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Language
Gaelic,
the old Celtic tongue of the Scots, is now spoken by little more
than 75,000 people, most of them in the Highlands and the Hebrides.
By their acceptance and use of the English translation of the
Bible, the Scottish reformers of the 16th century in effect adopted
English as the national language. But as any singer of "Auld
Lang Syne" knows, the Scots have made the English they speak
peculiarly their own. They have retained a high percentage of
vocabulary derived from Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon, and they speak
with a lilt. Indeed, " Scots " is an actual " language
" all on its own.
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