94-497: Lochwinnoch ( / l ɒ x ˈ w ɪ n ə x / ; Scots : Lochineuch , Scottish Gaelic : Loch Uinneach ) is a village in the council area and historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland . Lying on the banks of Castle Semple Loch and the River Calder , Lochwinnoch is chiefly a residential dormitory village serving nearby urban centres such as Glasgow and Paisley . Its population in 2001
188-905: A 1996 trial before the Census, by the General Register Office for Scotland (GRO), suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding "Yes" to the question "Can you speak the Scots language?", but only 17% responding "Aye" to the question "Can you speak Scots?". It was also found that older, working-class people were more likely to answer in the affirmative. The University of Aberdeen Scots Leid Quorum performed its own research in 1995, cautiously suggesting that there were 2.7 million speakers, though with clarification as to why these figures required context. The GRO questions, as freely acknowledged by those who set them, were not as detailed and systematic as those of
282-625: A Scots language listing. The Ferret, a UK -based fact-checking service, wrote an exploratory article in December 2022 to address misconceptions about the Scots language to improve public awareness of its endangered status. In Scotland, Scots is spoken in the Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles , Caithness , Arran and Campbeltown . In Ulster , the northern province in Ireland , its area
376-462: A collection of children's nursery rhymes and poems in Scots. The book contains a five-page glossary of contemporary Scots words and their pronunciations. Alexander Gray 's translations into Scots constitute the greater part of his work, and are the main basis for his reputation. In 1983, William Laughton Lorimer 's translation of the New Testament from the original Greek was published. Scots
470-433: A continuum ranging from traditional broad Scots to Scottish Standard English . Many speakers are diglossic and may be able to code-switch along the continuum depending on the situation. Where on this continuum English-influenced Scots becomes Scots-influenced English is difficult to determine. Because standard English now generally has the role of a Dachsprache ('roofing language'), disputes often arise as to whether
564-401: A dam then located at the top of the glen, however sometime later a concrete dam was built closer to the mill and a sluice controlled the flow via a lade or mill race to the overshot waterwheel situated within the building. It is unclear as to how the water was delivered to the wheel previous to the concrete dam being built (prior to 1857), as a direct powering from the burn seems unlikely given
658-504: A distinct Germanic language, in the way that Norwegian is closely linked to but distinct from Danish . Native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as braid Scots (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the " Doric " or the " Buchan Claik ". The old-fashioned Scotch , an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Ulster. The term Lallans ,
752-500: A grindstone with a wooden axle called a 'mill-wand'. The Thirlage Law was repealed in 1779 and after this many mills fell out of use as competition and unsubsidised running costs took their toll. This may explain why so many mills went out of use whilst mills such as Millbank thrived due to their location and natural resources. The corn mill was originally powered by the waters of the Millbank Burn that were originally stored behind
846-460: A map by John Ainslie with the mill dam and mill pond located far up the glen at a 'T' junction of the lane that once ran to Auchenhane (sic) rather than the later location near the mill itself. The mill at that time is shown with two buildings above. The miller's dwelling may have doubled as a small farm as most millers had a second occupation in between the busy post-harvest times when the majority of milling took place. At Millmannoch near Coylton
940-562: A more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots, especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots. Meikle Millbank Mill Millbank Mill or Meikle Millbank Mill was an old corn mill in Burnbank Glen overlooking the Barr Loch near Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire , south-west Scotland . The present ruins date from at least
1034-674: A name for the Lowland vernacular. The Gaelic of Scotland is now usually called Scottish Gaelic . Northumbrian Old English had been established in what is now southeastern Scotland as far as the River Forth by the seventh century, as the region was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria . By the tenth century, Middle Irish was the language of the Scottish court , and the common use of Old English remained largely confined to this area until
