"The Scots Leid Associe wis foondit in 1972 an ettles tae fordle Scots in leeteratur, drama, the media, eddication an in ilka day uiss. Akis Scots wis ance the state langage o Scotland, it's a vailid pairt o wir heirskip an the associe taks tent tae the fact that it shoud can tak its steid as a langage o Scotland, alang wi Gaelic an Inglis."
(From the Scots Language Association Website)
Scots isn't written down very often, but to this day many people speak it. You can understand it after listening to it for a while, but if you've been away from
Scotland or Scots speakers for too long you'll at first have no idea what the hell they are talking about. It sounds cool, though.
In a way Scots is rather like
Ebonics (AKA
Standard African American English) in that it has little or no written tradition (though that has been changing in the past 50 years) it is spoken by many, but still used by the
majority culture as a point of shame for the speakers.
"...it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as a suitable medium of education or culture".
The 1872 Education Act
Scots is a much older language than
Standard African American English, writings containing something like Scots mixed with
Dutch and
Old English date back to the
1400s. If you would like to learn Scots the
Scottish National Dictionary Association has a book that they have published since the
1920s documenting the language.