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Benjamin C. Shavitz Stony Brook University Writing Systems Spring 2016
Awbodie Kens Inglis
(Everybody Knows English):
The Modified English Approach to Writing Modern Scots
1. Introduction: More of an Approach than a System
Scots is a variety of language spoken in lowland Scotland. It is a descendant of the form of Old English spoken by the Anglo-Saxons who settled in what is now south-east Scotland in the seventh century CE (Stuart-Smith 2004: 47-48). As such, it bears many similarities to
Standard English. These similarities lead some to consider Scots a dialect of English. Others, however, consider Scots to be a separate language (Wilson 2012: 8). This paper will treat Scots as a language for the purposes of simplicity of terminology, but as the distinction between a dialect and a language is often more political than linguistic, it is important to bear in mind that this paper’s classification is somewhat arbitrary and that Scots and Modern English are very closely related. Scots and English are so closely related, in fact, that 1) they share or approximately share a vast number of lexical items, and 2) the speech of Scottish lowlanders tends to exist and move along a continuum that is bounded by Scots at one end and Scottish
Standard English at the other. Scottish Standard English (SSE) is effectively Standard English spoken with a Scottish accent. Many lowlanders can speak both Scots and SSE and their speech often falls somewhere in between the pure forms of the two (Stuart-Smith 2004: 47). Scots has several broad dialects, each of which differs, at least slightly, in syntax, pronunciation, and/or B. Shavitz 2 lexicon from the other dialects and from Scottish Standard English. These dialects, based on region, are called: Southern Scots, Central Scots, Northern Scots, and Insular Scots (Stuart-Smith
2004: 47).
There is no standard writing system for modern Scots, though the major writing systems employed all use the Roman alphabet and the spacing and direction of English writing (Scottish
Language Dictionaries 2016: Spelling). There are three main approaches taken by Scots writers:
1) Traditional: Scots spelling is based on the spelling principles employed by Scots writers
in earlier eras during which Scots had official status as the language of Scotland but
modified occasionally to enhance agreement with the modern Scots language. This
system might render the Scots word /hus/1 ‘house’ as
2) Radical: Scots spelling is based on a system that stresses simplicity and internal
consistency without any concern for maintaining a resemblance to any other spelling
system. This system might render /hus/ ‘house’ as
3) Modified English: Scots spelling is based on the spelling principles employed for writing
modern English but modified to enhance agreement with modern Scots pronunciations.
This system might render /hus/ ‘house’ as
(Wilson 2012: 11-12)
The purpose of this paper is to describe the modified English approach. The modified
English system uses the modern English signary (the Roman letters and diacritical marks
used by modern English writers) and is based, at its roots, on modern English orthography
(SSE word structures, SSE sound-to-symbol correspondences, and SSE spellings of some
1 Pronunciations in this paper are based on the Dictionary of the Scots Language and/or SLD’s Scots Spelling guide, both hosted online by Scottish Language Dictionaries. B. Shavitz 3
words shared by Scots and English) (Wilson 2012: 11). The basic approach to writing a Scots
word in the modified English system consists of two steps:
1) The word is composed mentally in correspondence with the principles of English
spelling. If the Scots word also exists in English, the spelling may be exactly the same as
the English spelling, even if the English spelling does not reflect the phonology of the
word. This step leads to some words being partially morphographic since the spelling is
based on an English-based sign of meaning, rather than phonology.
2) The English-derived base spelling is modified to reflect (often only partially), the Scots
pronunciation of the word. This modification helps to align the final spelling with both
the Scots deep phonological representation of the word and the individual writer’s
regional, shallow phonetic (surface) representation of the word. The surface agreement
element of the modification causes final spellings to vary depending on the dialect of the
writer. Even so, the deep representation is still often indicated in the spelling. Thus, the
approach employs both deep and shallow phonography.
The end result of the modified English approach is an unstandardized spelling “system” with
morphographic, deep phonographic, and shallow phonographic elements that is more
phonographic than modern English spelling but far from the phonographic consistency of
Spanish writing. Since the final Scots spellings are inconsistent, based on judgment calls, and
vary from writer to writer, terming the modified English method of Scots writing a writing
“system,” as our course title encourages would be somewhat misleading. It is really more of
an approach. And, thus, such has it been labelled in this paper.