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#17328520527941128-612: A representative sample of Scotland's adult population) claim to speak Scots to varying degrees. The 2011 UK census was the first to ask residents of Scotland about Scots. A campaign called Aye Can was set up to help individuals answer the question. The specific wording used was "Which of these can you do? Tick all that apply" with options for "Understand", "Speak", "Read" and "Write" in three columns: English, Scottish Gaelic and Scots. Of approximately 5.1 million respondents, about 1.2 million (24%) could speak, read and write Scots, 3.2 million (62%) had no skills in Scots and
1222-501: A suitable medium of education or culture". Students reverted to Scots outside the classroom, but the reversion was not complete. What occurred, and has been occurring ever since, is a process of language attrition , whereby successive generations have adopted more and more features from Standard English. This process has accelerated rapidly since widespread access to mass media in English and increased population mobility became available after
1316-719: A variant of the Modern Scots word lawlands [ˈlo̜ːlən(d)z, ˈlɑːlənz] , is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form . Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots ( Ulstèr-Scotch in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recent neologism merging Ulster and Lallans. Scots is a contraction of Scottis , the Older Scots and northern version of late Old English : Scottisc (modern English "Scottish"), which replaced
1410-552: Is in Scots, for example. Scott introduced vernacular dialogue to his novels. Other well-known authors like Robert Louis Stevenson , William Alexander, George MacDonald , J. M. Barrie and other members of the Kailyard school like Ian Maclaren also wrote in Scots or used it in dialogue. In the Victorian era popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular, often of unprecedented proportions. In
1504-524: Is located in the community park "Annex" on Lochlip Road. The village is served by Lochwinnoch railway station on the Ayrshire Coast Line . Opened in 1840, it lies to the south west of the village, and is unstaffed. A second Lochwinnoch railway station was opened in 1905 as part of the Dalry and North Johnstone Line , with the first station being renamed Lochside, until reverting to its original name in
1598-796: Is lykest to our language..." ( For though several have written of (the subject) in English, which is the language most similar to ours... ). However, with the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England, most writing in Scotland came to be done in the English fashion. In his first speech to the English Parliament in March 1603, King James VI and I declared, "Hath not God first united these two Kingdomes both in Language, Religion, and similitude of maners?" . Following James VI's move to London,
1692-494: Is recognised as an indigenous language of Scotland by the Scottish government, a regional or minority language of Europe, and a vulnerable language by UNESCO . In a Scottish census from 2022, over 1.5 million people in Scotland reported being able to speak Scots. Given that there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect , scholars and other interested parties often disagree about
1786-424: Is recorded in 1695. Thirlage was the feudal law by which the laird (lord) could require all those farmers living on his lands to bring their grain to his mill to be ground. Additionally, they had to carry out repairs on the mill, maintain the lade and weir as well as conveying new millstones to the site. The width of some of the first roads was determined by the requirements of at least two people on either side of
1880-590: Is sometimes called: Lowland Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic , the Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands , the Hebrides , and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots , to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English . Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English , as the two diverged from the same medieval form of English. Scots
1974-575: Is sometimes used in contemporary fiction, such as the Edinburgh dialect of Scots in Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (later made into a motion picture of the same name ). But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt is a cyberpunk novel written entirely in what Wir Ain Leed ("Our Own Language") calls "General Scots". Like all cyberpunk work, it contains imaginative neologisms . The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
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#17328520527942068-550: Is used to describe the Scots language after 1700. A seminal study of Scots was undertaken by JAH Murray and published as Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland . Murray's results were given further publicity by being included in Alexander John Ellis 's book On Early English Pronunciation, Part V alongside results from Orkney and Shetland, as well as the whole of England. Murray and Ellis differed slightly on
2162-529: Is usually defined through the works of Robert John Gregg to include the counties of Down , Antrim , Londonderry and Donegal (especially in East Donegal and Inishowen ). More recently, the Fintona -born linguist Warren Maguire has argued that some of the criteria that Gregg used as distinctive of Ulster-Scots are common in south-west Tyrone and were found in other sites across Northern Ireland investigated by
