Older Scots is a distinct historical stage in the development of the Scots language, encompassing its evolution between the 14th and 18th centuries. It is a subfield of study within the wider

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

of Scots. This chronological term is widely used, for example by Scottish Language Dictionaries (formally SNDA),For other examples, see:
King, Anne

the ''Oxford Companion to the English Language'', and the ''Cambridge History of English and American Literature''.
– via Bartleby. The online ''

Dictionary of the Scots Language The ''Dictionary of the Scots Language'' (DSL) (, ) is an online Scots– English dictionary run by Dictionaries of the Scots Language. Freely available via the Internet, the work comprises the two major dictionaries of the Scots language: *'' ...

'' includes the ''

Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue The ''Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue'' (DOST) is a 12-volume dictionary that documents the history of the Scots language covering Older Scots from the earliest written evidence in the 12th century until the year 1700. DOST was compile ...

''. Older Scots is used for the following periods in the

history of the Scots language The history of the Scots language dates from the incursion of Old English into south-eastern Scotland in the 7th century, where it gradually prevailed against Scots Gaelic. The development of Scots as a distinct language was slowed by the ...

: * Pre-literary Scots to 1375 *

Early Scots Early Scots was the emerging literary language of the Early Middle English–speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English. During this period, speakers refe ...

to 1450 *

Middle Scots Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtual ...

to 1700

References

External links

Dictionary of the Scots Language
{{Set index article Scots language