"Auld Lang Syne" Heresy

[OC Richard]

About the approach that English is a dialect of Scots, in me referring to Scots as a dialect of English I am following the normal usage in books about language that uses the word "English" as the overarching term for a family of dialects which includes Standard English, Scots, African-American English, etc etc. Yes it would be just as incorrect to think that Scots is a dialect of Standard English as it would be to think that Standard English is a dialect of African-American English. All are sister dialects.

Yes it's true that Scots has many archaic aspects, features going back to Old English (the term "Anglo-Saxon" seems to be out of favour presently), features which have been lost in Standard English.

For example, from the Book Of Genesis in the Old English Bible:

God tha spraec to Noe, thus cwathende: "Gang tha ut of tham arce, thu and thin wif and thine suna and heora wif..."

Now "gang ut", pronounced approximately "gang oot", is incomprehensible to a speaker of Standard English but I would think quite understandable to a Scots speaker.

A side note: oftentimes the words "dialect" and "language" are used interchangibly, but normal usage is that "dialects" are mutually comprehesible while "languages" are not. So if two people can understand each other they're speaking dialects of the same language; if they cannot undertand each other they're speaking different languages. There are many grey areas of course and the difference between Lallans and Standard English is one...oftentimes a Standard English speaker can understand very little.