Languages of Ulster

[neloon]

Scotland has essentially three languages, English, Doric and Scots Gaelic (which they just call Gaelic). There was a fourth, Nore, but the last speaker died a long time ago. English and Doric are related and tend to slide gradually from one to the other. Most of the uninformed hear this mixture and assume the words they can't recognise are Gaelic, but they aren't.

Silly example of Doric: "Och aye, it's a braw brecht moonlicht nicht tonicht" (Oh yes, it's a brave bright moonlit night tonight).

Don't imply that Scots and Doric are the same. Here is the first line of a Doric poem ("Bennygoak" - from Gaelic = Hill of the cuckoo) which would be quite unintelligble to 95% of Scots.
"Twis jist a skelp o the muckle firth,
A sklyter o roch grun
Fan Granfadder's fadder brak it in
Fae the hedder and the funn".

The old language of the Northern Isles was Norn, not Nore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norn_language

The "braw bricht..." nonsense was just a music hall parody of around 1900 - a bit like imitating US-speak by putting "y'all" in every second sentence!

Alan