Scottish Negation
Learning the Scottish Negation is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. The more you master it the more you get closer to mastering the Scottish language. But first we need to know what the role of Negation is in the structure of the grammar in Scottish.
Scottish negation is the process that turns an affirmative statement (I am happy) into its opposite denial (I am not happy). Here are some examples:
| English Negation | Scottish Negation |
| Negation | negation |
| he is not here | he isnae haur |
| that is not my book | 'at isnae mah book |
| do not enter | dinnae enter |
As you can see from the example above, the structure of the Negation in Scottish has a logical pattern. Locate the Negation above and see how it works with the rest of the sentence in Scots.
List of Negation in Scottish
Below is a list of the Negation and negative expressions in Scottish placed in a table. Memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your Scottish vocabulary.
| English Negation | Scottish Negation |
| I don't speak | Ah dornt spick |
| I don't write | Ah dornt write |
| I don't drive | Ah dornt drife |
| I don't love | Ah dornt loove |
| I don't give | Ah dornt gie |
| I don't smile | Ah dornt smile |
| I don't take | Ah dornt tak' |
| |
| he doesn't speak | he doesnae spick |
| he doesn't write | he doesnae write |
| he doesn't drive | he doesnae drife |
| he doesn't love | he doesnae loove |
| he doesn't give | he doesnae gie |
| he doesn't smile | he doesnae smile |
| he doesn't take | he doesnae tak' |
| |
| we don't speak | we dornt spick |
| we don't write | we dornt write |
| we don't drive | we dornt drife |
| we don't love | we dornt loove |
| we don't give | we dornt gie |
| we don't smile | we dornt smile |
| we don't take | we dornt tak' |
Negation and negative expressions have a very important role in Scottish, therefore they need very special attention. Once you're done with the Scots Negation, you might want to check the rest of our Scottish lessons here: Learn Scottish. Don't forget to bookmark this page.