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'Scottish English' is usually taken to mean the standard form of the English language used in Scotland, often termed 'Scottish Standard English'[1][2]. It is the language normally used in formal, non-fiction written texts in Scotland. Although the terminology has often been used vaguely, modern usage distinguishes clearly between Scottish English and Scots.
Scottish English is the result of language contact between Scots and English after the 17th century (dialect contact may be more accurate in that the indigenous language Lowland Scots was a related variety).
The resulting shift to English by Scots-speakers resulted in many phonological compromises and lexical transfers, often mistaken for mergers by linguists unfamiliar with the history of Scottish English (Macafee, 2004). Furthermore, the process was also influenced by interdialectal forms, hypercorrections and spelling pronunciations. (See Phonology below.)
The standard spelling, grammar, and punctuation of Scottish English tend to follow the style of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). However, there are some unique characteristics, mainly in the phonological and phonetic systems, many of which originate in the country's two autochthonous languages, the Scottish Gaelic language and Scots. The speech of the middle classes in Scotland often conforms to the grammatical norms of the written standard, particularly in situations that are regarded as formal. Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by a Gaelic substratum.
Scottish English has a number of lexical items which are rare in other forms of standard English.
General items are ''outwith'', meaning outside of; ''pinkie'' for little finger; and ''wee'', the Scots word for small (which also occurs in Hiberno-English).
Culturally specific items like ''caber'', ''haggis'', and ''landward'' for rural.
In some areas there is a substantial non-standard lexis (shared with Scots) apparently acquired from the Romany language and from Eastern European languages; examples include ''gadge'' (lad, chap) and ''peeve'' (alcoholic drink).
There is a wide range of (often anglicised) legal and administrative vocabulary inherited from Scots, e.g., ''depute'' for ''deputy'', ''proven'' for ''proved'', ''interdict'' for ''injunction'' and ''sheriff substitute'' for ''acting sheriff''.
Often, lexical differences between Scottish English and Southern Standard English are simply differences in the distribution of shared lexis, such as ''stay'' for "live" (as in: ''where do you stay?''); ''doubt'' for "think the worst" (''I doubt it will rain'' meaning "I fear it will rain").
''Correct'' is often preferred to ''right'' (meaning "morally right" or "just") when the speaker means "factually accurate".
While pronunciation features vary among speakers (depending on region and social status), there are a number of phonological aspects characteristic of Scottish English:
★ Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning is pronounced in the syllable coda. As with Standard English (RP), may be an alveolar approximant (, although it is also common that a speaker will use an alveolar tap . Less common is use of the alveolar trill (hereafter, will be used to denote any rhotic consonant).
★
★ While other dialects have merged , , before , Scottish English makes a distinction between the vowels in ''herd'', ''bird'', and ''curd''.
★
★ Many varieties contrast and before so that ''hoarse'' and ''horse'' are pronounced differently.
★
★ and are contrasted so that ''shore'' and ''sure'' are pronounced differently, as are ''pour'' and ''poor''.
★ There is a distinction between and (also analyzed as in word pairs such as ''witch'' and ''which''
★ The phoneme is common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and Scots borrowings, so much so that it is often taught to incomers, particularly for "ch" in loch. Some Scottish speakers use it in words of Greek origin as well, such as technical, patriarch, etc. (Wells 1982, 408).
★ is usually velarized (see dark l). In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until recently (such as Dumfries and Galloway, velarization may be absent.
★ Vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic, although a distinctive part of Scottish English is the Scots vowel length rule (Scobbie et al. 1999). Certain vowels (such as , , and are generally long but are shortened before nasals and voiced plosives. However, this does not occur across morpheme boundaries so that ''crude'' contrasts with ''crewed'', ''need'' with ''kneed'' and ''side'' with ''sighed''.
★ Scottish English has no , instead transferring Scots . Phonetically, this vowel may be more front, being pronounced as or even . Thus ''pull'' and ''pool'' are homophones.
