You can look up lists of distinctive features of Older Scots easily enough and the online Dictionary of the Scots Language can help with unfamiliar words, but this often isn’t enough to read works written in Older Scots comfortably. As everyone who has tried to learn another language knows, it’s all down to practice, practice, practice.

We are currently developing a free web app, Read Older Scots!, in which you will be able to work through exercises teaching key features of Older Scots at your own pace. Teach yourself from scratch or test your current knowledge.

The aim of Read Older Scots! is to get you reading Older Scots comfortably, whether you want to read poems, historical chronicles, pre-modern town records or other documents written in Older Scots. As more texts become available online, it is easier than ever to track down pre-modern literature in Scots. Teach yourself to read it with Read Older Scots!

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