2256-470: The English Dialect Dictionary , edited by Joseph Wright . Wright had great difficulty in recruiting volunteers from Scotland, as many refused to cooperate with a venture that regarded Scots as a dialect of English, and he obtained enough help only through the assistance from a Professor Shearer in Scotland. Wright himself rejected the argument that Scots was a separate language, saying that this
2350-501: The Linguistic Survey of Scotland . Dialects of Scots include Insular Scots , Northern Scots , Central Scots , Southern Scots and Ulster Scots . It has been difficult to determine the number of speakers of Scots via census, because many respondents might interpret the question "Do you speak Scots?" in different ways. Campaigners for Scots pressed for this question to be included in the 2001 UK National Census . The results from
2444-706: The Protestant Church of Scotland adopted the 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible; subsequently, the Acts of Union 1707 led to Scotland joining England to form the Kingdom of Great Britain , having a single Parliament of Great Britain based in London. After the Union and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education, as
2538-772: The Romance languages via ecclesiastical and legal Latin , Norman French , and later Parisian French , due to the Auld Alliance . Additionally, there were Dutch and Middle Low German influences due to trade with and immigration from the Low Countries . Scots also includes loan words in the legal and administrative fields resulting from contact with Middle Irish , and reflected in early medieval legal documents. Contemporary Scottish Gaelic loans are mainly for geographical and cultural features, such as cèilidh , loch , whisky , glen and clan . Cumbric and Pictish ,
2632-461: The Second World War . It has recently taken on the nature of wholesale language shift , sometimes also termed language change , convergence or merger . By the end of the twentieth century, Scots was at an advanced stage of language death over much of Lowland Scotland . Residual features of Scots are often regarded as slang. A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards
2726-579: The University of Aberdeen , and only included reared speakers (people raised speaking Scots), not those who had learned the language. Part of the difference resulted from the central question posed by surveys: "Do you speak Scots?". In the Aberdeen University study, the question was augmented with the further clause "... or a dialect of Scots such as Border etc.", which resulted in greater recognition from respondents. The GRO concluded that there simply
2820-753: The 15th century, the family built a tower keep at the east end of the north shore of the Loch. In 1504 John, the first Lord Semple , built the Lochwinnoch Collegiate Church, which became one of Scotland's finest church schools. Its ruins can be found in Parkhill woods on the edge of the village. John was killed at the Battle of Flodden . In 1727 the Semples sold the estate to the MacDowalls of Garthland. William MacDowall
2914-420: The 1910 map. It ends abruptly without re-joining the burn. Meikle Millbank Farm was the location of the miller's house and a dwelling has been recorded near Millbank Glen since at least the 17th century. A lane ran from East Lochhead Farm to the mill over a well-built stone bridge and then joined the lane that runs to what is now Meikle Millbank Farm. A network of country lanes ran to nearby Lochwinnoch via
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3008-509: The 1990s, the station on the north line closed in 1966. The former railway line serving this second station has been converted into a cycle path and is now part of the National Cycle Network 's National Cycle Route Number 7 , running from Glasgow to Gretna . There is an hourly bus service to Johnstone throughout the day operated by Shuttle Buses and a service operated by McGill's at night and all day on Sundays. Stagecoach also operate
3102-542: The Crowns in 1603, the Standard English of England came to have an increasing influence on the spelling of Scots through the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England. After the Acts of Union in 1707 the emerging Scottish form of Standard English replaced Scots for most formal writing in Scotland. The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new literary language descended from
3196-716: The Garthland Arms). There is also a cafe, the Junction Bistro located at the cross, and a restaurant at the Golf Course which is open to non-members. Lochwinnoch Golf Club (eighteen holes) is on Burnfoot Rd. There are three places of worship in the village. Lochwinnoch Parish Church ( Church of Scotland ) is located on Church Street and meets on Sunday at 11:00, as does the Calder United Free Church , also on Church Street. Lochwinnoch Angels Of Light Spiritualist Church
