Scottish English

Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots depending on the observer.^[1]

The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English^[2][3] or Standard Scottish English.^[4][5] However, Scottish English does have some distinctive vocabulary, particularly pertaining to Scottish institutions such as the Church of Scotland, local government and the education and legal systems.

Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with focused broad Scots at the other.^[6] Scottish English may be influenced to varying degrees by Scots.^[1][7] Many Scots speakers separate Scots and Scottish English as different registers depending on social circumstances.^[8] Some speakers code switch clearly from one to the other while others style shift in a less predictable and more fluctuating manner.^[8] Generally there is a shift to Scottish English in formal situations or with individuals of a higher social status.^[9]

Background

Scottish English is the result of language contact between Scots and the Standard English of England after the 17th century. 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.^[10] Furthermore, the process was also influenced by interdialectal forms, hypercorrections and spelling pronunciations.^[11] (See Phonology below.)

Phonology

The speech of the middle classes in Scotland tends to conform 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.

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 /r/ is pronounced in the syllable coda. As with Received Pronunciation, /r/ may be an alveolar approximant [ɹ], although it is also common that a speaker will use an alveolar tap [ɾ]. Less common is use of the alveolar trill [r] (hereafter, <r> will be used to denote any rhotic consonant).
  • While other dialects have merged /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ʌ/ before /r/, Scottish English makes a distinction between the vowels in herd, bird, and curd.
  • Many varieties contrast /o/ and /ɔ/ before /r/ so that hoarse and horse are pronounced differently.
  • /or/ and /ur/ are contrasted so that shore and sure are pronounced differently, as are pour and poor.
  • /r/ before /l/ is strong. An epenthetic vowel may occur between /r/ and /l/ so that girl and world are two-syllable words for some speakers. The same may occur between /r/ and /m/, between /r/ and /n/, and between /l/ and /m/.
• There is a distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in word pairs such as witch and which.
• The phoneme /x/ 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. The pronunciation of these words in the original Greek would support this. (Wells 1982, 408).
• /l/ is usually velarized (see dark l) except in borrowings like "glen" (from Scottish Gaelic "gleann") which had unvelarized l in their original form. In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until relatively recently (such as Dumfries and Galloway) and in areas where it is still spoken (such as the West Highlands), velarization of /l/ may be absent in many words in which it is present in other areas, but remains in borrowings that had velarized /l/ in Gaelic, such as "loch" (Gaelic "loch") and "clan" (Gaelic "clann").
• 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 /i/, /u/, and /æ/ 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 /ʊ/, instead transferring Scots /u/. Phonetically, this vowel may be pronounced [ʉ] or even [ʏ]. Thus pull and pool are homophones.
• Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish varieties, as they are in some other varieties.^[12]
• In most varieties, there is no /æ/-/ɑː/ distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel.^[12]
• The happY vowel is most commonly /e/ (as in face), but may also be /ɪ/ (as in kit) or /i/ (as in fleece).^[13]
• /θs/ is often used in plural nouns where southern English has /ðz/ (baths, youths, etc); with and booth are pronounced with /θ/. (See Pronunciation of English th.)
• In colloquial speech, the glottal stop may be an allophone of /t/ after a vowel, as in [ˈbʌʔər]. These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix -ing and debuccalize /θ/ to [h] in certain contexts.
• /ɪ/ may be more open for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like [ɛ] (although /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ do not merge). Other speakers may pronounce it as [ɪ], just like in many other accents, or with a schwa-like ([ə]) quality. Others may pronounce it almost as [ʌ] in certain environments, particularly after /w/ and /hw/.

Correspondence between the IPA help key and Scottish English vowels (many individual words do not correspond)

Pure vowels
Help key	Scottish	Examples
/ɪ/	/ɪ/	bid, pit
/iː/	/i/	bead, peat
/ɛ/	/ɛ/	bed, pet
/eɪ/	/e/	bay, hey, fate
/æ/	/a/	bad, pat
/ɑː/		balm, father, pa
/ɒ/	/ɔ/	bod, pot, cot
/ɔː/		bawd, paw, caught
/oʊ/	/o/	beau, hoe, poke
/ʊ/	/ʉ/	good, foot, put
/uː/		booed, food
/ʌ/	/ʌ/	bud, putt
Diphthongs
/аɪ/	/ae/ ~ /əi/	buy, ride, write
/aʊ/	/ʌu/	how, pout
/ɔɪ/	/oi/	boy, hoy
/juː/	/jʉ/	hue, pew, new
R-colored vowels (these do not exist in Scots)
/ɪr/	/ɪr/	mirror (also in fir)
/ɪər/	/ir/	beer, mere
/ɛr/	/ɛr/	berry, merry (also in her)
/ɛər/	/er/	bear, mare, Mary
/ær/	/ar/	barrow, marry
/ɑr/		bar, mar
/ɒr/	/ɔr/	moral, forage
/ɔr/		born, for
/ɔər/	/or/	boar, four, more
/ʊər/	/ur/	boor, moor
/ʌr/	/ʌr/	hurry, Murray (also in fur)
/ɜr/ (ɝ)	/ɪr/, /ɛr/, /ʌr/	bird, herd, furry
Reduced vowels
/ɨ/		roses, business
/ə/	/ə/	Rosa’s, cuppa
/ər/ (ɚ)	/ər/	runner, mercer

