LL-L "Orthography" 2002.01.24 (01) [E/S]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 24.JAN.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: "Andy Eagle" <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: "Orthography" [E/S]

Margaret Tarbet wrote:

> Jings, Sandy, ye're a hard taskmayster :-)   The 'either' spelling
> was only me being captured by English orthography--I saw it right
> after I clicked send, of course :-].   'ayther' or 'eyther' would
> have been my choice--the sound is midway between what those
> spellings seem to represent, to me.  'Aither' would be a more
> conventional choice, I suppose, in the same way 'staun' and 'haun'
> would have been, but they seem 'ower strang', for some reason.   I
> don't know the IPA symbology or its ascii mapping, so I'm afraid I
> can't narrow it down that way.

The 'usual' (this is just my impression) spelling is <ai> representing the
underlying phoneme pronounced variously from /E/ to /e/.
To me <ay> and <ey> tend to represent the diphthongs /@i/, /ai/ etc. e.g. ay
(yes), aye (always), gey, stey etc.
There is of course /e/ in day, say etc.

Sandy Fleming replied:

> Whaur fae is your dialeck? Yer clash anent 'either' minds
> me o the Borders 'mei' for 'me' an siclike.

The southern Scots 'yow and mye'  for 'you and me' is only (root)word final.

Other Scots dialects pronounce the underlying phoneme /u:/ e.g. allou, dou,
cou, brou, hou, nou, sou, you, fou, oo
Southern Scots pronounces the underlying phoneme /^u/ like 'ow' in Eng. cow.
Some people of course use the spelling <oo>

Other Scots dialects pronounce the underlying phoneme /i:/, sometimes /e:/
(usually spelled <ea>) e.g. sea, see, knee, free, dee, dree
Southern Scots pronounces the underlying phoneme /@i/ like 'ey' in Eng. eye.
>
> A think in the case o 'staun' an 'haun', 'stan' an 'han'
> wad be better spellins, tho 'cauld' an 'auld' better spelt
> they wey they aye is - dis that soond richt tae you? The
> thing is the the soond o 'stan' an 'han' is kin o hauf
> roads atween the English soond in thae wirds, an Scots
> writers disna like tae leuk ower English on paper, sae
> they spell it different juist for the sake o bein different.
> But 'stan' an 'han' wad be better, A dout.

<au> is just a 'traditional' Scots graphemeic representation of the
underlying phoneme pronounced variously
from dialect to dialect.
Similarly with final <nd>. In many dialects the <d> is of course silent. But
often reapears in derived forms e.g. /han/ - /handIt/ (haund - haundit)
or emphatic speech.

Andy Eagle

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