3290-449: The Kingdom of Great Britain, there is ample evidence that Scots was widely held to be an independent sister language forming a pluricentric diasystem with English. German linguist Heinz Kloss considered Modern Scots a Halbsprache ('half language') in terms of an abstand and ausbau languages framework, although today in Scotland most people's speech is somewhere on
3384-622: The Leffox Bridge and to Kilbirnie via the Kerse and Hole farms. In 1828 the 'Paisley Magazine' recorded that the minor poet Alexander Wilson, who lived at Auchenbathie Tower , wrote a poem " Rabbie's Mistak " concerning the hunting exploits of Robin Stirrat from Lochhead, the setting being Millbank Glen. In 1814 a scheme was carried out to drain the Barr Loch however the water level at the lowest point of
3478-474: The Millbank Burn accessible from the lane near Millbank Bridge and with a track leading into the nearby field. A short lade-like water channel still stands to the east of the Millbank Bridge running as a wall for a short distance parallel to the lane above. It was not present in 1857 and may have supplied water to the machinery of some sort, such as a water pump. This lade is shown on the 1895 OS map and on
3572-510: The Philosopher's Stane , a Scots translation of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , was published by Matthew Fitt . The vowel system of Modern Scots: Vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scottish vowel length rule . The orthography of Early Scots had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century. After the Union of
3666-480: The Scots language was also featured. It was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. The Scottish Government set its first Scots Language Policy in 2015, in which it pledged to support its preservation and encourage respect, recognition and use of Scots. The Scottish Parliament website also offers some information on
3760-467: The Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals in a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", also finding "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)". Before the Treaty of Union 1707 , when Scotland and England joined to form
3854-573: The Scottish Executive recognises and respects Scots (in all its forms) as a distinct language, and does not consider the use of Scots to be an indication of poor competence in English. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature, its independent – if somewhat fluid – orthographic conventions , and in its former use as the language of the original Parliament of Scotland . Because Scotland retained distinct political, legal, and religious systems after
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3948-622: The Standard English cognate . This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular, but also on the King James Bible , and was heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of Augustan English poetry . Consequently, this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries. This modern literary dialect, "Scots of
4042-497: The Union, many Scots terms passed into Scottish English. During the 2010s, increased interest was expressed in the language. The status of the language was raised in Scottish schools, with Scots being included in the new national school curriculum . Previously in Scotland's schools there had been little education taking place through the medium of Scots, although it may have been covered superficially in English lessons, which could entail reading some Scots literature and observing
4136-457: The X36 service which serves Dalry - Glasgow which serves Lochwinnoch linking the village to Glasgow via bus. Lochwinnoch Primary School, the village's only school, is situated on Calder Street. The school was built in 1905 and is a two-story red sandstone building. It celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2005. It has now got an upper and lower school building. The lower building is the original school and
4230-680: The activities of those such as Thomas Sheridan , who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on English elocution . Charging a guinea at a time (about £200 in today's money ), they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made a freeman of the City of Edinburgh . Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed the Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. These eighteenth-century activities would lead to
4324-515: The area has been inhabited since the neolithic period . The 1729 St John's Kirk , also known as Auld Simon (Old Simon) (whose front gable still stands at the eastern end of the High Street), was probably built on the site of a pre- Reformation church dating to the Medieval period. It is dedicated to St. John, hence the name of Johnshill, more properly St. John's Hill, and St. John's well, located in
4418-521: The book" or Standard Scots, once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author". This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster, embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Murray , David Herbison , James Orr, James Hogg and William Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921 Manual of Modern Scots . Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in