B. Shavitz 4
2. Generating the Base Spelling: Scots Phonology
The first step in forming a modified English spelling for a Scots word is to generate an intermediate base spelling by determining how someone writing Standard Scottish English would spell the word. Part of this process involves identifying whether the Scots word in question is shared either in its entirety or in individual morphemes with SSE. If there is overlap, the writer generally takes the English spelling of the shared word or morphemes and transfers it directly into the base spelling. For lexical items and morphemes not shared with English, the writer must translate the sounds of the Scots word or morphemes into corresponding Scottish
Standard English sounds and then compose the base spelling from those English sounds using the principles of modern English spelling. Thus, to generate base spellings for non-shared words and morphemes, a writer must be aware of Scots-to-SSE sound correspondences, a matter complicated somewhat by the fact that any given writer will be writing in one of several dialects of Scots. A Scots speaker will know more or less how his dialect’s sounds translate to the sounds of SSE since, as is stated in the introduction, Scots speakers tend to move their speech along a continuum that terminates on one end with Scots and the other end with SSE. The linguist interested in how Scots writing works may not, however, be familiar with the phonological details of Scots and their relation to SSE, so this section will provide a summary.
Most of the sound variation among the dialects of Scots and between Scots and Scottish
Standard English occurs in the vowels. Following are two tables that illustrate several of the
Scots and SSE vowel inventories and correspondences. English RP (Received Pronunciation), the standard middle-class accent of England, is also included for benefit of comparison. The two tables can be compared using the keywords in the left-hand column of each one. In addition to B. Shavitz 5 the vowels in the tables, the overall Scots vowel inventory may also contain the mid front rounded vowel /ø/ and the diphthong /aɪ/ (Scottish Language Dictionaries 2016: Vowels).
Table 1: Scots, SSE, and RP Vowel Inventories and Correspondences
(Taken from Stuart-Smith 2003: 116, Table 6.1)
(The Glasgow Scots in this table differs from the Scots varieties in the following table, but the keywords in the left-hand columns of the tables allow for comparison.)
(↔ indicates vowel alternation.)
Keyword Scots (Glasgow) SSE RP MEET i i i i BEAT i i i i (DEAD) i i ↔ ɛ ɛ ɛ MATE e e e eɪ (BOTH) e e ↔ o o əʊ BAIT e e e eɪ PAY əi əi ↔ e e eɪ BOOT ɪ ɪ ↔ ʉ ʉ u DO e e ↔ ʉ ʉ u BIT ɪ ɪ ɪ ɪ BET ɛ ɛ ɛ ɛ OUT ʉ ʉ ↔ ʌʉ ʌʉ aʊ COAT o o o əʊ COT o o ↔ ɔ ɔ ɒ (OFF) a a ↔ ɔ ɔ ɒ CAT a a a a (LONG) a a ↔ ɔ ɔ ɒ (WASH) a a ↔ ɔ ɔ ɒ HAND ɔ ɔ ↔ a a a START ɛ ɛ ↔ a a a CAUGHT ɔ ɔ ɔ ɔ (SNOW) ɔ ɔ ↔ o o əʊ CUT ʌ ʌ ʌ ʌ (PULL) ʌ ʌ ↔ ʉ ʉ ʊ NEW/DEW jʉ jʉ jʉ ju B. Shavitz 6
Table 1 (continued): Scots, SSE, and RP Vowel Inventories and Correspondences
Keyword Scots (Glasgow) SSE RP BITE əi əi əi aɪ TRY ae ae ae aɪ EYE i i ↔ ae ae aɪ LOIN əi əi ↔ oe oe ɔɪ VOICE oe oe oe ɔɪ LOUP ‘jump’ ʌʉ ʌʉ (ʌʉ) -
Table 2: Central Scots, Southern Scots, and Northern Scots Vowel Inventories and
Correspondences
(Taken from Stuart-Smith 2004: 55-56, Table 3)
Central Scots Southern Scots Northern Scots MEET i i i, ɪi TREE i ɛi i, ɪi BEAT i i e, ɛi, i MATE e e e, i BAIT e e e BOOT ɛ̈ ɛ̈ i, e DO e e iː, ɪi, eː BIT ɛ̈ ɛ̈ ɛ̈ , ɪ, ɜ BET ɛ̝ æ, a e ~ ɛ OUT ʉ ʉ u, ü, ʉ COW ʉ, ʌʉ ʌʉ ʊu, u COAT o o o, ou COT o o ɔ, ɒ CAT a, ɑ, ɒ ɒ, ɑ, a ɑ, ɒ, ɔ, a CAUGHT ɔ ɑ, ɒ, ɔ ɑ, ɒ, ɔ, a CUT ʌ ʌ ʌ, ɐ, ɜ, ɔ NEW jʉ jʉ, iu, iʉ jʉ, ju DEW jʉ jʉ ju BITE əi, ɛ̈ i əi, ɛ̈ i ʌi, ɛi, əi TRY ae ae, ɐe ɑe, ae ~ ɐe LOIN əi, ɛ̈ i oe ʌi, ɛi, əi VOICE oe oe ʌi, ɛi, əi, oe, ɒi LOUP ‘jump’ əʉ, ʌʉ, ʌu əʉ ɛʏ, əu, əʉ B. Shavitz 7
