LL-L "Orthography" 2002.11.03 (06) [E/S]

Sun Nov 3 20:21:41 UTC 2002

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From: Andy (Scots-Online) <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: "Orthography"  [S]

John M. Tait Wrate:

> Here's a phoneme leet, wi my ain spellin practics (foondit on the Spellin
> Comatee anes). This is a maistly non-technical ASCII version, uisin
capitals
> for spellins insteid o bold or <chevrons> (if that's whit ye caa thaim) an
> maistly invertit commas for roch pronunciations. Cause this wis written
for
> Scots, the pronunciation guide is foondit on SSE - Scottish Standard
> English.
<sned>

> Pronunciation and Spelling of Scots Vowel Phonemes.
>
> / / - Underlying phonemes (of Scots seen as a whole)
> [ ] - Broad phonetic approximations
<sned>
> /e/ - as SSE gate, with some dialect variation (such as NE 'steen', stane,
> and 'wyle', wale).
>
> Spelt A-E, e.g. hame, stane, wale.

A jalouse ye ken this oniewey but A thocht A'd gie it a mention for thaim
that mebbes disna.
Taen that a bodie wis willint tae follae the 'convention' abuin ye can pynt
oot that the cluster ANE is pronounced
/i/ in the NE e.g. ane, ance, bane, gane (pt. o gae) stane etc.

The NE diphthong /Ei/, sae faur as A coud feegur (siclike is aiblins ayont
ma ken;-), for ordinar kythes in wirds that micht be written wi AE, A-E or
AE in general Scots efter /w/ an a daurk /l/. This diphthong micht kythe
efter ither consonants an aw e.g. claes, gape, plate, wade, wait, wale, an
wame etc. Its fund in antrin wirds that for ordinar haes /i/ or /e/ an aw
e.g. heeze, squeal, taen (pt. tak), weak, weave an wheat etc.

Unfortunate-like A coudna feegur onie wey o predictin thon for tae mak a
'rule' wi a list o exceptions.

> EE - e.g. neep, greet, reek, eediom, speerit
> IE typically before CH, R, V, L(D) and ST - e.g. driech, spier, scrieve,
> bield, chiel, niest.

Pittin IE afore ST is new tae me, A ran throu ma dictionar efter the
clusters EIST an IEST an come up wi the follaein:
leister (CSD leister), neist (CSD neist, neste), sneist (CSD sneist, snist)

> OU - e.g. doun, fouth, fou, hou
> OO where the English cognate has OU pronounced 'ow', e.g. hoose, moose,
oot,
> oor.

A jalouse ye ken this an aw but (ruit) final OU/OO is diphthongized tae /Vu/
in Soothren Scots.

Andy Eagle

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From: Andy (Scots-Online) <andy at scots-online.org>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography"

Daniel Prohaska wrote:

> Dear Scots Lowlanders,
>
> Are there any attemps made in Scotland to reform Scots spelling? It is
> my impression that Scots spelling is very inconsistent (as is English)
> and that the Middle Scots orthographic practises are only partially
> retained whereas English-based trasliterations similar to English
> dialect orthographies are often intermingled with the older Scots forms.
> Do Scots speakers with the ability to write Scots feel their
> orthographical traditions to be separate from Standard English in
> Scotland, or are there attemps to reintegrate older spellings and bring
> back what has been replaced by English dialect orthography ( I
> specifically mean the <oo>-spellings; or are they felt to be Scots?).
> Have there been attempts to "start from scratch" and invent an entirely
> new Scots orthography based on phonological analasys, or supra dialectal
> forms?

English spelling may be 'inconsitent' but all who write English tend to use
the same spellings (I'm deliberately ignoring the few British/American
differences here). If they don't use them they are generally accepted as
spelling mistakes. Of course no one 'officially' decrees what the 'correct'
spelling of English is. This is left to convention. I assume, as documented
in dictionaries. Some dictionaries do offer alternatives for some words.
These conventions are then reinforced throughout the education system. None
of this of course occurs with Scots. Since the middle of the last century
various suggestions an proposals have been presented
(http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/pronunci.htm). Whether or not these are
implemented is left to individuals. What little Scots is taught in schools
seems to follow the 'dialect tradition' you mentioned above. That is,
although the talk is of the Scots language the approach is still one of 'the
Scotch dialect of English'.
Some Middle Scots practises have been carried through where they seem to
correspond to the modern pronunciation eg.
AI early Scots /ai/ Middle Scots /Ei/ Modern Scots /e/, braid, raid
A-E early Scots /a/ Middle Scots /e:/ Modern Scots /e/, hame, bane, name
AU/AW early Scots /au, al(AL)/ Middle Scots /au > a:/ Modern Scots /A, O/,
aw, saut, braw, saw
EI early Scots /E/ Middle Scots /i:/ Modern Scots /i/ or /e/, breid, deid,
heid
UI early Scots /2/ Middle Scots /2:/ Modern Scots /2, I, e:, i/, guid,
fluir, muin
OU early Scots /u: ul(UL)/ Middle Scots /u:/ Modern Scots /u/
The last is of course now often written OO in order to avoid cofusion with
the modern English diphthong.
As you noticed some of the above produce spellings which correspond to their
modern English (and Scots) equivalents. There are other Older Scots
conventions which seem to still be used but since they generally correspond
to their modern English equivalents thay are probably not percieved as being
particularly Scots.
Other older Scots conventions would be misinterpreted by most people unless
they had deliberately been taught how to interpret them.eg OI representing a
long /o/ would nowadays be mistaken as the diphthong /oi/ e.g. afoir, afore.
(I - and often L - after a vowel in Older Scots was a marker of length.)
Any way, to cut a long story short. If any consistent 'Scots orthography
based on phonological analasys, or supra dialectal forms' was to have any
chance of success it would have to be taught in schools and represented in
'official/accepted' dictionaries. Unfortunately the mostly anglophone 'Scots
language establishment' who produce Dictionaries an educational materials,
although talking of the Scots language are strangely reluctant to break from
the 'the Scotch dialect of English' approach to the language. They tend to
be of the opinion that written Scots aught to represent the actual 'sounds'
of the language an individual speaks, usually based on perceived sound to
letter correspondences of standard English. Their use of Scots conventions
depends, largely, on their actual knowledge of them. Along with this they
seem to have an unyielding penchant for standard English grammar.

Andy Eagle

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