4512-557: The border between English and Scots dialects. Scots was studied alongside English and Scots Gaelic in the Linguistic Survey of Scotland at the University of Edinburgh , which began in 1949 and began to publish results in the 1970s. Also beginning in the 1970s, the Atlas Linguarum Europae studied the Scots language used at 15 sites in Scotland, each with its own dialect. From the mid-sixteenth century, written Scots
4606-560: The complementary decline of French made Scots the prestige dialect of most of eastern Scotland. By the sixteenth century, Middle Scots had established orthographic and literary norms largely independent of those developing in England. From 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster , some 200,000 Scots-speaking Lowlanders settled as colonists in Ulster in Ireland. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one. The name Modern Scots
4700-403: The creation of Scottish Standard English . Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working-class Scots. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the use of Scots as a literary language was revived by several prominent Scotsmen such as Robert Burns . Such writers established a new cross-dialect literary norm. Scots terms were included in
4794-434: The earlier i-mutated version Scyttisc . Before the end of the fifteenth century, English speech in Scotland was known as "English" (written Ynglis or Inglis at the time), whereas "Scottish" ( Scottis ) referred to Gaelic . By the beginning of the fifteenth century, the English language used in Scotland had arguably become a distinct language, albeit one lacking a name which clearly distinguished it from all
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#17328520527944888-744: The early twentieth century, a renaissance in the use of Scots occurred, its most vocal figure being Hugh MacDiarmid whose benchmark poem " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle " (1926) did much to demonstrate the power of Scots as a modern idiom. Other contemporaries were Douglas Young , John Buchan , Sydney Goodsir Smith , Robert Garioch , Edith Anne Robertson and Robert McLellan . The revival extended to verse and other literature. In 1955, three Ayrshire men – Sandy MacMillan, an English teacher at Ayr Academy ; Thomas Limond, noted town chamberlain of Ayr ; and A. L. "Ross" Taylor, rector of Cumnock Academy – collaborated to write Bairnsangs ("Child Songs"),
4982-719: The end of the 18th century when silt brought down by the River Calder divided the one loch into two, creating Castle Semple and Barr Loch as separate entities. The loch plays host to a variety of watersports , being part of the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park and an RSPB bird sanctuary is nearby. There are three public houses in Lochwinnoch; the Corner Bar, the Brown Bull and the Three Churches Inn (previously
5076-407: The end of the 18th century with structural evidence for six phases of development that finally ceased when the mill closed circa 1950. The mill was a two-storey building, developed to become T-shaped complex when at a later stage a grain kiln was added. Milbanck (sic) is recorded on Blaeu's maps of 1654 and 1662-5 although a mill is only suggested by the name itself. In 1796 the mill is depicted on
5170-505: The fifteenth century, much literature based on the Royal Court in Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews was produced by writers such as Robert Henryson , William Dunbar , Gavin Douglas and David Lyndsay . The Complaynt of Scotland was an early printed work in Scots. The Eneados is a Middle Scots translation of Virgil 's Aeneid , completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. After
5264-406: The garden adjacent to the Church Yard. Janet Pollock and James Tannahill, the parents of Robert Tannahill , were married here on 29 August 1763. Auld Simon's early 19th-century replacement, the Church of Scotland-administered Parish Church, complements the formal open space of Harvey Square, on Church Street. Built not far from the village of Lochwinnoch, Barr Castle is a 15th-century keep which
5358-442: The language in Scots. In September 2024, experts of the Council of Europe called on the UK Government to "boost support for regional and minority languages", including the Scots Language. The serious use of the Scots language for news, encyclopaediae, documentaries, etc., remains rare. It is reportedly reserved for niches where it is deemed acceptable, e.g. comedy, Burns Night or traditions' representations. Since 2016,
5452-509: The language used in different situations. Such an approach would be inappropriate for a Census." Thus, although it was acknowledged that the "inclusion of such a Census question would undoubtedly raise the profile of Scots", no question about Scots was, in the end, included in the 2001 Census. The Scottish Government's Pupils in Scotland Census 2008 found that 306 pupils spoke Scots as their main home language. A Scottish Government study in 2010 found that 85% of around 1000 respondents (being
