An audit of the Scots language has been ordered by Culture Minister Linda Fabiani, as the SNP government considers giving it similar support to that for Gaelic and prepares for an international celebration of the work of Robert Burns.

The Scots tongue is spoken by an estimated 1.5 million people and, after years of being discouraged in schools, it is now extensively used in learning about language in the curriculum.

Ms Fabiani, aged 51 and having grown up in Glasgow, told BBC Scotland yesterday that she recalls being told as a schoolgirl that Scots words were "slang" and that "those memories are a manifestation of something that was very, very wrong".

Ms Fabiani said: "Our languages have been suppressed and oppressed over the centuries, and some of them in the not-too-distant past.

"What we have to recognise is that Gaelic and the Scots language are absolutely as valid as any other language in the world that people speak. That is hugely important."