Scotticisms

Scotticisms are idioms or expressions that are characteristic of Scots.^[14] They are more likely to occur in spoken than written language.^[15]

Scotticisms are generally divided into two types:^[16] covert Scotticisms, which generally go unnoticed as being particularly Scottish by those using them, and overt Scotticisms, usually used for stylistic effect, with those using them aware of their Scottish nature.

Lexical

An example of "outwith" on a sign in Scotland

Scottish English has inherited a number of lexical items from Scots,^[17] which are comparatively rare in other forms of standard English.

General items are outwith, meaning "outside of"; wee, the Scots word for small (also common in New Zealand English); pinkie for little finger and janitor for caretaker (pinkie and janitor are standard in American English). Examples of culturally specific items are caber, haggis, teuchter, ned and landward for rural; It's your shot for "It's your turn".

The use of "How?" meaning "Why?" is distinctive of Scottish, Northern English and Northern Irish English. "Why not?" is often rendered as "How not?".

There is a range of (often anglicised) legal and administrative vocabulary inherited from Scots^[18] e.g. depute /ˈdɛpjut/ for deputy, proven /ˈproːvən/ for proved (standard in American English), 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?).

Grammatical

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).

In some areas perfect aspect of a verb is indicated using "be" as auxiliary with the preposition "after" and the present participle: for example "He is after going" instead of "He has gone" (this construction is borrowed from Scottish Gaelic).

Prepositions are often used differently. The compound preposition off of is often used (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 language in England and North American English:

• What age are you? for "How old are you?"
• My hair is needing washed or My hair needs washed for "My hair needs washing" or "My hair needs to be washed".
• Amn't I invited? for Am I not invited

Note that in Scottish English, the first person declarative I amn't invited and interrogative Amn't I invited? are both possible. Contrast English language in England, which has Aren't I? but no contracted declarative form. (All varieties have I'm not invited.)

See also

• Dialect
• Diasystem
• Languages of the United Kingdom
• Scots language
• Regional accents of English speakers
• Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech
• Mid Ulster English
• Hiberno-English

References

Bibliography

• Abercrombie, D. (1979). "The accents of Standard English in Scotland.". In In A. J. Aitken & T. McArthur (eds.),. Languages of Scotland. Edinburgh: Chambers. pp. 65–84. 
• 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.
• Corbett, John, J. Derrick McClure, and Jane Stuart-Smith (eds.) (2003). Edinburgh Student Companion to Scots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1596-2. 
• Foulkes, Paul; & Docherty, Gerard. J. (Eds.) (1999). Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-70608-2. 
• Macafee, C. (2004). "Scots and Scottish English.". In Hikey R.(ed.),. Legacies of Colonial English: Studies in Transported Dialects. Cambridge: CUP. 
• Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. (Eds.) (2005). English Accents and Dialects (4th Ed.). London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-88718-4. 
• Scobbie, James M., Nigel Hewlett, and Alice Turk (1999). "Standard English in Edinburgh and Glasgow: The Scottish Vowel Length Rule revealed.". In Paul Foulkes & Gerard J. Docherty (eds.),. Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. London: Arnold. pp. 230–245. 
• Scobbie, James M., Olga B. Gordeeva, and Benjamin Matthews (2007). "Scottish English Speech Acquisition.". In Sharynne McLeod (ed.),. The International Guide to Speech Acquisition.. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning. pp. 221–240. 
• Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22919-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 0-521-24224-X (vol. 2), ISBN 0-521-24225-8 (vol. 3). 

External links

• Listen to BBC Radio Scotland Live (many presenters, such as Robbie Shepherd, have a noticeable Scottish accent)
• 'Hover & Hear' pronunciations in a Standard Scottish accent, and compare side by side with other English accents from Scotland and around the World.
• BBC Voices - Listen to a lot of the voice recordings from many parts of the UK
• 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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