[thaumasiotes]

> Scottish

...is not a term for any language. In Scotland, you might want to talk about Scots (a Germanic language) or Scots Gaelic (a Gaelic one).

Annoyingly, "Irish Gaelic" (the English phrase) uses the pronunciation /geɪlɪk/ (first syllable rhymes with "pale"), while "Scots Gaelic" uses /gælɪk/ (first syllable rhymes with "pal").

[Theodores]

Scots is fascinating and the overlap with English is something those that live down south (England) don't really understand as it is more than an accent that is going on. Coupled with Scots there are accents, such as Glaswegian, which is very difficult for outsiders to understand. This is why Scottish people have their 'telephone voice' for when they need to communicate with English speakers that are not Scottish. 'Telephone voice' means speaking s-l-o-w-l-y and using words that are more widely understood, so 'wee' becomes 'little' or 'small'.

In the parts of Wales where Welsh is spoken, an English person isn't going to understand a word of it unless hearing a word is for something new, so 'helicopter' is still 'helicopter'. Everyone that speaks Welsh can speak English just fine, with a Welsh accent, but there won't be substitute words, so 'yes' is 'yes', whereas in Scots, that will be 'aye'.

As for Scots Gaelic, good point on the pronunciation. That language is on artificial life support, much like Welsh, where there has to be considerable government initiatives to keep it alive.

[actionfromafar]

I have found some regional Scots to sound eerily like some variant of Danish.

[walthamstow]

Danish to me sounds like northern English, especially Yorkshire, which historically makes a lot of sense. Yorkshire people pronounce the O in phone as Ø.

[stuaxo]

I really like the grammar,which is from Gaelic - it probably explains constructions like "did you not?".

[thaumasiotes]

> That language is on artificial life support, much like Welsh, where there has to be considerable government initiatives to keep it alive.

I am endlessly amused by the introductions in this video, describing the significance of English in each guest's home country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dQiA8lz45c#t=378

[Scotland] Scotland - it's quite a small country, there's not a large population, but we obviously we used to have Scots Gaelic, which was our national language but then, eh... something eh... [England pointedly looks in the other direction] another country came over and uh, kind of, uh...

I think, honestly, the percentage of people who speak Scots Gaelic is one percent. But now everyone speaks English...

[...]

[Wales] We... are probably one of the most patriotic bred people here. That's a bold claim. [video cuts] that we have to be very proud of our culture and our language because, uh, similar history with Scotland... so our language was on the edge of dying out, but, it sounds really different to English. Most people don't know that

[...]

[Ireland] Oh, yeah, so... Ireland is similar with Wales and Scotland with the... [gestures to England] our friend...

The Scotsman and the Irish girl speak only English, but the Welsh girl was raised speaking Welsh, so there does appear to be some comparative health.