ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Phonological history of Scots

Alright kiddo, do you know what language is? It's the way people talk to each other, using different sounds and words to communicate. And you know how sometimes people from different places talk differently? That's because their language has its own history.

So, a long time ago, people in Scotland spoke a language called Gaelic. But then, some other people came over to Scotland from a place called England, and they brought their own language with them. This language was called Old English. It was different from Gaelic because it used different sounds and words.

Over time, the people in Scotland started mixing these two languages together. This is called language contact. As they mixed the languages, they started to change the sounds and words of both languages to make them easier to pronounce and understand.

For example, let's say a person in Scotland was trying to say the Old English word "church." In Gaelic, they might have said "kirk." So, when they mixed the two languages, they came up with a new word: "kirk," which is what people in Scotland still say for "church" today.

This mixing of languages continued for a long time and eventually led to the creation of the Scots language. Scots is a bit like a mix between Old English and Gaelic, but it's different from both of them too. It has its own sounds and words that make it unique.

So, to sum it all up, the phonological history of Scots is the story of how people in Scotland mixed two languages together to create a new language that had its own sounds and words. And that new language is called Scots.