★ ''Cot'' and ''caught'' are not differentiated as in some other dialects.
★ /θs/ is often used in plural nouns where southern English has /ðz/ (baths, youths, etc). ''with'' is pronounced with θ. (See Pronunciation of English th.)
★ In colloquial speech (especially among young males), the glottal stop may be an allophone of after a vowel, as in . These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix ''-ing'' and debuccalize to in certain contexts.
Syntactical differences are few though the progressive verb forms are used rather more frequently than in other varieties of standard English, for example with some stative verbs (''I'm wanting a drink''). The future progressive frequently implies an assumption (''You'll be coming from Glasgow'').
Prepositions are often used differently. Most Scots would say ''different from'' where in the south there is a strong preference for ''different to''. The compound preposition ''off of'' is often used parallel to English ''into'' (''Take that off of the table'').
In colloquial speech ''shall'' and ''ought'' are wanting, ''must'' is marginal for obligation and ''may'' is rare. Many syntactical features of SSE are found in other forms of English, e.g. English English and North American English:
★ ''Can I come too?'' or ''Can I come as well?' for "May I come too?"
★ ''Have you got any?'' for "Do you have any?"
★ ''I've got one of those already.'' for "I have one of those already."
★ ''It's your shot.'' for "It's your turn."
★ ''My hair is needing washed.'' or ''My hair needs washed'' for "My hair needs washing."
★ ''Amn't I invited?'' for "Am I not invited?"
★ ''How no?'' for "Why not?"
★ ''What age are you?'' for "How old are you?"
The use of "How?" meaning "Why?" is distinctive of Scottish , Northern English and Northern Irish English.
Note that in Scottish English, the first person declarative ''I amn't invited'' and interrogative "Amn't I invited?" are both possible. Contrast English English, which has "Aren't I?" but no contracted declarative form. (All varieties have "I'm not invited".)
As many Scots use both Scots and Scottish English depending on the situation, there is a strong influence of Scots, and sometimes it is difficult to say whether a Scots form also belongs to Scottish English or whether its occasional appearence in Scottish English is simply code-switching. Borderline examples might be ''aye'' for "yes", ''ken'' for "know", or ''no'' for "not" (''Am I no invited?''). The touchstone is whether the speaker would feel comfortable using these in a very formal situation.
1. "The SCOTS Corpus contains documents in Scottish Standard English, documents in different varieties of Scots, and documents which may be described as lying somewhere between Scots and Scottish Standard English.", Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
2. "... Scottish Standard English, the standard form of the English language spoken in Scotland", Ordnance Survey
★ Languages of Scotland, Abercrombie, D., , , Chambers, 1979,
★ Aitken, A. J. (1979) "Scottish speech: a historical view with special reference to the Standard English of Scotland" in A. J. Aitken and Tom McArthur eds. Languages of Scotland, Edinburgh: Chambers, 85-118. Updated in next.
★ Edinburgh Student Companion to Scots, Corbett, John, J. Derrick McClure, and Jane Stuart-Smith (eds.), , , Edinburgh University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7486-1596-2
★ Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles, Foulkes, Paul; & Docherty, Gerard. J. (Eds.), , , Arnold, 1999, ISBN 0-340-70608-2
★ Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in Transported Dialects, Macafee, C., , , CUP, 2004,
★ English Accents and Dialects (4th Ed.), Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. (Eds.), , , Arnold, 2005, ISBN 0-340-88718-4
★ Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles, Scobbie, James M., Nigel Hewlett, and Alice Turk, , , Arnold, 1999,
★ Accents of English, Wells, John C., , , Cambridge University Press, 1982, ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3)
★ Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
★ Languages in the United Kingdom
★ Dialect
★ Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech - Multimedia corpus of Scots and Scottish English
★ The Speech Science Research Centre at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh.
★ Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of Scottish English and other regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
| Contents |
| Background |
| Lexis |
| Phonology |
| Grammar and syntax |
| Idiom |
| Scots and Scottish English |
| References |
| See also |
| External links |
Background
Scottish English is the result of language contact between Scots and English after the 17th century (dialect contact may be more accurate in that the indigenous language Lowland Scots was a related variety).
The resulting shift to English by Scots-speakers resulted in many phonological compromises and lexical transfers, often mistaken for mergers by linguists unfamiliar with the history of Scottish English (Macafee, 2004). Furthermore, the process was also influenced by interdialectal forms, hypercorrections and spelling pronunciations. (See Phonology below.)
The standard spelling, grammar, and punctuation of Scottish English tend to follow the style of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). However, there are some unique characteristics, mainly in the phonological and phonetic systems, many of which originate in the country's two autochthonous languages, the Scottish Gaelic language and Scots. The speech of the middle classes in Scotland often conforms to the grammatical norms of the written standard, particularly in situations that are regarded as formal. Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by a Gaelic substratum.
Lexis
An example of "outwith" on a sign in Scotland
Scottish English has a number of lexical items which are rare in other forms of standard English.
General items are ''outwith'', meaning outside of; ''pinkie'' for little finger; and ''wee'', the Scots word for small (which also occurs in Hiberno-English).
Culturally specific items like ''caber'', ''haggis'', and ''landward'' for rural.
In some areas there is a substantial non-standard lexis (shared with Scots) apparently acquired from the Romany language and from Eastern European languages; examples include ''gadge'' (lad, chap) and ''peeve'' (alcoholic drink).
There is a wide range of (often anglicised) legal and administrative vocabulary inherited from Scots, e.g., ''depute'' for ''deputy'', ''proven'' for ''proved'', ''interdict'' for ''injunction'' and ''sheriff substitute'' for ''acting sheriff''.
Often, lexical differences between Scottish English and Southern Standard English are simply differences in the distribution of shared lexis, such as ''stay'' for "live" (as in: ''where do you stay?''); ''doubt'' for "think the worst" (''I doubt it will rain'' meaning "I fear it will rain").
''Correct'' is often preferred to ''right'' (meaning "morally right" or "just") when the speaker means "factually accurate".
Phonology
While pronunciation features vary among speakers (depending on region and social status), there are a number of phonological aspects characteristic of Scottish English:
★ Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning is pronounced in the syllable coda. As with Standard English (RP), may be an alveolar approximant (, although it is also common that a speaker will use an alveolar tap . Less common is use of the alveolar trill (hereafter,
★
★ While other dialects have merged , , before , Scottish English makes a distinction between the vowels in ''herd'', ''bird'', and ''curd''.
★
★ Many varieties contrast and before so that ''hoarse'' and ''horse'' are pronounced differently.
★
★ and are contrasted so that ''shore'' and ''sure'' are pronounced differently, as are ''pour'' and ''poor''.
★ There is a distinction between and (also analyzed as in word pairs such as ''witch'' and ''which''
★ The phoneme is common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and Scots borrowings, so much so that it is often taught to incomers, particularly for "ch" in loch. Some Scottish speakers use it in words of Greek origin as well, such as technical, patriarch, etc. (Wells 1982, 408).
★ is usually velarized (see dark l). In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until recently (such as Dumfries and Galloway, velarization may be absent.
★ Vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic, although a distinctive part of Scottish English is the Scots vowel length rule (Scobbie et al. 1999). Certain vowels (such as , , and are generally long but are shortened before nasals and voiced plosives. However, this does not occur across morpheme boundaries so that ''crude'' contrasts with ''crewed'', ''need'' with ''kneed'' and ''side'' with ''sighed''.
★ Scottish English has no , instead transferring Scots . Phonetically, this vowel may be more front, being pronounced as or even . Thus ''pull'' and ''pool'' are homophones.
★ ''Cot'' and ''caught'' are not differentiated as in some other dialects.
