Further research

Kay, B. (2006) Scots: The Mither Tongue, Mainstream, Edinburgh.

Kay, B. (2006) The Scottish World, Mainstream, Edinburgh.

Find out more about Billy Kay and Scots culture, language and history [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] on his website.

Scots Radio posted a video of a lecture Billy Kay delivered in Aberdeen in November 2019, which is adapted from the inaugural Scots lecture at the Scottish Poetry Library earlier in the year. The lecture is a celebration of the Scots tradition in literature but also has some stories about Scots abroad which tie in with material on the course.

Horsbroch, D. (1999) ‘Nostra vulgari lingua: Scots as a European Language 1500‑1700’, Scottish Language, no. 18, pp. 1‑16.

Grosjean, A. and S. Murdoch (eds.) (2005) Scottish Communities Abroad in the Early Modern Period, Leiden and Boston, Brill.

Murdoch, S. (ed.) (2006) Network North. Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603‑1746, Leiden and Boston, Brill.

Kopaczyk, J. (2017) ‘Administrative multilingualism on the page in early modern Poland: In search of a framework for written code-switching’ in Laura Wright, Päivi Pahta and Janne Skaffari (eds.) Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond, Berlin, Mouton. pp. 275-298.

Kopaczyk, J. (2013a) ‘Code-switching in the records of a Scottish brotherhood in early modern Poland-Lithuania’, Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, no. 49, vol.3, pp. 281-319.

Kopaczyk, J. (2013b) ‘Scottish papers in early modern Poland: A new resource for historical linguists’ in Aniela Korzeniowska and Izabela Szymańska (eds.) Scotland in Europe / Europe in Scotland. Links, dialogues, analogies, Warsaw, Semper, pp. 85-98.

You can find out more about emigration and immigration in Scotland on the John Gray Centre website.

The National Library of Scotland provides a wealth of information on emigration in their Scots Abroad Databases, which contain accounts of people who visited different parts of the world and their experiences there.

The Scotsman National Newspaper features an article by Alison Campsie about the Scottish Highlanders who emigrated to Northern America, how they were recruited, what employment they found and how they lived as emigrants.

Listen to the Scottish folk band the Old Blind Dogs’ rendition of the Farfar Soldier song.

Find out more about migration from Scotland pre-1700 in Morvern French’s article on the University of St Andrews’ Institute of Historical Research website.

Learn about Scots emigrants in Sweden, their lives and work, from 1500–1800 in an article by Jonas Berg and Bo Lagercrantz on the Electric Scotland website.

You can explore the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry reflecting the rich linguistic and cultural links of many places around the globe with Scotland. 

To learn more about the Scots language in Canada, explore the Library and Archives Canada with interesting information on how Scots arrived and became widely used in Canada.