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I’m English, and lived in England for 23 years. I have never ever heard of Scots before.

As a Scot, I find that a bit sad. We’re really not that far away!

Does that also mean you never learned about Rabbie Burns in school?

I know his name and who he is. I vaguely recall some of his poems being recited at school.

I like to think I'm a man of the world. I watch a lot of Scottish TV (Burnistoun etc.), have done the NC500 and have plenty of Scottish friends. Of course there is dialect there, but I didn't realise this was a "thing".

There's a whole cannon of literature written in it (Dunbar, Ferguson, Ramsay, MacDairmid, Henryson, Kelman, Leonard, Souter etc.) as well as a bit of a discussion whether the literature reflected or embellished Scots (Burns and MacDairmid both made up words for example). When people think of Scots they usually think of the Glaswegian dialect of English you commonly hear on the TV. But there's still a whole set of words in common use today around Scotland. You hear it more in rural areas and less in the central belt.

That's really a pity. In England there is a terrible lack of knowledge of the other parts of the Union. It's because of decisions like the not quite full on Scots but truly brilliant Limmy's Show only being shown on BBC Scotland.

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