The consonant inventories of Scots and SSE are identical to one another. These two
Scottish varieties are also almost identical to the consonant inventories of English RP and
American Standard English. The only difference is that Scots and SSE include the voiceless velar fricative /x/ and the voiceless labiovelar approximant /ʍ/ in addition to the American
Standard and RP consonants (Stuart-Smith 2003: 124). Some of the consonants of Scots are realized (in some or all contexts) at a surface level as variant allophones that differ from their deep phonological representations. In Scots, /l/ is usually realized as the velarized /ɫ/ in all positions; /t/ is often realized as the glottal stop /ʔ/ in non-initial positions; and /r/ is frequently realized as either the alveolar tap /ɾ/, the retroflex approximant /ɻ/, or the alveolar approximant /ɹ/ depending on the tendency of the speaker (Stuart-Smith 2004: 60-63). These realization variants are not represented in any way in modified English Scots spelling. Modified English Scots spelling is thus partly a deep orthography, representing underlying mental sound patterns rather than surface-level realizations of pronunciation.
Scots stress is unpredictable from the writing alone. Stress in Scots patterns very closely to stress in English, however, so if a reader can identify a similarity between a written Scots word and an English word, the reader can use the English stress pattern as the basis for a guess at the Scots stress. That said, certain prefixes, such as
2004: viii). This morpheme-based stress prediction phenomenon adds an element of morphography to the modified English spelling approach, since it requires readers to identify morphemes before they can achieve correct pronunciation. B. Shavitz 8
The sound correspondences discussed in this section indicate the basis for sound-to- spelling correspondence in the first step of writing a Scots word using the modified English approach. This first step can be represented graphically as follows:
Figure 1: Step One of the Modified English Approach
Morphology Shared with English
Scots English-based Word Spelling (Base) Corresponding Scots English Phonology Phonology
This process produces a base spelling with a loose sound-to-spelling correspondence that leaves considerable room for improvement.
3. Crafting the Final Spelling: Modification
The second step in generating a spelling for a Scots word using the modified English approach, the modification step, is to adjust the base spelling to achieve a more accurate sound- to-spelling correspondence (Wilson 2012: 11). This second step is applied at the writer’s discretion to differentiate words shared by Scots and Scottish Standard English but pronounced differently in the two languages, make Scots-only words thus far written according to English spelling principles more closely reflect Scots pronunciation, and generally represent sounds more clearly in spelling. Step Two is also sometimes used to bring English-based spellings into accordance with Scots morphology. B. Shavitz 9
Many methods are employed by writers during the modification step. The modification step is a creative process, making it impossible to enumerate all the techniques that could possibly be employed as part of its implementation. What follows is a discussion of some major techniques used for the modification step.
