Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Introduction

This Outline History of Scots is aimed primarily at the general reader interested in Scots. It is a revised version of part of the Introduction to the Concise Scots Dictionary (second edition 2017), which is the most authoritative single-volume Scots dictionary.

For a history designed primarily for researchers rather than for the more general reader, please refer to A History of Scots to 1700 by Caroline Macafee, based on materials put together by the late A.J. Aitken, one of the leading editors of A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue. It was published originally in Volume 12 of that dictionary.