<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 18 April 2009 - Volume 05<br>===========================================<br></div>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jmtait</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk">jmtait@wirhoose.co.uk</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Phonology" 2009.04.16 (03) [E]<br><br></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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?</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite">Andy wrote<br><br>
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.</blockquote><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">The
'ae' sound can't be adequately represented by written <e> because
it's a</blockquote>different phoneme. In other words, it's not just the
Scots or English E said<br>
with a different accent, it's actually the phoneme which in Scots more
often<br>
becomes EI (in words like breid, deid) which is realised as [e] rather
than<br>
[i] in some Scots dialects. However, Shetland has a short-long
phonological<br>
contrast between, eg: 'gaet' (BEAT words) and 'gate' (MATE and BAIT
words)<br>
which has disappeared - or is realised differently - in most mainland
Scots<br>
dialects, and so the distinction of 'ae' from both 'e' and 'i' is
probably<br>
quite difficult for mainland Scots speakers to hear. For example, in
North<br>
East Scots 'haet', meaning heat, rhymes with 'hate' as [he:t] but
in<br>
Shetland it doesn't, one being /het/ realised typically as something
like<br>
[hIt], and the other /he:t/ realised typically as [he@t], or in some
regions<br>
as [hE:t].<br><br></div>
I prefer Jack Aitken’s scheme of things (see
<a href="http://www.dsl.ac.uk/SCOTSHIST/list.html" target="_blank">http://www.dsl.ac.uk/SCOTSHIST/list.html</a>
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.</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">So the difference between the pronunciations 'Shaet-' and 'Shet-' is not</blockquote>just a difference of accent (as it would be if E in this environment was<br>
always pronounced this way.) It is a difference which can potentially carry<br>
meaning. The fact that it is the BEAT rather than the BET phoneme is<br>
illustrated by the fact that Scots speakers in the North East of Scotland<br>
pronounce the word 'Sheitan' rather than 'Shetlan' - in other words, the<br>
underlying 'ae' is Scots, whereas the official <e> is an approximation to<br>
English spelling.<br><br></div>
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)</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">AI <ai,a-e> /e:/ [e@], E:] - fate, hate, bait, gape, rape, rake, bake, cake,</blockquote><br>
laik (leak), etc.<br><br></div>
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?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im">3/15, 3/15<br>
<blockquote type="cite">AE/EE: laet/leet, laek/leek</blockquote>
<br></div>
‘late? 4/2, 3/2</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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!)</span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im"><br>
<blockquote type="cite">In another type of phonetic environment (usually before voiced consonants)<br>
all of these vowels except EE are fronted and/or raised, so the<br>
pronunciations are different. In this case, AE merges with E in some<br>
Shetland dialects and with EE in others. In others - such as my own - it<br>
remains distinct.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">AE <ae> /e/ [e, EI, i] - haed, laed, daed, laeg (leg), baeg (beg), haem,</blockquote>baen (bone), etc. (BEAT words)</blockquote>
</div><blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite">Some 16 (‘leg’, ‘beg’) merging with 4?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">E <e> /E/, [EI] - bed, led, sed, ben, hen, dem, men, etc. (BET words)</blockquote></div>
Normally vowel 16., what is ‘sed’?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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!</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">I <i> /I/ [I] - sid, did, lid, rig, big, sig, lib, sib, etc. (BIT words)</blockquote></div>
Normally 15, what are ‘sid’ and ‘sig’?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
'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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">AI <ai, a-e> /e:/ [e:] - saide (saithe), maide (maggot), caib, fable,</blockquote><br>
stravaig, whaig, staig, etc. (BAIT and MATE words)<br><br></div>
Both 4 and 8, what is ‘caib’?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
caib - otherwise spelt 'kabe', and I think in the OED - is a rowing pin in a traditional boat. It may be a Dutch word?</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">EE <ee> /i/ [i] - need, dreed, treed, green, dastreen, heem, seem, etc.</blockquote><br>
(BEET words)<br><br></div>
Normally 2. ‘dreed’ pt. Of ‘dree’ not ‘dreid’? What are ‘treed’? and ‘heem’?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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'. </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im"><blockquote type="cite">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.</blockquote><br></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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:</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Vowel 3 - aet, saet, baet [I] BUT heevin [i]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Vowel 4 - haet, gaet [I] BUT craig [e:]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Vowel 8 - ey, fey [EI], greth [E:]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
etc. </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im"><blockquote type="cite">It seems vowel 3 has usually merged with vowel 4, and perhaps in some environments vowel 16 with vowel 3 too.</blockquote></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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!</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<blockquote style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" type="cite"><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">It seems to me that Scotland has a dialect policy which masquerades as a</blockquote>language policy, in the case of Scots. A case in point might be the demand<br>
of Tavish Scott - MSP for Shetland - that Scots should not be given a<br>
standard form, as that would threaten local dialects. I don't recollect the<br>
MP for Shetland ever demanding that standard English should be abandoned<br>
because of its effect on local dialects!<br><br></div>
Are they worried about a written ‘standard’ or do they think someone intends to introduce a spoken standard?</blockquote><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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.</span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="im"><br>
<blockquote type="cite">Ron wrote:<br><br>
Since there <i>is</i> alternation, i.e. a predictable phonological rule applying <u>in this language</u><i> </i>(irrespective of German), a real orthography would not show it:</blockquote><br></div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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 isÂ
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.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
•
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