that is more the lasting Viking and Dane Law impact upon the English, than English feeding in modern Swedish.

It might be the result of common Germanic grounds, not necessarily lateral influence. I got the same when learning German - sentences like "das Haus ist rot" or "ich trinke Wein" are surprisingly easy to catch up from English. And after some time you start noticing patterns, that help you further.

[WorldMaker]

Fun increasingly off topic facts: a lot of those patterns were originally noticed and compiled by the Brothers Grimm (noted assemblers of fairy tales from across Germany) as they got caught up in the pattern of differences between Low German (the language families that include Dutch and Old English) and High German (what today we think of as the German language) as they assembled all the local fairy tales they could find. High German went through a consonant shift [1] that Low German did not. A lot of the pattern you can see when learning German and knowing a lot of older words in English is applying exactly that consonant shift, plus or minus English's own interesting Great Vowel Shift [2] and large influx of latinate words from French and other languages. (The Brothers Grimm even traced some of the shifts as far back as they could to proto-Germanic, making them some of the first explorers of Proto-Indo-European [PIE] sound shifts and Grimm's Law is named after them. [3])

The evolution of languages is fascinating. Circling somewhat back to the topic above: the difference between "dialect" and "language" is a complex subject just as most "speciation" debates in other evolutionary fields have a lot of hidden complexity. "Language" versus "dialect" versus "creole" doesn't have a lot of simple answers though historically that joke that "a language is a dialect with an army" tracks more than it doesn't which is why it is a good joke.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law

[gsnedders]

Danelaw had some _significant_ impacts on English as a language: the third person pronouns (they/them/theirs, etc.) come from Old Norse and supplanted the existing Old English pronouns. To borrow many words is one thing (including common items like "egg", cognate with Swedish ägg), but to borrow pronouns shows some pretty profound shifts in the language. Regardless, this—combined with the loss of inflection, which is typically attributed to the Norse influence—shows how extensive the influence of Old Norse was.

There's definitely some similarity between the two Germanic languages, but the North and West Germanic languages had started to diverge by the point of Danelaw, though the Battle of Maldon does record the languages as being mutually comprehensible at that point.

[jwatt]

Two of my favorite videos on "Scots": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH8pxfqgSBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6RGgFoiNEo

[guerrilla]

> Scots is a dialect of English

Beware fighting words

> Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source: Early Middle English (1150–1300)

> As there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to English. Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects exist, they often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with Scottish Standard English at the other. Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects; other scholars treat Scots as a distinct Germanic language, in the way that Norwegian is closely linked to but distinct from Danish.

[dspillett]

> Scots is a dialect of English.

You are probably thinking of Scottish English or Scots English, which is essentially English of some words and phrases from Scots and a very strong accent.

Scots proper is as much a language of its own as English is.

Scots and what we now think of as English arguably have a similar age and a lot of shared heritage, though obviously given how much separation, invading and other reasons for variation & remixing of languages has gone on over time, it is tricky to tie down completely what came from where when.

[dfawcus]

"Scots is a dialect of English."

Ahh whisht man.

:-)

That said, I find I often have to mentally pronounce the various written forms in order to be able to understand them.