Some Scots writers have historically inserted apostrophes into words that Scots shares with English but which, in the Scots version, lack a sound that exists in the English version for the purposes of indicating a “missing” letter. The foundation of this practice is the idea that Scots is a bastardized form of English and that any “missing” letter of this sort is supposed to be present but has not been included due its “omission” in the Scots language. For modern Scots writing, however, it is recommended that no such apologetic apostrophes be included in spellings
(Scots Language Society 1985: 3). Thus the word /ˈʌu.ər/ ‘over’ should be written
English words marks a move away from the English-recognition-based morphography utilized in
Step One.
The technique that constitutes the heart of the modification step is the adjustment of spellings on a letter level for the purpose of representing the sounds of Scots words more accurately. Some common sound-to-spelling correspondences used in modification are summarized in the following table. The spellings in the table can be imposed on base spellings generated in Step One in order to indicate Scots pronunciations.
B. Shavitz 10
Table 3: Sound-to-spelling correspondences for modification
(Adapted from Scottish Language Dictionaries 2016: Vowels, Consonants, and Macleod &
Cairns 2004: vii)
Phoneme Potential Spellings Examples /ɔ/ or /ɑ/ <-au->
These spelling configurations are sometimes imposed on base spellings to represent Scots sounds as they are realized in the local dialect of the writer (Robinson 2012: 7) and sometimes B. Shavitz 11 imposed to represent underlying phonological representations (at surface level, the
/gəit/ [geiʔ] represents a glottal stop, not an alveolar one). Thus, this portion of the modification step moves the modified English approach away from morphography and toward phonography in an inconsistent manner that yields an orthography that is deep in some instances and shallow in others. As should be apparent by now, the modified English approach is rather messy.
4. Consequences of the English Basis of the System
The English-spelling basis of the modified English approach has consequences for the end results of the process. Scots words shared by Scots and English that a writer deems to be sufficiently similar to their English counterparts will end up spelled the same as the English words. The Scots word /ʤəin/ ‘join’, for example, spelled
English cognate (Macleod & Cairns 2004: 94). Although its modification step makes it more phonology-based than English orthography, as an English-orthography-based method, the modified English approach to writing Scots is far from perfectly phonological. (The <-e> at the end of
English written Scots is effectively partially morphographic. Often, to identify a modified-
English-written Scots word, a reader must determine its English base first. A reader might find it difficult to identify the Scots word /ˈjez.jəl/ ‘usual’ from the modified English, poorly phonologically representative spelling
Scots is thus required for users of the modified English approach. B. Shavitz 12
5. Conclusion: It Works
The modified English approach to writing Scots involves translating Scots words through
English, another language, to generate base spellings. Then, those base spellings are adjusted in retrospect to make them more accurately reflect the sounds of Scots. Sometimes those sounds are the underlying representations of phonology. Sometimes those sounds are the surface realizations of phonetics. The resulting orthography is naturally inconsistent. There are multiple ways to spell individual words. The approach is used to phonetically represent several different dialects at once. The symbol-to-sound and sound-to-symbol relationships are usually several-to-several.
But, in spite of all this confusion, the modified English approach is functional, especially in the
English-dominated world that sparked its existence in the first place.
B. Shavitz 13
6. References
Macleod, Iseabail & Pauline Cairns (eds.). 2004. The essential Scots dictionary: Scots-English,
English-Scots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Robinson, Christine. 2012. Modren Scots grammar. Edinburgh: Luath Press.
Scots Language Society. 1985. Recommendations for writers in Scots. and.com/poetry/purves/grammer_sls.pdf> [accessed 3 March 2016]. Scottish Language Dictionaries. Dictionary of the Scots language. < http://www.dsl.ac.uk/> [accessed 7 March 2016]. Scottish Language Dictionaries. 2016. Scots spelling. /spelling/index.html> [accessed 3 March 2016]. Stuart-Smith, Jane. 2003. The phonology of modern urban Scots. In The Edinburgh companion to Scots, ed. John Corbett, J. Derrick. McClure & Jane Stuart-Smith, 110–137. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Stuart-Smith, Jane. 2004. Scottish English: phonology. In A Handbook of Varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, ed. Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie & Clive Upton, 47–67. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wilson, L. Colin. 2012. Luath Scots language learner: an introduction to contemporary spoken Scots. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Luath.