5546-465: The linguistic, historical and social status of Scots, particularly its relationship to English . Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects exist, they often render contradictory results. Broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum , with Scottish Standard English at the other. Scots is sometimes regarded as a variety of English, though it has its own distinct dialects; other scholars treat Scots as
5640-403: The local authority. Lochwinnoch Primary School, the only school in the village, celebrated its centenary in 2005. In 2003 it was the centre of a notable alien big cat sighting scare. Children were kept inside during break times, and a police helicopter was brought in to search for the animal. Lochwinnoch is probably not named after a Loch called 'Loch Winnoch' (the name almost certainly predates
5734-571: The local dialect. Much of the material used was often Standard English disguised as Scots, which caused upset among proponents of Standard English and proponents of Scots alike. One example of the educational establishment's approach to Scots is, "Write a poem in Scots. (It is important not to be worried about spelling in this – write as you hear the sounds in your head.)", whereas guidelines for English require teaching pupils to be "writing fluently and legibly with accurate spelling and punctuation". A course in Scots language and culture delivered through
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#17328520527945828-423: The location. The dam remains in good condition and looks to be of no great age. A spillway or overflow was located between the sluice and the wooden section of the lade, the elevated head race that directed the water onto the top of the waterwheel inside the mill building. The mill had two sets of millstones that were composite, bound together with metal bands and possibly formed of Paris or French burrstone that
5922-434: The medieval Brittonic languages of Northern England and Scotland, are the suspected source of a small number of Scots words, such as lum (derived from Cumbric) meaning "chimney". From the thirteenth century, the Early Scots language spread further into Scotland via the burghs , which were proto-urban institutions first established by King David I . In fourteenth-century Scotland, the growth in prestige of Early Scots and
6016-415: The medium of Standard English and produced by the Open University (OU) in Scotland, the Open University's School of Languages and Applied Linguistics as well as Education Scotland became available online for the first time in December 2019. In the 2011 Scottish census , a question on Scots language ability was featured In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , a question in relation to
6110-402: The miller also worked as a blacksmith when milling was not required. A Robert Or of Mylbank (sic) is mentioned in a 'Warrant for a Respite' in 1526 and another Robert Orr is recorded in the Poll Tax Register at Myllnebanck (sic) in 1695 with his wife Tean Breadine, daughters Isobel, Margaret and Jean with servants William Allan and Isobel Riddell. A James Ritchie is recorded at Little Myllnebanck
6204-420: The newspaper The National has regularly published articles in the language. The 2010s also saw an increasing number of English books translated in Scots and becoming widely available, particularly those in popular children's fiction series such as The Gruffalo , Harry Potter , Diary of a Wimpy Kid , and several by Roald Dahl and David Walliams . In 2021, the music streaming service Spotify created
6298-401: The old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended. These writings also introduced what came to be known as the apologetic apostrophe , generally occurring where a consonant exists in
6392-403: The other English variants and dialects spoken in Britain. From 1495, the term Scottis was increasingly used to refer to the Lowland vernacular and Erse , meaning "Irish", was used as a name for Gaelic. For example, towards the end of the fifteenth century, William Dunbar was using Erse to refer to Gaelic and, in the early sixteenth century, Gavin Douglas was using Scottis as
6486-497: The past (e.g. Corby or the former mining areas of Kent ). In the 2022 census conducted by the Scottish Government , it was found that 1,508,540 people reported that they could speak Scots, with 2,444,659 reporting that they could speak, read, write or understand Scots, approximately 45% of Scotland's 2022 population. Among the earliest Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (fourteenth century), Wyntoun 's Cronykil and Blind Harry 's The Wallace (fifteenth century). From
6580-513: The reign of Alexander II, was recorded as living in Elliston Castle , whose ruins lie near Howwood. The Semples of Elliston fought for Robert the Bruce , and steadily grew in power to become the Steward's hereditary Baillies of Renfrewshire. They were appointed Hereditary Sheriffs of Renfrewshire and Hereditary Baillies of Paisley . They were later designated as Lords Semple. Their extensive land holdings, Castle Semple, constituted some areas of Lochwinnoch and its hinterland. At some point, probably in
