Is Scots actually a distinct language?

I read recently about the "Scots language", and I thought, "oh, you mean the Scots dialect?" But apparently there is indeed such a thing as the Scots language. Or at least the Scots think so.

It's the language of "auld lang syne", of "wee bairns" and "bonnie lassies". It's the language of Robbie Burns, which, as you might know, can be pretty indecipherable for us Sassenachs: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley / An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain / For promis'd joy", and all that.

But as that snippet shows, it is essentially the same as English with some local words and a strong accent, which in other cases is referred to as a dialect. So, is Scots really a language in and of itself?

The Scots Language Centre website certainly believes so. In fact, it suggests that the Scots language has its own set of dialects, including Shetlandic, Orcadian, Doric, Caitnes, Mearns, Borders, etc.

Hell, there's even a Scots language version of Wikipedia, although it only has about 41,000 articles, and many of these were apparently written by an American teenager, not a native Scots speaker (not surprisingly, there have been many complaints about the quality of the Scots language throughout the site).

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language website argues that Scots has a much larger number of special vocabulary words than other English dialects. and that it even has its own grammatical conventions. It also argues that the very existence of a body of literature (albeit a pretty small one) in the Scots language is proof enough in and of itself. 

As The Economist points out, though, whether Scots should be considered a language or a dialect is, to a large extent, a political question rather than a linguistic one. In these days of independence and Brexit referendums, Scotland is keen to claim anything that would support their independence and their differentness.

Me, I still think it's just a strong dialect. But then, I'm not Scottish...