what languages do scottish people speak?
Scottish Gaelic language Scots Language English Language Scottish English
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 Scotland has three officially recognised languages : English , Scots , and Scottish Gaelic . Scottish Standard English , a variety of English as spoken in Scotland , is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum , with broad Scots at the other . Scottish Standard English may have been influenced to varying degrees by Scots . The 2011 census indicated that 63 % of the population had " no skills in Scots " . Others speak Highland English . Gaelic is mostly spoken in the Western Isles , where a large proportion of people still speak it ; however , nationally its use is confined to just 1 % of the population . The number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland dropped from 250 @,@ 000 in 1881 to 60 @,@ 000 in 2008 . 

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 The Gaelic Language ( Scotland ) Act was enacted by the Scottish Parliament in 2005 to provide continuing support for the language . However , by 2011 the overall percentage of Gaelic speakers in the Outer Hebrides had fallen to 52 % . 

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 Scots is today considered a separate language from English , but it has its origins in early Northern Middle English and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources , particularly Scots Gaelic and Old Norse . Scots itself has a number of regional dialects . And in addition to Scots , Scottish English are the varieties of Standard English spoken in Scotland , most varieties are Northern English accents , with some influence from Scots . 

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 There have been speakers of Goidelic languages in the Inner Hebrides since the time of Columba or before and the modern variant of Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig ) remains strong in some parts . However , the Education ( Scotland ) Act 1872 led to generations of Gaels being forbidden to speak their native language in the classroom , and is now recognised as having dealt a major blow to the language . Children were being beaten for speaking Gaelic in school as late as the 1930s . More recently the Gaelic Language ( Scotland ) Act was enacted by the Scottish Parliament in 2005 in order to provide continuing support for the language . 

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 The population of Scotland in this period is unknown . The first reliable information in 1755 shows the inhabitants of Scotland as 1 @,@ 265 @,@ 380 . Best estimates put the Scottish population for earlier periods in the High Middle Ages between 500 @,@ 000 and 1 @,@ 000 @,@ 000 people , growing from a low point to a high point . Linguistically , the majority of people within Scotland throughout this period spoke the Gaelic language , then simply called Scottish , or in Latin , lingua Scotica . Other languages spoken throughout this period were Old Norse and English , with the Cumbric language disappearing somewhere between 900 and 1100 . Pictish may have survived into this period , but the evidence is weak . After the accession of David I , or perhaps before , Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court . From his reign until the end of the period , the Scottish monarchs probably favoured the French language , as evidenced by reports from contemporary chronicles , literature and translations of administrative documents into the French language . English , with French and Flemish , became the main language of Scottish burghs . However , they were , in Barrow 's words , " scarcely more than villages ... numbered in hundreds rather than thousands " . 