6674-413: The remainder had some degree of skill, such as understanding Scots (0.27 million, 5.2%) or being able to speak it but not read or write it (0.18 million, 3.5%). There were also small numbers of Scots speakers recorded in England and Wales on the 2011 Census, with the largest numbers being either in bordering areas (e.g. Carlisle ) or in areas that had recruited large numbers of Scottish workers in
6768-504: The remaining tracks and structures now form a feature near the Muirshiel Visitor Centre in the country park. Today, Lochwinnoch chiefly serves as a residential village, as well as a satellite to the major city of Glasgow. In 1972, a number of buildings in the village were brought within a newly defined Lochwinnoch Conservation Area as an area of special architectural importance for planning and environment purposes administered by
6862-515: The seventeenth century, anglicisation increased. At the time, many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East were written down. Writers of the period were Robert Sempill , Robert Sempill the younger , Francis Sempill , Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie . In the eighteenth century, writers such as Allan Ramsay , Robert Burns , James Orr , Robert Fergusson and Walter Scott continued to use Scots – Burns's " Auld Lang Syne "
6956-525: The thirteenth century. The succeeding variety of Northern Early Middle English spoken in southeastern Scotland is also known as Early Scots . It began to further diverge from the Middle English of Northumbria due to twelfth- and thirteenth-century immigration of Scandinavian-influenced Middle English–speakers from the North and Midlands of England . Later influences on the development of Scots came from
7050-807: The twentieth-century biographer of James Boswell (1740–1795), described James's view of the use of Scots by his father Alexander Boswell (1706–1782) in the eighteenth century while serving as a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland : He scorned modern literature, spoke broad Scots from the bench, and even in writing took no pains to avoid the Scotticisms which most of his colleagues were coming to regard as vulgar. However, others did scorn Scots, such as Scottish Enlightenment intellectuals David Hume and Adam Smith , who went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings. Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through
7144-458: The upper school was built to accommodate the nursery which was added to the school. Scots language Scots is a language variety descended from Early Middle English in the West Germanic language family . Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands , the Northern Isles of Scotland , and northern Ulster in Ireland (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots ), it
7238-461: The use of the Scots language in the area, since it is Celtic, as mentioned above) being located next to Castle Semple Loch. There is a long history of drainage schemes and farming operations in the Lochwinnoch area, with co-ordinated attempts dating from about 1691 by Lord Sempill , followed by Colonel McDowal of Castle Sempil in 1774, James Adams of Burnfoot, and by others. Until these drainage works there
7332-585: The varieties of Scots are dialects of Scottish English or constitute a separate language in their own right. The UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Notwithstanding the UK government's and the Scottish Executive's obligations under part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,
7426-435: The village in the 19th century. From the 1860s mechanised furniture manufacturing in Scotland was led by factories in the Lochwinnoch and Beith districts, and became dominated by seven major companies, of which Joseph Johnstone & Co Ltd of Lochwinnoch was the largest in Scotland, specialising in dining room furniture of the highest quality. Lochwinnoch-made furniture was to be found on the great Clyde-built liners, including
7520-567: The west gate, the garden wall, and a hexagonal building known as The Temple, which was built in 1770 on a hill overlooking the Loch. In 1795, nine mills were built in Lochwinnoch, for linen cloth, thread, cotton, wool, etc. The ruins of an old corn mill are located in Millbank Glen near the Route 7 cyclepath at Meikle Millbank . The village was developed from 1788 by the Macdowalls mainly to accommodate
7614-444: The wheel being enclosed within the two storey high stone walls of the main mill building. In 1910 the OS map shows that a lean to extension had been added to the gable end of the main mill building. By 1910 the Lochwinnoch 'Loop Line' had been built and it cut across the lane to East Lochhead with the railway crossing by an overbridge. A limestone quarry was located on the western side of
7708-475: The work force. As such, notwithstanding the older Johnshill settlement, the village in its modern form was a planned community, rather than one evolving over time. This planned village lies between the original settlement at East End and the River Calder. Three grand vistas along straight streets are closed by two churches and the estate gates. Furniture manufacturers, originally from Beith, became established in
