Comment by sleavey

I'm Scottish, but I work with a lot of Germans and every so often I try to learn some. I have found that Scots has a lot of similar works to German, sometimes more so than English. I guess this must be because it comes from Middle English which is related to High German. A few examples: "ken" (to know; "kenn" in German), "kirk" (church; "kirch" in German), "loch" (lake; literally "hole" in German), "reek" (smell; "riech" in German), "mair" (more; "mehr" in German). It's interesting to me because the other language I sometimes hear in Scotland other than English is Gaelic, which at least to my ear sounds nothing like any other language I've heard.