When did Lowland Scot's start speaking English?

[straz]

When did Lowland Scot's start speaking English? The English & Scottish Crowns unified in 1603 in the form of James IV /I. As far as I'm aware James IV/I spoke English (or at least 'Scots' which is a form of English) as his mother tongue . So when did everyone in the lowlands of Scotland decide to do away with Scots Gaelic and start speaking 'Scots English'?. Or is it as I suspect a case of inter-breeding with Saxons that caused the development of Scots English. And does that then mean our friends North of the Border are very much our 'Brother Scots' (Well, apart from me, I'm half Polish, half Irish).

[Quizmonster]

The king involved in the Union of the Crowns in 1603 was James VI (rather than IV) of Scotland and I of England. He did speak and had frequently written in Scots. However, even he himself revised these writings into 'standard' English later. From the 5th century onwards Brythonic or Cumbric Celtic were spoken in Scotland south of the Forth/Clyde line, both of them forms of early Welsh, in effect. Gaelic had come into western Scotland, brought by the Irish, who were actually the original 'Scots'. As the Angles extended their influence northwards from Northumbria, their Germanic dialect replaced Gaelic/Celtic. After the Norman Conquest, many powerful men were granted lands north of the border and so the upper classes spoke Norman French and the rest a form of Northern English, influenced by the Scandinavian of the Vikings. Indeed, 'Scots' as the name of a language as such was never mentioned before the 1490s. Thereafter, the new English Bible was popularised by John Knox himself and the Union of the Crowns meant the Scottish royal court moved to London. These two last-mentioned facts were really the beginning of the end as far as Scots being a national language was concerned. However, neither it NOR Gaelic ever were really the common language of the inhabitants of Scotland.

[sft42]

Nuts to that. I speak Lallans which is a recognised dialect spoken in the central belt of Scotland. anything to distance myself from being percived as english, I only type my answers in this form as most people would struggle to read a written dialect

[Quizmonster]

As you yourself say, sft, Lallans is a dialect...ie not a language. Similarly, Doric, spoken in the north and east of Scotland and different from Lallans, is a dialect...not a language. The point is that SCOTS - the language - never was a common form shared by all Scottish people and still isn't now. Much though you may dislike the idea, the language you use is English! (I'm a Scotsman, too, by the way.)