LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.04.18 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 18 April 2009 - Volume 05
===========================================

From: jmtait <jmtait at wirhoose.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2009.04.16 (03) [E]

Hmm. This e-mail came through with all Andy's inverted commas and
apostrophes changed to a hieroglyphic of some sort! Is this a known problem?

Andy wrote

Yes I did mean simplification of <nd> to /n/. All the same, if some speakers
do not simplify surely the full form should be used orthographically. It is
easier (when reading loud) to simplify a cluster that’s written rather
than pronounce a phoneme that isn’t written.

Yes - but there are two things here. The first is that, within the 'dialect'
perception, the word 'orthographically' is meaningless. The idea that
representation of 'dialect' in writing is impossible has, in Shetland, more
or less the status of an aetiological myth, which serves to underpin
established attitudes towards it as being a speech consisting of
peculiarities which non-Shetlanders can't pronounce, and which vary
constantly and inconsistently from one area, and even one household, to
another. I can give examples of songs where the lyrics on the CD are not
written as the singer pronounces them (eg: <aa> pronounced as 'aw') but mere
facts are not accepted as relevant in the popular perception of dialect,
which must be seen to occupy a certain position in the sociolinguistic
hierarchy. So if I write a word with a <d> it is perceived as my dialect
pronunciation of that word, and an indication that I pronounce it that way.
Attitudes towards spelling, both deriving from this essentially
pre-scientific perception, range from the idea that you should just make
occasional and random alterations from English spelling (because the sounds
are impossible to indicate anyway) to the view that you need to use an
entire raft of diacritics and ligatures gleaned from a wide variety of
languages to attempt to represent nuances of speech in a way that no reader
is likely to be able to fathom, or indeed to attempt to do so.

Much the same could be said about grammar. A researcher recently did some
work on the Lerwick dialect. The locals expected her to be researching
either vocabulary or accent, but when they were told she was interested in
grammar (actually, in the demise of traditional grammar in favour of
standard English grammar) they were apparently flummoxed. In spite of there
having been a 'Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect' in publication
since the 1950s, the popular idea that dialect consists only of words and
accent (ie, phonetics rather than phonology) is thoroughly ingrained.
Dialect grammar is not perceived as existing, because 'grammar' is imagined
to be something to do with school and education, to which, in the popular
perception, 'dialect' is diametrically opposed.

An interesting discussion on Shetlink concerned the statement, made by an
academic, that traditional Shetland storytelling used conventions which were
not typical of everyday speech. One person disagreed with this, saying that,
on the contrary, Shetland storytelling enabled you to use the colloquial
forms and freed you from the need to 'speak proper.' The obvious inference
is that Shetlanders are not aware of any differences in register other than
that accruing to standard English, although external academics are
immediately aware that internal registers exist. As 'dialect' is defined as
informal, the idea of more formal registers is not perceived, and the idea
is seen as contrary to the pervading sociolinguistic mythology of the status
of dialect.

Secondly, the reason why I, personally, do not put a 'd' on the end of
'Shaetlan' is that I am searching for a term which will be reasonably
acceptable to Shetlanders in writing, but which can be sneaked in under all
the ingrained objections to any form of nomenclature which does not have an
automatic connotation of inferiority. Although, in speech, the name of the
tongue and the place are the same (compare eg: 'speaking Glasgow') I don't
think the form 'Shaetland' is likely to pass muster, partly because - as I
say - it seems to be one word where the 'd' is more often dropped than not,
and partly because the spelling 'Shaetland' would be perceived as the place.
In fact, the form without 'd' is so common - even among people who pronounce
the 'nd' in most words - that I'm tempted to regard the 'd' form as having
been influenced by English, although that could obviously never be proven.

The 'ae' sound can't be adequately represented by written <e> because it's a

different phoneme. In other words, it's not just the Scots or English E said
with a different accent, it's actually the phoneme which in Scots more often
becomes EI (in words like breid, deid) which is realised as [e] rather than
[i] in some Scots dialects. However, Shetland has a short-long phonological
contrast between, eg: 'gaet' (BEAT words) and 'gate' (MATE and BAIT words)
which has disappeared - or is realised differently - in most mainland Scots
dialects, and so the distinction of 'ae' from both 'e' and 'i' is probably
quite difficult for mainland Scots speakers to hear. For example, in North
East Scots 'haet', meaning heat, rhymes with 'hate' as [he:t] but in
Shetland it doesn't, one being /het/ realised typically as something like
[hIt], and the other /he:t/ realised typically as [he at t], or in some regions
as [hE:t].

