Talk:Scotland

Semi-protected edit request on 1 February 2026

Hi, I have this very good digital poster of Scotland, and I believe that it would add a great benefit for the Wikipedia page of Scotland. MDF3MM (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scotland_Poster_2024.jpg MDF3MM (talk) 13:46, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: Copyright status of the image is unclear. You uploaded it claiming it is your own work, but it appears to be a satellite view of Scotland. Day Creature (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Proposed edit to the "Scotland" Page

Change BSL from "Recognised minority language" to official language. Proof: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/34 StubbornScot (talk) 03:44, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, this looks OK. But let me just check: the legislation is "to recognise British Sign Language as a language of England, Wales and Scotland". Is that the same as making it an official language? Can anyone can clarify this? Mike Marchmont (talk) 09:14, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

I suspect the phrasing in the Act of "recognised as a language" is carefully done to avoid using "official", because for a UK-wide bit of legislation that opens something of a can of worms. At the time the legislation was passed, from the explanatory notes to the BSL Act:

There is no ‘official’ legal language of the United Kingdom. However, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gives the Welsh language official status in Wales. The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 establishes a body for promoting the use of the Gaelic language in Scotland. The British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 requires Scottish Ministers to promote and facilitate the promotion of BSL. British Sign Language was recognised as a language in its own right by a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons on 18 March 2003 by the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mr Andrew Smith MP.

(The BSL "language in its own right" was done by reference to the status in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which may explain why it has the "recognised minority language" phrasing in this article).

The situation has developed a little since then - as of 2025 (in the Scottish Languages Act 2025), Gaelic and Scots are both explicitly described in legislation as "has official status within Scotland". However, that Act does not define a status for BSL (or indeed English) in Scotland, so presumably it remains "recognised".

I think the best bet would be to have the infobox say something like either

• Official language English (de facto); Scots; Scottish Gaelic
• Recognised language British Sign Language

or

• Official language English (de facto); Scots; Scottish Gaelic; British Sign Language (recognised)

with an explanatory footnote to explain the three different statuses. There's an overview article here from 2018 which we cite a few places on WP for the "de facto" phrasing for English and would be appropriate here.

But I think we should avoid saying BSL is official in the same way as Scots or Gaelic, when the legislation for "official" didn't mention BSL and the legislation for BSL avoided using the term "official". We probably also need to cover this in some way in the Scotland#Languages section; at the moment there's nothing there on status at all. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:07, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew, that's a very comprehensive and helpful explanation. Either of your suggested edits to the InfoBox look good to me. That said, I have just noticed that it already shows BSL as a "Recognised minority languages". Perhaps leave it at that? Mike Marchmont (talk) 11:03, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

That might work. Looking at other articles it's a bit of a muddle -

• United Kingdom has "National language" English and then everything else as "Regional and minority languages", including BSL, with an explanatory (but outdated) footnote, and nothing about official status in the body of the article beyond that English is de facto.
• Wales has "Official languages" English and Welsh, no mention of BSL
• England has "National language" English and BSL, "Regional languages" Cornish
• Northern Ireland has "Official language" English and Irish, "Regional and minority languages" Ulster Scots. (The BSL Act does not extend to NI)

I'll try to bring these into sync a bit. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Anyone have any idea how to edit the map caption in the infobox?

I want to change

Location of Scotland (dark green)

– in Europe (green & dark grey)

– in the United Kingdom (green)

To

Location of Scotland (dark green)

– in the United Kingdom (green)

– in Europe (grey)

But I can't see where the text is defined? It doesn't appear to be from the infobox or on commons. Best, Carlinmack (talk) 14:11, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

okay realised that it's from the default template and overrode it, but maybe this wasn't the best. I will try swap them in the upstream template Carlinmack (talk) 14:46, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't know what you have done, but your recent edit has knocked out the alignment, making the Scotland article fall out of line with articles such as England and Wales. There was a consistency across the infoboxes of the UK countries which you appear to have messed up with your edit. Goodreg3 (talk) 18:25, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 June 2026

Near the start of the page it mentions Scotland is a country. while this is partly true a more accurate definition would be Constituent Country as it's a part of the 4 nations that make up the United Kingdom and is not it's own independent country, so it doesn't fit the definition of a country 100% but fully fits the definition of a Constituent Country. ~2026-33253-63 (talk) 07:16, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• See the archives of this Talk page, where a consensus summary wording has been debated at length. The article linked from the word country is also useful in describing the specific situation. AllyD (talk) 08:39, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I would agree but this seems semantic, the first phrase used is “is a country that is part of the United Kingdom” which already explains what you are describing in plain terms, and the word “country” in the article links to “Countries of the United Kingdom”. So what you’re asking for would be less intuitive to a layperson ~2026-36921-12 (talk) 07:48, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Should Shetland Dialect Be Added to 'Recognised Languages'?

The Wikipedia page for the Shetland dialect has been rewritten to remove references to it being a dialect of Scots. This is because it has been given an ISO code. There are now articles online which mention it is a language its own right. John Swinney also said he was open to including it as a language option on the next census. The Scottish Funding Council apparently now allows students to give their language background as Shetland. Other websites still list it as a dialect of Scots. Should it be added in the'Recognised language' section of the info box and mentioned separately where appropriate in the article body? VUOP (talk) 15:05, 28 July 2026 (UTC)