INTRODUCTION area; it crosses Loch Lomond near Rowardennan, and passes by Aberfoyle, Callander, Comrie, Dunkeld, Braemar, Tomintoul and Grantown to Fort George; it takes in the eastern part of the Black Isle (Avoch to Cromarty), parts of Easter Ross, and about half the county of Cai., running from Bruan near Clyth Ness to Crosskirk on the Forss. This line represents the western limit of Sc. speech at the present time. While it is a fair statement of the circumstances of the case, it will be understood that such a boundary has in actuality none of the sharpness it has on a map. Moreover, in any true view it can no longer be treated as a border between Sc. and Gaelic, but should rather be regarded as the border between Sc. and Gaelic or the Eng1 which has replaced Gaelic. § 11. It is reasonable to believe that the boundary which for so long separated Lowland Sc. s from Gaelic, and which, as said, is now in process of obliteration, derived part of its former definiteness from the contrasting characters of the two tongues. The two languages are not only distant from each other in the relationship which comparative philology assigns to them, but they differ remarkably from each other when regarded simply as vehicles of expression. The contrast between them in word order, in idiom and in phonology is very great. Hence the interaction between the two languages has been relatively slight. The interchange of vocabulary, while considerable in both directions, has been moderate if we consider the closeness of contact. All Gaelic speakers along the Highland border are now bilingual; but bilingualism is rare with native speakers of Scots.2 The Term “Scottish Language” § 12. The term “Scottish Language” includes (1) Older Scots, represented in its two main literary phases by Barbour and the “Makars”; (2) the modern literary dialect, emerging about the beginning of the 18th cent.; (3) the modern Scottish regional dialects. Middle Scots and its Literature. § 13. Between the end of the 14th and the beginm ng of the 17th cent. the Scottish Language underwent many phonetic changes which were only partially and imperfectly indicated in the literature of the time. In this literature we find grammatical peculiarities and mannerisms of expression which are wanting in The Brus and in the modern dialects. We find in it also a large number of words either coined or borrowed from Latin and French which have not survived in our modern speech. The avowed object of most of the writers who introduced or adapted these foreign words was to enrich the vocabulary. To the learned, familiar with Latin and French, their meaning was quite plain, but to the average man the expression must have seemed strained or the meaning obscure. The verse literature of this time reached a high degree of excellence, but prose composition was still comparatively undeveloped when, at the Union of the Crowns in 1603, the literary centre shifted from Edinburgh to London. Throughout the 17th cent. the people, high and low, were absorbed in religious and political controversy, and in place of the old poetic literature, so v arious and copious in the major as well as the minor traditional verse-forms, we have only a few lyrics and semi-lyrical pieces, such as Sempill's Habbie Simson, and others included in the early 18th-cent. collections. These were all of a popular cast, but the known authors belonged to the higher rather than the lower classes, a thing to remember when we come to consider the origin of the modern literary dialect. The simpler style, however, had never been entirely lost in the age of artificial Scots. Henryson's Fables and Robin and Makyne, Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris, The Petition of the Gray Horse, The Turnament, etc., the anonymous pieces entitled Peblis to the Play and Christis Kirk on the Green (assigned popularly to royal authorship) are all evidence of its existence alongside of the artificial language of Douglas in his Eneid and of Dunbar in The Thrissill and the Rois., Ane Ballat of Our Lady and Goldyn Targe. 1Often interspersed with Scots and Gaelic words and idioms. 2We are indebted to the following correspondents for help in determining this Scottish line: Mr William Alexander, Aberdeen, for collating the results; Mr R. Barron, H.M.I.S., Dornoch, for information regarding the condition of Gaelic in the schools in the north of Scotland; Mr W. G. Fraser, H.M.I.S., Kilmacolm; Mr A. Millar, H.M.I.S., Crieff; Mr G. Watson, H.M.I.S., Strathpeffer, for information respecting their special districts, and to Mr D. McIntosh, Ardersier; Mr T. Hunter, Grantown-on-Spey; Mr J. Scott, Nethybridge; Mr E. Roberts, Kingussie; Mr W. A. Fraser, Tomintoul; Miss Farquharson, Ballintuim; Mr A. McLeab, Ballibluig; Mr Downie, Campbeltown, who speak for their own schools. Mr McInnes, Campbeltown; the Rev. W. S. Allan, Callander; Mr Mackay, Shebster, and the Rev. D. Beaton, Wick, have also helped us with details about the boundary line.