LL-L "Phonology" 2003.02.07 (10) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 07.FEB.2003 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: John M. Tait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Lexical usage" 2003.02.06 (11) [E]

Sandy wrote:

>> From: John M. Tait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
>> Subject: LL-L "Lexical usage" 2003.02.05 (04) [E]
>>
>> Actually, 'wather' is Scots (or, at least, one Scots form) for English
>> 'weather'. 'Water' in Scots is 'watter', the doubled 'tt' showing that it
>> rhymes with English 'latter' or 'batter' - ie, it doesn't have the 'aw'
>> sound of the first 'a' in English 'water' (I don't know if any of the
>> dialects that tend to merge 'a' and 'aw' have the same
>> pronunciation as the
>> English.)
>
>They do, in fact - or at least they do in my dialect.
>
>Thus we have "watter", "lang", "alang", "sang" &c with
>coincidentally the same pronunciation as in Scottish
>English.
>
>Significantly we use the closed "o" in "strang", which
>I would therefore write "strong", at least if I was in
>the mood for writing my own dialect. rather than more
>general Scots. In fact this is supported by some of my
>reading in Scots, where writers who write "lang", "alang"
>&c still write "strong".

The last example you give would correspond with my Shetlandic speech - that
is, I say 'lang' [l{N], and 'alang', but 'strong' [strON]. In the NE it
tends to be similar - 'lang' [laN], and 'alang', but 'strong'. However, I'm
not sure about the quality of the /o/ in NE _strong_ - I take it when you
say 'closed' you mean that you use [o] rather than [O] - that distinction
being obsolete in your dialect - and therefore the /o/ is easily
distinguished from the [Q] sound which I presume you use in 'along' and
'long', showing that these two have an /A/ rather than an English /O/
phoneme?

Again we'r in the realm of diaphonetics here. It is perfectly logical to say
that in central Scots, <o> is always pronounced [o] as in Scottish Standard
English 'bone', never [O] or [Q] as in SSE 'hot', so if you hear a sound
like the <o> in English 'hot' ([Q]) then it must be a realisation of /A/ (or
possibly /a/, if that is regarded as a distinct phoneme which merges with
it) and not of /o/. (But this, of course, would be anathema to those who
insist on using the 'long' and 'along' spellings because they are - as you
say - coincidentally identical to standard English pronunciations.)

How, then, would this be expressed in a list of Scots vowel sounds and
spellings? Could you say that in Central Scots:

/a/ sometimes = /A/ is realised as [Q] so <lang> = [lQN]
/O/ = /o/ is realised as [o] so <strong> = [stroN]

Of course, there would also be the question of the conditions under which
/A/ and /a/ merge.

I don't know why the form _strang_ doesn't seem to be used in these more
traditional dialects, where _lang_ and _alang_ are the usual forms of these
two words. In the NE, I am familiar with the form _strang_ only as a noun
meaning urine.

John M. Tait.

http://www.wirhoose.co.uk

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