POSTCARD FROM SCOTLAND

Greeting from a land where milk is pronounced "mulk"  and fish is "fush" 

The majority of Scotland's population speak English, a consequence of England's political and cultural domination during 3-400 years. But there are two other - lesser known - languages that have been there far longer, and they are still there. That's Gaelic and Scots.

Danish	Jeg kender ham ikke
Scots	A dinna ken him
English	I don't know him
Gaelic	Chan eil iólas agam air

In the Gaelic sentence there is not much to be recognised. Gaelic belongs to another family of languages, Celtic, and is very closely related to Irish.

Danish, Scots and English are different, but alike. All three belong to the same language family - the Germanic. They have lots of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation in common. In fact, Scots even has many word that are not intelligible for Englishmen, but which are immediately recognisable to Danes, e.g. bearn (child, Da barn), flit (move, Da flytte), big (build, Da bygge) .....

Scots, Scotch or Scottish...?

Scots is the English language of Scotland (in Scottish, Alba).
Scots used especially of the people and language and in legal context
scots: money assessed or paid
Scotch is the blended whisky, while single malt whisky is the really good, pure stuff. 
Scotch is also the contraction for Scottish. 
Scottish is a descriptive adjective, like a Scottish Highland cow (or "coo" to some), the Scottish Highlands, the Scottish Parliament and so on.