The CBB

I will be starting a series of posts here that will aim to give readers an introduction to the Scots language. For those that are unfamiliar with Scots, it is an Anglian language (along with Yola, Fingallian and English) which descends from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. Scots is endangered and right now is on a moribund path unfortunately. I myself am a native speaker of Falkirk Landward, a subdialect of the North-Mid-C dialect which is what these posts will teach. There are a large amount of diverse dialects that exist in pockets throughout the Lowlands with their own innovations (such as vowel harmony in Buchan Scots or OSV word order in FL Scots) and their own archaicisms. I must stress that the dialect shown here will differ from others in various ways which make it hard to understand for other dialects. For this first post I will begin with the orthography and phonology.

Orthography

Scots has 36 phonetic consonants and 24 phonemic consonants which can be seen in this chart: http://imgur.com/UF83o42

There are 13 vowels which can be seen in this chart: http://imgur.com/jghC8k4

Here is a list of each grapheme and their pronounciations:

<a> /a/
<ai> /e/
<au> /ɑ/
<b> /b/ [b~β]
<c> /k/ [k~ç]
<d> /d/ [d~ɖ] retroflex occurs before /r/
<e> /ɛ/
<ei> /i/
<f> /f/
<g> /g/ [g~ʝ]
<h> /h/
<i> /ɪ/
<j> /d͡ʒ/
<k> /ç/ (when phonemic)
<l> /ʟ/ [ʟ~ɫ] (ɫ is a rare phone that only occurs after consonants in words with lots of /ʟ/ and /r/)
<m> /m/
<n> /n/ or /ŋ/ when before /k/
<o> /ɔ/
<ó> /o/
<p> /p/ [p~ɸ]
<quh> /ʍ/
<r> /r/ [r~ɾ]
<s> /s/ [s~ʂ~z~ʐ] (retroflexes occur before /r/ but also occurs in free variation)
<t> /t/ [t~ʈ] (retroflex occurs before /r/) or /ʔ/ when after /r/ /n/ /l/ and after a vowel
<u> /ʌ/
<ú> /ʏ/
<ui> /ø/
<v> /v/
<w> /w/
<y> /ɪ/ (when after /ɛ, ø and ɑ/) or /ə/ (when after a front vowel and before a silibant)
<ȝ> /j/ or when after a vowel it is /Vi/
<þ> /ð/ (when intial)
<ð> /ð/ (when medial)


Not shown in orthography is vowel length, pitch accent and nasality as all are purely phonetic and not phonemic. A vowel will become nasal when it is before or after /n/ or /ŋ/ e.g no [nɔ̃ː] 'no'.

The plosives [t d p b] become [tⁿ dⁿ pⁿ bⁿ] when followed by a nasal consonant:

micht [mɪxt] 'might' > micht nó [mɪxtⁿ noː] 'might not'

ad [ád] 'I would' > ad nó [ádⁿ no:] 'I wouldn't'

i op [ɪ́ ɔ̀p] 'elephant' > i op micht [ɪ́ ɔpⁿ mɪxt] 'the elephant might'

Rab [ràb] 'Rob/Robert' > Rab micht [ràbⁿ mɪxt] 'Rob might'


Vowel Length]

In Scots vowels have no inherint phonemic length with the surrounding environment determining a vowel's length. The conditions for a vowel being long are: before /r/, before a voiced fricative and at the end of an open syllable. One exception to the before /r/ rule is schwa /ə/ when it occurs after a front vowel where said front vowel becomes long instead of schwa. This is because the schwa originated as an epenthetic vowel, before which the front vowel and /r/ were in direct contact.

V→Vː/_{r,ər}, _F[+voice], _$

Lenition


The phones [β, ɸ, ç, ʝ] occur as postvocalic variants of /b, p, k, g/ except when followed by a consonant. I haven't noted [ç] as an allophone on the phonemic chart linked above as it is phonemic in some words such as ceic [kìk] 'to peer' vs ceik [kìç] 'bird shit'. When phonemic [ç] doesn't revert to [k] when followed by a consonant e.g cieks [kìçs] 'bird shit is'

This rule works across word boundaries, so when a noun beginning in /b, p, k, g/ followed by a vowel and takes on a modifier ending in a vowel then this causes lenition:

buic [bø̀ç] 'book' > i buic [ɪ́ βø̀ç] 'the book'
payrtn [pàːə́rʔnˌ] 'crab' > i payrtn [ɪ́ ɸàːərʔnˌ] 'the crab'
cú [kʏ̀ː] 'cow' > i cú [ɪ́ çʏ̀ː] 'the cow'
gait [gèʔ] 'road' > i gait [ɪ́ ʝèʔ] 'the road'

However if the intial consonant is followed by another consonant then this doesn't happen:

breid [brìd] 'bread' > i breid [ɪ́ brìd] 'the bread'
preiyn [prìə́n] 'needle' > i preiyn [ɪ́ prìən]
cro [krɔ̀ː] 'crow' > i cro [ɪ́ krɔ̀ː] 'the crow'
grú [grʏ̀ː] 'horror' > i grú [ɪ́ grʏ̀ː] 'the horror'