7802-628: The world's largest liners RMS Lusitania , RMS Queen Mary , RMS Queen Elizabeth and also the ill-fated Belfast-built RMS Titanic . The Muirshiel Barytes Mine to the north of the village carried out Baryte from the late 18th century, and by 1918 was known as the Muirshiels Mineral Co. of Lochwinnoch. It closed in 1920, then was reopened in 1942, becoming the Muirshiel Barytes Co. and employing workers from Lochwinnoch and Kilbirnie . Production ended in 1969;
7896-437: Was 2628 and in 2022 was 2769. The Town also lends its name to a civil parish of some 50 sq mi (130 km) of the surrounding countryside, including the nearby village of Howwood . The parish borders seven others: Beith , Kilbarchan , Kilbirnie , Kilmacolm , Largs , Neilston and Paisley . Lochwinnoch is first recorded in the 12th Century as a parish under the higher control of Paisley and Renfrew , but
7990-477: Was a "quite modern mistake". During the first half of the twentieth century, knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary norms waned, and as of 2006 , there is no institutionalised standard literary form. By the 1940s, the Scottish Education Department 's language policy was that Scots had no value: "it is not the language of 'educated' people anywhere, and could not be described as
8084-466: Was altered in the 16th century (and probably later, too). The gables of the castle have collapsed, apart from the chimney stack which juts up into the sky. Not much survives of the former courtyard of the castle. The main hall was on the first floor, reached by a turnpike stair, which continued to the rooms on the upper floors. It is clearly visible from the A760 road going south from the village to Kilbirnie . It
8178-523: Was built by the Glen family but passed in the late 16th century to the Hamiltons of Ferguslie . A door lintel has a date of 1680 and the initials L.H./I.C. The family abandoned it in the 18th century in favour of a new house. The family, variously known as Sempill, Sempil, Sempel and Semple, had probably owned estates in the area from as early as the 13th century. Robert Semple, Steward of the barony of Renfrew during
8272-652: Was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England. When William Flower , an English herald , spoke with Mary of Guise and her councillors in 1560, they first used the "Scottyshe toung" . As he found this hard to understand, they switched into her native French. King James VI , who in 1603 became James I of England , observed in his work Some Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie that "For albeit sindrie hes written of it in English, quhilk
8366-415: Was not enough linguistic self-awareness amongst the Scottish populace, with people still thinking of themselves as speaking badly pronounced, grammatically inferior English rather than Scots, for an accurate census to be taken. The GRO research concluded that "[a] more precise estimate of genuine Scots language ability would require a more in-depth interview survey and may involve asking various questions about
8460-409: Was one big loch consisting of Castle Semple loch, Barr loch and, in times of flooding, Kilbirnie Loch . Early writers such as Boece, Hollings and Petruccio Ubaldini regarded the three lochs as one, usually applying the name 'Garnoth' or 'Garnott'. Therefore, the two lochs of today, Castle Semple and Barr Lochs, lie in an area covered by one large loch which may have been known as ‘Loch Winnoch’ until
8554-562: Was one of Glasgow's leading West Indies merchants who owned sugar plantations in the Caribbean. In addition to buying the Shawfield Mansion in Glasgow as his town-house he instructed the rebuilding and expansion of Castle Semple in the grand Palladian style in 1735. The central part of Castle Semple mansion house burned down in 1924. Castle Semple House remains only as ruined buildings, such as
8648-432: Was the notion of "Scottishness" itself. Many leading Scots of the period, such as David Hume , defined themselves as Northern British rather than Scottish. They attempted to rid themselves of their Scots in a bid to establish standard English as the official language of the newly formed union. Nevertheless, Scots was still spoken across a wide range of domains until the end of the eighteenth century. Frederick Pottle ,
8742-491: Was translated into Scots by Rab Wilson and published in 2004. Alexander Hutchison has translated the poetry of Catullus into Scots, and in the 1980s, Liz Lochhead produced a Scots translation of Tartuffe by Molière . J. K. Annand translated poetry and fiction from German and Medieval Latin into Scots. The strip cartoons Oor Wullie and The Broons in the Sunday Post use some Scots. In 2018, Harry Potter and
8836-464: Was used for finer grinding and composed of sections that were cemented together with plaster. Well known millstone quarries were located at Kaim Hill near Fairlie in North Ayrshire . One millstone removed the husk from the grain and the other ground the corn down to meal. The waterwheel was 1m by 6m and had eight wooden spokes and wooden buckets. It had an iron axle and iron rings, the wheel pit and
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