How is Scots its own language and not just a dialect?
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Scots is a form of Old Angle (aka germanic language) that was influenced to grow more akin to Modern English only after the 17th century. Rather than a Dialect that diverged from English separately.
During shakespears time, English would already have been recognizably similar to modern English, while Scotish would still have been much much more.. distinct.
Here is a line in Middle Scots (late 1500’s):
>Thair be tua kynd of prayeris in the kirk, the ane is priuat, quhilk euerie man sayis be him self, the vthir is publik, quhilk the preistis sayis in the name of the hail kirk.
And here is some original text of shakespear:
>Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
You can kind of make out what the scots is saying, but it uses some odd words and very different spellings, while shakspear seems like modern English with some subtle variations.
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