The first comprehensive appraisal of the Scots language since the 1950s is to be led by researchers at the University of Aberdeen. Their new Linguistic Survey of Scots will cover the Scots-speaking territories of Scotland and Ulster. Robert McColl Millar, Professor in Linguistics and Scottish Language at Aberdeen, said it is essential that we gain a better understanding of the way words are used in Scots spoken today and in the recent past if we are to assess how it has changed and how the language might be preserved. “In Scotland we have the Linguistic Atlas of Scotland and Dictionary of the Scots Language, but both draw heavily on material collated in the 1950s,” he said. “In Ireland no such equivalent exists for Ulster Scots”.