★ /θs/ is often used in plural nouns where southern English has /ðz/ (baths, youths, etc). ''with'' is pronounced with θ. (See Pronunciation of English th.)
★ In colloquial speech (especially among young males), the glottal stop may be an allophone of after a vowel, as in . These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix ''-ing'' and debuccalize to in certain contexts.
Grammar and syntax
Syntactical differences are few though the progressive verb forms are used rather more frequently than in other varieties of standard English, for example with some stative verbs (''I'm wanting a drink''). The future progressive frequently implies an assumption (''You'll be coming from Glasgow'').
Prepositions are often used differently. Most Scots would say ''different from'' where in the south there is a strong preference for ''different to''. The compound preposition ''off of'' is often used parallel to English ''into'' (''Take that off of the table'').
Idiom
In colloquial speech ''shall'' and ''ought'' are wanting, ''must'' is marginal for obligation and ''may'' is rare. Many syntactical features of SSE are found in other forms of English, e.g. English English and North American English:
★ ''Can I come too?'' or ''Can I come as well?' for "May I come too?"
★ ''Have you got any?'' for "Do you have any?"
★ ''I've got one of those already.'' for "I have one of those already."
★ ''It's your shot.'' for "It's your turn."
★ ''My hair is needing washed.'' or ''My hair needs washed'' for "My hair needs washing."
★ ''Amn't I invited?'' for "Am I not invited?"
★ ''How no?'' for "Why not?"
★ ''What age are you?'' for "How old are you?"
The use of "How?" meaning "Why?" is distinctive of Scottish , Northern English and Northern Irish English.
Note that in Scottish English, the first person declarative ''I amn't invited'' and interrogative "Amn't I invited?" are both possible. Contrast English English, which has "Aren't I?" but no contracted declarative form. (All varieties have "I'm not invited".)
Scots and Scottish English
As many Scots use both Scots and Scottish English depending on the situation, there is a strong influence of Scots, and sometimes it is difficult to say whether a Scots form also belongs to Scottish English or whether its occasional appearence in Scottish English is simply code-switching. Borderline examples might be ''aye'' for "yes", ''ken'' for "know", or ''no'' for "not" (''Am I no invited?''). The touchstone is whether the speaker would feel comfortable using these in a very formal situation.
References
1. "The SCOTS Corpus contains documents in Scottish Standard English, documents in different varieties of Scots, and documents which may be described as lying somewhere between Scots and Scottish Standard English.", Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
2. "... Scottish Standard English, the standard form of the English language spoken in Scotland", Ordnance Survey
★ Languages of Scotland, Abercrombie, D., , , Chambers, 1979,
★ Aitken, A. J. (1979) "Scottish speech: a historical view with special reference to the Standard English of Scotland" in A. J. Aitken and Tom McArthur eds. Languages of Scotland, Edinburgh: Chambers, 85-118. Updated in next.
★ Edinburgh Student Companion to Scots, Corbett, John, J. Derrick McClure, and Jane Stuart-Smith (eds.), , , Edinburgh University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7486-1596-2
★ Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles, Foulkes, Paul; & Docherty, Gerard. J. (Eds.), , , Arnold, 1999, ISBN 0-340-70608-2
★ Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in Transported Dialects, Macafee, C., , , CUP, 2004,
★ English Accents and Dialects (4th Ed.), Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. (Eds.), , , Arnold, 2005, ISBN 0-340-88718-4
★ Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles, Scobbie, James M., Nigel Hewlett, and Alice Turk, , , Arnold, 1999,
★ Accents of English, Wells, John C., , , Cambridge University Press, 1982, ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3)
See also
★ Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
★ Languages in the United Kingdom
★ Dialect
External links
★ Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech - Multimedia corpus of Scots and Scottish English
★ The Speech Science Research Centre at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh.
★ Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of Scottish English and other regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
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psst.. try this: add to faves
