Scottish English



Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language. The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English, often abbreviated to SSE. SSE may be defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools."

In addition to distinct pronunciation, grammar and expressions, Scottish English has 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. Scottish English may be influenced to varying degrees by Scots. Many Scots speakers separate Scots and Scottish English as different registers depending on social circumstances. Some speakers code switch clearly from one to the other while others style shift in a less predictable and more fluctuating manner. Generally there is a shift to Scottish English in formal situations or with individuals of a higher social status.

Background
Scottish English results from language contact between Scots and the Standard English of England after the 17th century. The resulting shifts to English usage by Scots-speakers resulted in many phonological compromises and lexical transfers, often mistaken for mergers by linguists unfamiliar with the history of Scottish English. Furthermore, the process was also influenced by interdialectal forms, hypercorrections and spelling pronunciations. (See the section on phonology below.)

History
The influence of the English of England upon Scots is conventionally traced to the Reformation and the introduction of printing. Texts such as the Geneva Bible, printed in English, were widely distributed in Scotland in order to spread Protestant doctrine.

King James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603. Since England was the larger and richer of the two Kingdoms, James moved his court to London in England. The poets of the court therefore moved south and "began adapting the language and style of their verse to the tastes of the English market". To this event McClure attributes "[t]he sudden and total eclipse of Scots as a literary language". The continuing absence of a Scots translation of the Bible meant that the translation of King James into English was used in worship in both countries.

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 is pronounced in the syllable coda.  As with Received Pronunciation,  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.
 * before is strong. An epenthetic vowel may occur between  and  so that girl and world are two-syllable words for some speakers. The same may occur between  and, between  and , and between  and.
 * There is a distinction between and  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. The pronunciation of these words in the original Greek would support this. (Wells 1982, 408).
 * 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  may be absent in many words in which it is present in other areas, but remains in borrowings that had velarized  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, , 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 pronounced  or even . Thus pull and pool are homophones.
 * Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish varieties, as they are in some other varieties.
 * In most varieties, there is no - distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel.
 * The happY vowel is most commonly (as in face), but may also be  (as in kit) or  (as in fleece).
 * is often used in plural nouns where southern English has (baths, youths, etc.); with and booth are pronounced with .  (See Pronunciation of English th.)
 * In colloquial speech, 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.
 * may be more open for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like (although  and  do not merge).  Other speakers may pronounce it as, just like in many other accents, or with a schwa-like  quality.  Others may pronounce it almost as  in certain environments, particularly after  and.


 * {| class="IPA wikitable" style="margin: 1em 2em"

! colspan="3"| Pure vowels ! Help key !! Scottish !! Examples ! colspan="3" | Diphthongs ! colspan="3" | R-colored vowels (these do not exist in Scots) ! colspan="3" | Reduced vowels
 * + Correspondence between the IPA help key and Scottish English vowels (many individual words do not correspond)
 * || ||bid, pit
 * || || bead, peat
 * || || bed, pet
 * || || bay, hey, fate
 * || rowspan=2 | || bad, pat
 * || balm, father, pa
 * || rowspan=2 | || bod, pot, cot
 * || bawd, paw, caught
 * || || beau, hoe, poke
 * || rowspan=2 | || good, foot, put
 * || booed, food
 * || || bud, putt
 * || rowspan=2 | || bod, pot, cot
 * || bawd, paw, caught
 * || || beau, hoe, poke
 * || rowspan=2 | || good, foot, put
 * || booed, food
 * || || bud, putt
 * || rowspan=2 | || good, foot, put
 * || booed, food
 * || || bud, putt
 * || booed, food
 * || || bud, putt
 * || || bud, putt
 * || || buy, ride, write
 * || || how, pout
 * || || boy, hoy
 * || || hue, pew, new
 * || || boy, hoy
 * || || hue, pew, new
 * || || hue, pew, new
 * || || hue, pew, new
 * || || mirror (also in fir)
 * || || beer, mere
 * || || berry, merry (also in her)
 * || || bear, mare, Mary
 * || rowspan=2 | || barrow, marry
 * || bar, mar
 * || rowspan=2 | || moral, forage
 * || born, for
 * || || boar, four, more
 * || || boor, moor
 * || || hurry, Murray (also in fur)
 * || || bird, herd, furry
 * || rowspan=2 | || moral, forage
 * || born, for
 * || || boar, four, more
 * || || boor, moor
 * || || hurry, Murray (also in fur)
 * || || bird, herd, furry
 * || || boor, moor
 * || || hurry, Murray (also in fur)
 * || || bird, herd, furry
 * || || hurry, Murray (also in fur)
 * || || bird, herd, furry
 * || || bird, herd, furry
 * || || roses, business
 * || || Rosa’s, cuppa
 * || || runner, mercer
 * }
 * || || runner, mercer
 * }
 * }

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


 * I'll see you up the road meaning "I'll come with you some of the way" or "I'll see you back at home"
 * I'm going for the messages meaning "I'm going to shop for groceries."
 * Are you thinking of flitting? meaning "Are you thinking of moving house?"
 * Aye, right! meaning "definitely not!" (The phrase "Yeah, right!" is used similarly in American english)

Scotticisms are generally divided into two types: 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
Scottish English has inherited a number of lexical items from Scots, 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 also 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 no?".

There is a range of (often anglicised) legal and administrative vocabulary inherited from Scots e.g. depute for deputy, proven  for proved (standard in American English), interdict for injunction and sheriff substitute for acting sheriff. In Scottish education a short leet is a list of selected job applicants, and a remit is a detailed job description.

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).

Speakers often use prepositions differently. The compound preposition off of is often used (Take that off of the table). Scots commonly say I was waiting on you (meaning "waiting for you"), which means something quite different in Standard English.

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.)