30 MAY 1931, Page 32

We welcome a reprint of the late Reverend Alexander Warrack's

A Scots Dialect Dictionary (Chambers, 5s.). Mr. Warrack was one of thegreatest authorities on Scottish dia- lectal usages, and this volume will furnish an additional impetus to the rising tide of Scottish Nationalism and will help the Scots to understand their own language. It does not, however, support -the view of so many amateur _philologists within the Nationalist pale thlit the Scots language is a sub- stantive tongue of its own ; Scots is simply. Northern English, modified, however, profoundly by Celtic and other influences. The introduction by Mr. William Grant states that " our old language is undoubtedly passing away before modem educa- tion and means of communication." Such books as this and the great Scottish National Dictionary, which Mr. Grant is in process of editing, will do much to arrest the progress of that lamentable decay.