why does Scottish have two t's and british only one?

[nedflanders]

When scotland and britain have only one?

[kags]

well I would guess it has something to do with the "0" before the "TT" in Scottish - otherwise it would be pronounced "scoatish". I am probably completely wrong though.......

[IndieSinger]

Good point. I was going to say something about the short vowel-length preceeding the unvoiced dental plosive, but then I though "Hang on a minute Ben - that makes Scottish correct and British should be pronounced Brite-ish (following the same rules).

Come on linguists, where are ya'?

[Quizmonster]

The earliest-recorded version of what we now call 'Scottish' was spelt 'Scyttisc'; similarly, the earliest version of 'British' was spelt 'Bryttisc'...ie both had a double-T about 1200 years ago. Even Shakespeare spelt it as 'Brittish' in 1605. However, by just 40 years later, that had become 'British' and has remained so ever since. The 'Scottish' version simply never changed, so perhaps the English are just more fickle!

The answer to the question, therefore, is a matter of historical linguistic development.