The Linguistic Survey of Scotland was a long-term project at the University of Edinburgh to cover the use of language in Scotland, including Scottish English, Scots and Scottish Gaelic.
The Survey began at a time when the modern subject of linguistics was evolving and the leaders accepted that the Survey would need to change over time to stay relevant to on-going linguistic work.[1] The original intentions of the Survey were set out by Professor Angus McIntosh in the book Introduction to a Survey of Scottish Dialects. The book argued that different methods were appropriate for different aspects of the survey. Vocabulary was collected by indirect methods such as letters to local schoolteachers, to collect material more easily where there was less chance of a mistake by a non-linguist, whereas phonology and morphology were assessed directly by trained linguists.[2]
The fieldwork for dialects of Scots and Scottish English was undertaken first. This period did not cover the Highlands or Outer Hebrides of Scotland, but it did cover a few sites in all six counties of Northern Ireland, and numerous sites in the English counties of Cumberland and Northumberland.
The Highlands and Islands were later studied in terms of both Scottish Gaelic, and also in mixed use of English and Gaelic (referred to as "Highland English" and "Island English"). The results from this later period of fieldwork were published in five volumes in the 1990s by Cathair Ó Dochartaigh.[3]