Similarly words that end in a vowel followed by /b, p, k, g/ lenite them into [β, ɸ, ç, ʝ] except when followed by a vowel:

buic [bø̀ç] 'book' > buics [bø̀ks] 'books'
bag [bàʝ] 'bag' > bags [bàgs] 'bags'

Note: when word final on a polysyllabic word [p] may avoid becoming [ɸ]. The reason possibly being that this a sound change still in progress and not all words are fully affected in the same way yet.

b, p, k, g →β, ɸ, ç, ʝ/V_!_C)

Pitch Accent

My Falkirk Landward dialect has developed a high/low pitch accent system and although I haven't yet figured out how it originated my current estimate is that it developed the earlier stress system as the initial syllable (which took stress) most often takes the low pitch, plus no sound changes that normaly cause tonogenisis happened. There are two possible pitch patterns that a word may follow which I will refer to as Fixed Pitch and Shifting Pitch respectively.

Fixed Pitch

The Fixed Pitch pattern consists of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words which have a low tone on the first syllable of the stem and a high tone on the second syllable (in polysyllabic words). I named this pattern Fixed Pitch as the pitches do not shift when modifiers are attached:

hús [hʏ̀s] 'house' > i hús [ɪ́ hʏ̀s] 'the house'

tód [tòd] 'fox' > i tód [ɪ́ tòd] 'the fox'


-Polysyllabic words which have a low pitch on their first syllable and a high pitch on the second syllable will lose the high pitch on the second syllable when a modifier is attached e.g

faiður [fèːðʌ́ːr] 'father' > i faiður [ɪ́ fèːðʌːr] 'the father'

duiyr [dø̀ːə́r] 'door' > i duiyr [ɪ́ dø̀ːər] 'the door'

hayn [hàːə́n] 'hand' > i hayn [ɪ́ hàən] 'the hand'


Shifting Pitch

The Shifting Pitch pattern consists of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words which have a high pitch on the first syllable of the stem and low pitch on the second syllable (in polysyllabic words). I named this pattern Shifting Pitch as the pitches shift when modifiers are attached, more specifically the pitch shifts one syllable to the left, for example when used with the proclitic 'i' the high tone shifts to i and the low tone to the first syllable of the stem and the second syllable continues to go lower than the first syllable :

fit [fɪ́ʔ] 'foot' > i fit [ɪ́ fɪ̀ʔ] 'the foot'

bórach [bóràx] 'group' > i bórach [ɪ́ βòrax] 'the group'

aturcap [áʔʌ̀ːrkap] 'spider' > i aturcap [ɪ́ àʔʌːrkap] 'the spider'


This was my post on Scots orthography and phonology. A brief start but more posts will follow!

I would suggest moving this to the existing thread, with your same starting note. I'll delete this post if you choose to move it there, so that you can delete the thread

I've linked this thread else to multiple social media/groups and it would be a hassle to re-link them back to the other thread. I'm the same author of the thread you linked but using old account. It would be easier to delete the old thread and I will post the same information in future posts in a more organised way. Would that be possible?

Can you post voiced samples of these? That would be really helpful for reading through these.

Certainly this spelling beats the wikipedia scots orthography in terms of consistency and pronounceability by a non-native. One thing I'm wondering about is how it copes with all the latin/greek/romance loanwords. Apparently it's not so easy for English orthography reformers to find a good balance between phonemicity and keeping the loanwords (and their internal connections) recognizable. Is it as much of a problem in Scots, too?

pittmirg wrote:Certainly this spelling beats the wikipedia scots orthography in terms of consistency and pronounceability by a non-native. One thing I'm wondering about is how it copes with all the latin/greek/romance loanwords. Apparently it's not so easy for English orthography reformers to find a good balance between phonemicity and keeping the loanwords (and their internal connections) recognizable. Is it as much of a problem in Scots, too?

With this orthography (called SSS or Staunirt Scóts Screivin) all words, loanwords or native, are written using the same spellings as listed above. This is to keep the orthography consistent and to evade exeptions to any spelling rules. Plus Scots has much less loanwords than English and when we loan words we always adapt them to our phonology so the pronounciation even changes which makes it more sense to fit the spelling accordingly. Loans from Latin/French (which were introduced in the Middle Scots period) have since been 'nativised' and they have underwent sound changes since being loaned. However here are examples of loans from English (Which were introduced in modern times to refer to modern technology and such)

tele [tɛ̀ʟɛ́] 'television'
cumpȝútur [kʌ̀mpjʏ́ʔʌːr] 'computer'
mótur [mòʔʌ́ːr] 'car' (from English 'moter')
ceibórd [kìbórd] 'keyboard'
fóte [fòʔɛ́] 'photo'
lece [ʟɛ̀çɛ́] 'electricity'
plug [pʟʌ̀ʝ] 'plug, socket'
vidȝó [vɪ̀djóː] 'video, VCR tape, VCR player'