I prefer Jack Aitken’s scheme of things (see
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/SCOTSHIST/list.html for a good description of that and
historical developments) what you represent with <ae> would be vowel 3.
Merged with vowels 2 or 4 in  many dialects as /i/ and /e/. I assume the
<ae> represents an allophone of the latter.


I find numbers very counter-intuitive when referring to speech-related
things! The AE vowel in Shetland includes some words from 3 and 4, but there
are some words in both categories - eg: hevin, nieve, aynd, make, craig -
that don't have this vowel in Shetland.

So the difference between the pronunciations 'Shaet-' and 'Shet-' is not

just a difference of accent (as it would be if E in this environment was
always pronounced this way.) It is a difference which can potentially carry
meaning. The fact that it is the BEAT rather than the BET phoneme is
illustrated by the fact that Scots speakers in the North East of Scotland
pronounce the word 'Sheitan' rather than 'Shetlan' - in other words, the
underlying 'ae' is Scots, whereas the official <e> is an approximation to
English spelling.

Using Aitken’s system I took the <e> in ‘Shetland’ to be vowel 16. The
NE Scots [ˈʃitlən] for ‘Shetland’ is indicative of it being vowel 3
(unless it is in fact vowel 2)


The actual word 'Shetland' is probably an Anglicised spelling, and not
really relevant. Some clerk or other has probably just written the sound as
<e> owing to not recognising <ae> as a different vowel. I'm not sure how the
word was spelt in older Scots.

AI <ai,a-e> /e:/ [e@], E:] - fate, hate, bait, gape, rape, rake, bake, cake,


laik (leak), etc.

That I take to be underlying vowel 4 (/e/ or 8 (/e:/). Historically the
former tended to be written <a-e> initially and medially and <ae> finally,
the latter <ai> initially and medially and <ay> finally. Mergers in Older
Scots led to the spelling <ai> being used for the former and occasionally
the former for the latter. Would ‘leak’ not have an underlying vowel 3?


Maybe - but, as I said, there are some words in this category which are not
pronounced 'ae' in Shetland. It wouldn't make sense to me to spell both
'like' and 'leak' (English spellings) with the <ae> vowel when they are
different phonemes in modern Shetland speech.

3/15, 3/15

AE/EE: laet/leet, laek/leek


‘late? 4/2, 3/2


laet = late, leet means 'to pay attention to', laek = like, leek is a Welsh
vegetable! (Would you believe my small Welsh dictionary doesn't have the
Welsh word for it!)

In another type of phonetic environment (usually before voiced consonants)
all of these vowels except EE are fronted and/or raised, so the
pronunciations are different. In this case, AE merges with E in some
Shetland dialects and with EE in others. In others - such as my own - it
remains distinct.

AE <ae> /e/ [e, EI, i] - haed, laed, daed, laeg (leg), baeg (beg), haem,

baen (bone), etc. (BEAT words)

Some 16 (‘leg’, ‘beg’) merging with 4?


All BET (16) words seem to have merged into this vowel before /g/.
(Similarly, you don't get /O/ before /g/ - dog, bog, log, all become 'dug',
'bug', 'lug'). They have the same regional variants ([i], [e], [EI]) as
other AE words.

E <e> /E/, [EI] - bed, led, sed, ben, hen, dem, men, etc. (BET words)

Normally vowel 16., what is ‘sed’?


sed /sEd/ [sEId] =said. The 'seyd' pronunciation indicates an /E/ vowel
(rhyming with 'bed', 'fed', 'led') rather than an /e:/ vowel. In other
words, the word fits into the English phonological pattern [sEd] rather than
the Scots one [sed]. Don't ask me why this is!

I <i> /I/ [I] - sid, did, lid, rig, big, sig, lib, sib, etc. (BIT words)

Normally 15, what are ‘sid’ and ‘sig’?


'sid' is a husk of corn (a Scots word, I'm pretty sure - variant of 'seed',
according to CSD) and 'sig' can mean (1) a callous, (2) to bite, of a dog.
Both Norn, I think.

AI <ai, a-e> /e:/ [e:] - saide (saithe), maide (maggot), caib, fable,


stravaig, whaig, staig, etc. (BAIT and MATE words)

Both 4 and 8, what is ‘caib’?


caib - otherwise spelt 'kabe', and I think in the OED - is a rowing pin in a
traditional boat. It may be a Dutch word?

EE <ee> /i/ [i] - need, dreed, treed, green, dastreen, heem, seem, etc.


(BEET words)

Normally 2. ‘dreed’ pt. Of ‘dree’ not ‘dreid’? What are
‘treed’? and ‘heem’?


