Editing Scots language (section)

==Orthography==
{{Further|Northumbrian Old English|Middle English|Early Scots|Middle Scots|Modern Scots}}
The [[orthography]] of [[Early Scots]] had become more or less standardised<ref>Agutter, Alex (1987) "A taxonomy of Older Scots orthography" in Caroline Macafee and Iseabail Macleod eds. The Nuttis Schell: Essays on the Scots Language Presented to A. J. Aitken, Aberdeen University Press, p. 75.</ref> by the middle to late sixteenth century.<ref>Millar, Robert McColl (2005) Language, Nation and Power An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. pp. 90–91</ref> After the [[Union of the Crowns]] in 1603, the [[Standard English]] of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots<ref>Wilson, James (1926) The Dialects of Central Scotland, Oxford University Press. p.194</ref> through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After the [[Acts of Union 1707|Acts of Union]] in 1707 the emerging [[Scottish English|Scottish form of Standard English]] replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland.{{r|EdinburghCompanion|page=11}}
The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new [[literary language]] descended from the old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings<ref>Tulloch, Graham (1980) The Language of Walter Scott. A Study of his Scottish and Period Language, London: Deutsch. p. 249</ref> and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended.<ref name=ScottishDictionary>{{cite encyclopedia|editor-first1=William|editor-last1=Grant|editor-first2=David D.|editor-last2=Murison|title=The Scottish National Dictionary (SND) (1929–1976)|publisher=The Scottish National Dictionary Association|volume=I|location=Edinburgh|page=xv}}</ref> These writings also introduced what came to be known as the [[apologetic apostrophe]],{{r|ScottishDictionary|page=xiv}} generally occurring where a [[consonant]] exists in the Standard English [[cognate]]. This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the [[Authorized King James Version|King James Bible]], and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of [[Augustan literature|Augustan English poetry]].{{r|OxfordCompanion|page=168}} Consequently, this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries.<ref>McClure, J. Derrick (1985) "The debate on Scots orthography" in Manfred Görlach (ed.), ''Focus on: Scotland'', Amsterdam: Benjamins, p. 204</ref> This modern literary dialect, "Scots of the book" or Standard Scots,<ref>Mackie, Albert D. (1952) "Fergusson's Language: Braid Scots Then and Now" in Smith, Sydney Goodsir ed. ''Robert Fergusson 1750–1774'', Edinburgh: Nelson, p. 123–124, 129</ref><ref>Mairi Robinson (editor-in-chief), ''The Concise Scots Dictionary'', Aberdeen University Press, 1985 p. xiii</ref> once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author".<ref>Stevenson, R.L. (1905). ''The Works of R. L. Stevenson Vol. 8'', "Underwoods", London: Heinemann, p. 152</ref> This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster,<ref>Todd, Loreto (1989). ''The Language of Irish Literature'', London: Macmillan, p. 134</ref> embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, [[Charles Murray (poet)|Charles Murray]], [[David Herbison]], James Orr, [[James Hogg]] and [[William Laidlaw (poet)|William Laidlaw]] among others, is well described in the 1921 ''Manual of Modern Scots''.<ref name="Manual of Scots">{{cite book|last1=Grant|first1=William|last2=Dixon|first2=James Main|year=1921|title=Manual of Modern Scots|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in a more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots,<ref name=ScottishDictionary/> especially for the northern<ref>McClure, J. Derrick (2002). ''Doric: The Dialect of North–East Scotland''. Amsterdam: Benjamins, p. 79</ref> and insular dialects of Scots.

During the twentieth century, a number of proposals for spelling reform were presented. Commenting on this, [[John Corbett (writer)|John Corbett]] (2003: 260) writes that "devising a normative orthography for Scots has been one of the greatest linguistic hobbies of the past century". Most proposals entailed regularising the use of established eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conventions, in particular, the avoidance of the [[apologetic apostrophe]], which represented letters that were perceived to be missing when compared to the corresponding English cognates but were never actually present in the Scots word.<ref>{{cite web|last=Eagle|first=Andy|date=2014|title=Aw Ae Wey—Written Scots in Scotland and Ulster|url=http://www.scots-online.org/articles/contents/AwAeWey.pdf|version=v1.5}}</ref><ref>Rennie, S. (2001) "The Electronic Scottish National Dictionary (eSND): Work in Progress", ''Literary and Linguistic Computing'', 2001 16(2), Oxford University Press, pp. 159</ref> For example, in the fourteenth century, [[John Barbour (poet)|Barbour]] spelt the Scots [[cognate]] of "taken" as {{lang|sco|tane}}. It is argued that, because there has been no ''k'' in the word for over 700 years, representing its omission with an apostrophe is of little value. The current spelling is usually {{lang|sco|taen}}.

Through the twentieth century, with the decline of spoken Scots and knowledge of the literary tradition, phonetic (often humorous) representations became more common.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}