Indo-European · ISO 639-3 sco
Scots Language
Scots is an Indo-European language spoken by about 1.6 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Scots is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Scots
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Germanic
- Northwest Germanic
- West Germanic
- North Sea Germanic
- Anglo-Frisian
- Anglic
- Later Anglic
- Scots
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Scots language
Scots is spoken by about 1.6 million people, which makes it the 358th most spoken language in the world — just behind Central Malay (1.6 million) and ahead of Southern Ma'di (1.6 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Later Anglic group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Scots spoken?
Scots is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in United Kingdom (1.7 million).
Scots is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Scots is written in the Latin script. Glottolog classifies it as threatened, meaning fewer children learn it than in the past.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are English, Nigerian Pidgin, Krio, Tok Pisin, Ghanaian Pidgin English, Jamaican Creole English and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 sco.
Frequently asked questions about Scots
How many people speak Scots?
Where is Scots spoken?
What language family does Scots belong to?
Is Scots an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.