Lowland Scots

[Duane Campbell]

I just got an email from a Scottish friend who used an aphorism in
"la'lands" dialect, i.e., the dialect of the lowland Scots. He went on to
explain that this dialect is close to medieval English and that "Scots
school children have very few problems reading Chaucer in the original.
All they need to do is forget the spellings and listen to the sound."

This sounds suspiciously like the supposed Appalachian / Shakespearean
nexus. Since this friend knows even less than I do, does anyone have any
insight on his observation?

D