When writing Shetland, I use EI exclusively for the long 'ee' sound, which
is unpredictable in Shetland owing to (1) Norse etymology (eg: neib from OH
hni/pa, to nod) and (2) the change of an original [D] to [d] - so 'meid'
from an original 'meith', where the [D], which caused the long vowel owing
to the SVLR, has now become [d], leaving an unpredictably long vowel.
There's no precedent for using EI in Shetland in general, because almost all
the words which are typically spelt this way - eg: heid, breid, deid - have
the AE vowel, and tend to be spelt with their regional variants.

I'm surprised to find that 'heem' isn't in any dictionary! It means
something like 'to be enormous' or 'to be huge' in expressions like 'a
heemin gret coo'.

Would it not be better to differentiate underlying vowels 3, 4 and 8 in
spelling? Though differentiating 4 and 8 is a bit more complicated because
traditionally <ai> has often been used for both 4 and 8. <ae> for vowel 3 (I
use <ea> and <ei> leaving it to the reader to decide whether its /i/ or
/e/.) and <a-e> and <ai> for vowels 4 and 8. I assume habitual dialect
speakers would instinctively produce the relevant allophones.


It depends whether you mean, distinguish them in Shetland or in general
Scots writing. There would be no point in distinguishing Shetland words on
the basis of historical categories when many of the modern pronunciations do
not correspond - for example, using Shetland spellings to indicate the
pronunciation:

Vowel 3 - aet, saet, baet [I] BUT heevin [i]
Vowel 4 - haet, gaet [I] BUT craig [e:]
Vowel 8 - ey, fey [EI], greth [E:]

etc.

It seems vowel 3 has usually merged with vowel 4, and perhaps in some
environments vowel 16 with vowel 3 too.

Yes - different historical categories have merged under different
circumstances. For example, vowel 1 seems to have merged into the AE vowel
only before /k/ (laek, daek) and vowel 16 only before /g/ (laeg, baeg). This
is why historical vowel classes are of limited value for deciding how to
spell vowels in order to represent current speech distinctions.

Interestingly, although laeg, baeg etc. must have merged with the AE class
in the past, they have, in the dialects of most of the Shetland Mainland,
merged back with E words, because all AE words merge with E words before
voiced consonants in these dialects. So while I pronounce laeg, baeg, haed,
hael (whole), baen (bone) etc, with an /e/ vowel, making them distinct from
eg: hell, hen, etc. on the Central Mainland they are pronounced [EI],
representing the /E/ vowel - eg: hen, hell, etc - with which they have
re-merged!

It seems to me that Scotland has a dialect policy which masquerades as a

language policy, in the case of Scots. A case in point might be the demand
of Tavish Scott - MSP for Shetland - that Scots should not be given a
standard form, as that would threaten local dialects. I don't recollect the
MP for Shetland ever demanding that standard English should be abandoned
because of its effect on local dialects!

Are they worried about a written ‘standard’ or do they think someone
intends to introduce a spoken standard?


I don't think it's as specific as that. I think they've bought into the
currently dominant Scots view that any sort of standardisation will destroy
both local dialects and creative writing. I think it's another of those
mythical-status ideologies which serve to underpin a certain attitude
towards dialect.

Ron wrote:

Since there *is* alternation, i.e. a predictable phonological rule applying
*in this language** *(irrespective of German), a real orthography would not
show it:


Yes - but that depends on what you define as a 'language', doesn't it?
Traditionally, Shaetlan has been seen as a dialect of English, and written
in order to show (inconsistently) variation from English. Now the dialect
promoters regard it as a dialect of Scots - but this only under the
understanding that Scots should have no standards. The word 'language' is
therefore irrelevant in discussion of Shaetlan with Shetlanders because (1)
there is no language other than standard English to which reference can be
made, and (2) as Shaetlan itself is  a dialect and not a language, the three
words (1) 'predictable', (2) 'phonological' and (3) 'rule' do not apply
because a dialect is not perceived as having regularity but rather as being
an iconic expression of irregularity in contradistinction to 'language'
which has rules and standards. These concepts, already incipient among
Shetlanders as a whole, are emphasised by the Shetland media and
intelligentsia who wish to remain within the prevailing system, where
dialect has a certain status within the community, as an oral medium which
is relevant only at that level, and which is reduced to writing only for
creative purposes. Even the fact that it is dying out is not recognised by
some, because, as one well-known Scottish journalist has commented, 'there
will always be a Shetland dialect' - ie, whatever is spoken by Shetlanders
at any point in time, however close it may be to standard English, can
always be called 'Shetland dialect.' Something that is defined as
undefinable has too little substance even to disappear.

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20090418/0a3c1e4d/attachment.htm>