That’s fine if you buy exactly what you want and need and know your needs will never change, but if you later want to expand, you’re out of luck. At best, you might get lucky and find parts of Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree, but you’re usually just stuck. (I’d kill for some more 200cm wall rails but I doubt I’ll ever find any.)

The 606 Vitsoe system is heinously overpriced but has the advantage of having been around for 50+ years and is so established you’ll likely always be able to buy more parts if you want to expand it.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22865810

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Both Scottish English and Scots descend from the same root Anglic, but there's been divergence since then -- in the same way Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are descended from the same root, are somewhat mutually intelligible, but are treated as two different languages. It's useful to make that distinction simply because there is a degree of unintelligibility.

Everyone on this website is speaking an Indo-European language, and I'd bet a majority of them have an Indo-European language as their first language. They're all from the same root, so are they all speaking dialects of Indo-European? Or are they speaking distinct languages? Where, exactly, you decide "this was a dialect, but now it's a language!" I can't say, but that point surely exists. It's obviously muddied by politics and national identity and a hundred other factors, but at some point, surely, a language ceases to be a dialect and becomes a language of its own.

In modern usage, by speakers of Scottish English, it means "smelly". I'm not 100% sure, but I'm confident that "reek" in this context was borrowed from Scots and the meaning has just drifted over time.

Its etymology is interesting, and it consistently means "smoke" or "smoking": https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=Reek

Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) and Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge, often just called "Irish") are both direct descendants of Middle Irish, which ultimately comes from a Celtic root. Gaidhlig gradually replaced Pictish, now extinct, about a thousand years ago.

I live in Aberdeen, and I'm pretty sure if I was to leave my flat and ask people I met in the street whether they spoke Scots or English, I'd get a disproportionate number of Scottish English speakers tell me they speak Scots; I'd also probably get some of the Doric-speaking locals tell me they speak English, even though Doric is actually a descendant of Scots.

Outside of school you were almost certainly speaking Scottish Standard English, rather than actual Scots. Scottish English is a branch of English that's been influenced by Scots and borrowed vocabulary from Scots, but isn't actually Scots. Almost no-one in the 20th century speaks actual Scots; those who do are immediately identifiable and generally hard for a non-Scots speaker to understand. The last vestiges of Scots language speakers are parts of Aberdeenshire and the Borders.

Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.

I think you're confusing dialect with language here. Scots and Scottish English are distinct from one another. The latter does borrow some from the former which leads to confusion. Scots is a language, historically equivalent and closely related to English but still distinct.

It's a stretch to argue that "many modern English speakers derive from Scots root". At this point in history, most Scots speak Scottish English with some borrowing from a Scots root -- not the other way around. This is evident in the fact that the vast majority of a modern Scottish person's vocabulary is from mainline English and intelligible by someone from London. That doesn't happen by Scots borrowing vocabulary from English -- it happens from English absorbing vocabulary from Scots.

This is the situation for the vast majority of Scottish people. Coming across those who don't fit into the English-with-Scots-influence only reinforces this. Doric is arguably a descendant of mainline Scots which has converged on English, rather than the other way around, and means it's sometimes difficult to parse even for other Scots. Quite a lot of the Borders also speak a dialect which derives from Scots which has converged on English, and is difficult for other Scots to parse. They sound very similar to each other to someone who speaks neither, but are actually quite distinct -- mistaking someone from Selkirk for an Aberdonian will cause offence!

The Wikipedia has a pretty good article on Modern Scots, though I think it overstates the pervasiveness of modern Scots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots It's also worth noting that most speakers of Modern Scots also speak Scottish English, and code-switching takes place frequently and fluidly.

Gaelic is spoken by ~57,500 people in Scotland. Some of them have English as a second language, having been raised with Gaelic as the language of the home. In some cases this does show their English usage. One common tell is slightly unusual phrasing -- one typical and quite common usage is "You will be having tea?" rather than the more common "Will you be having tea?" Even then, they're still speaking a variety Scottish English and not Scots.

tl;dr: Every Scottish person speaks at least one of the dialects of Scottish English. Some also speak a dialect of Modern Scots. An even smaller number speak Gaelic.

Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18023025

Points: 2

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14125089

Points: 70

# Comments: 23

GordonS is right: Gaidhlig is only ever referred to as "Scottish Gaelic" or, more commonly, just "Gaelic" by Scots on a day-to-day basis. The concept of "Scottish" as a language is pretty murky and is generally not used seriously. Even in these days of awakened Scottish national identity and independence referendums, we all still speak English of a Scottish variety and call it English.

Calling Gaeilge "Irish" and Irish English "English" makes a lot more sense, frankly.

It's a stretch to argue that "many modern English speakers derive from Scots root". At this point in history, most Scots speak Scottish English with some borrowing from a Scots root -- not the other way around. This is evident in the fact that the vast majority of a modern Scottish person's vocabulary is from mainline English and intelligible by someone from London. That doesn't happen by Scots borrowing vocabulary from English -- it happens from English absorbing vocabulary from Scots.

This is the situation for the vast majority of Scottish people. Coming across those who don't fit into the English-with-Scots-influence only reinforces this. Doric is arguably a descendant of mainline Scots which has converged on English, rather than the other way around, and means it's sometimes difficult to parse even for other Scots. Quite a lot of the Borders also speak a dialect which derives from Scots which has converged on English, and is difficult for other Scots to parse. They sound very similar to each other to someone who speaks neither, but are actually quite distinct -- mistaking someone from Selkirk for an Aberdonian will cause offence!

The Wikipedia has a pretty good article on Modern Scots, though I think it overstates the pervasiveness of modern Scots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Scots It's also worth noting that most speakers of Modern Scots also speak Scottish English, and code-switching takes place frequently and fluidly.

Gaelic is spoken by ~57,500 people in Scotland. Some of them have English as a second language, having been raised with Gaelic as the language of the home. In some cases this does show their English usage. One common tell is slightly unusual phrasing -- one typical and quite common usage is "You will be having tea?" rather than the more common "Will you be having tea?" Even then, they're still speaking a variety Scottish English and not Scots.

tl;dr: Every Scottish person speaks at least one of the dialects of Scottish English. Some also speak a dialect of Modern Scots. An even smaller number speak Gaelic.

Sources: Highlander born and raised, living in Aberdeen for >10 years. One parent is a Gael whose second language is English, the other parent is from the Borders whose first language is that variety of Modern Scots. Native speaker of Scottish Standard English, with a little time spent studying linguistics and an interest in the subject.