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Ulster Scots (and Ullans, an alternative name by which it is known) are recent terms for the varieties of Lowland Scots spoken in parts of Ulster in Ireland. Native speakers traditionally called it (Braid) Scots or Scotch - as did James Orr in The Irish Cottier's Death and Burial "To quat braid Scotch, a task that foils their art; For while they join his converse, vain though shy, They monie a lang learn'd word misca' an' misapply". Ullans is a neologism merging Ulster and Lallans - the Lowland Scots for Lowlands - coined by the physician, amateur historian and politician Ian Adamson . The magazine of the Ulster-Scots Language Society is also named Ullans, ostensibly from "Ulster-Scots language in literature and native speech" but ultimately from the other acronym.Lowland Scots is closely related to the Germanic language English;
1 How it evolved
Scots, mainly Gaelic-speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 1400s, but the largest numbers of Scots-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 Plantation, with the peak reached during the 1690s. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.
Lowland Scots in Ulster has been influenced by contact with Hiberno-English and Irish. Mid Ulster English, the dialect of most people in Ulster, including those in the two main cities, represents a cross-over area between Ulster Scots and Hiberno-English; it is currently encroaching on the Ulster Scots area, especially in the Belfast commuter belt, and may eventually consume it. Ulster Scots should not be confused with Scottish Gaelic or Irish, which are Celtic languages.
Although it is usually treated as a varietyA variety of a language is a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently. Variety" is a wider concept than style of prose or style of language. Examples of varieties are: dialects, i. varieties spoken by geographically of the Scots language or, along with all Lowland Scots varieties, as a dialectA dialect is a variant, or variety, of a language spoken in a certain geographical area. The number of speakers, and the area itself, can be of arbitrary size. It follows that a dialect for a larger area can contain plenty of (sub-) dialects, which in tur of English, some claim it to be a languageAs with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition; however, most would agree that language is a system of communication or reasoning using representation along with metaphor and some manner of logical grammar. Many langua in its own right; only the first two views are represented among academic linguists, although at least one academic has argued for recognition on non-structural, apperceptional grounds. Using the criteria on Ausbau languages developed by the German linguist Heinz Kloss , Ulster Scots could qualify only as a Spielart or 'national dialect' of Lowland Scots (cf. British and American English), since it does not dispose over the Mindestabstand, or 'minimum divergence' necessary to achieve language status through standardisation and codification.
Some confuse English spoken with a very broad Scottish or North AntrimAntrim can refer to two places in Northern Ireland Antrim the town County Antrim It is also the name of several places in the United States of America: Antrim, Louisiana Antrim, Michigan Antrim, New Hampshire Antrim, New York Antrim, Ohio Antrim, Pennsylv accent with Lowland Scots proper. As a result English-speakers familiar with the Scottish or Northern Irish accents of English find Scottish or North Antrim English easy to understand and, assuming this speech variety to be "broad" Scots, conclude that Scots is a dialect of English.
Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland. W G Lyttle, writing in Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco, uses the typically Scots forms kent and begood, now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream Anglic forms knew, knowed or knawed and begun. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Hiberno-English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct contact with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.
