Scotland

Scotland actually has more variation in dialects than England! The variations do have a few things in common, though, besides a large particularly Scottish vocabulary:

• rolled r's;

• "pure" vowels ([e:] rather than [ei], [o:] rather than [ou]);

• [u:] is often fronted to [ö] or [ü], e.g. boot, good, poor...

There are several "layers" of Scottish English. Most people today speak standard English with little more than the changes just mentioned, plus a few particular words that they themselves view as normal English, such as to jag (to prick) and burn (brook). In rural areas, many older words and grammatical forms, as well as further phonetic variations, still survive, but are being rapidly replaced with more standard forms. But when a Scotsman (or woman) wants to show his pride in his heritage, he may resort to quite a few traditional variations in his speech:

• [oi], [ai], and final [ei] > ['i], e.g. oil, wife, tide;

• final [ai] > [i], e.g. ee (eye), dee (die), lee (lie);

• [ou] > [e], e.g. ake (oak), bate (boat), hame (home), stane (stone), gae (go);

• [au] > [u], e.g. about, house, cow, now... (often spelled oo or u);

• [o] > [a:], e.g. saut (salt), law, aw (all);

• [ou] > [a:], e.g. auld (old), cauld (cold), snaw (snow);

• [æ] > [a], e.g. man, lad, sat;

• also: pronounce the ch's and gh's that are silent in standard English: nicht, licht, loch.

And finally, there are many unique words: lass, bairn (child), kirk (church), big (build), bonny, greet (weep), ingle (household fire), aye (yes), hame (home)... As you can see, Scottish English in its original glory is as near to being different language as one can get, rather than simply another dialect of English.

There are also several urban dialects, particularly in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The thick dialect of the working class of Edinburgh can be heard in the movie Trainspotting.

In the Highlands, especially the Western Islands, English is often people's second language, the first being Scottish Gaelic. Highland English is pronounced in a lilting fashion with pure vowels. It is, actually, one of the prettiest varieties of English I have ever heard.

Ireland

English was imposed upon the Irish, but they have made it their own and have contributed some of our finest literature. Irish English is strongly influenced by Irish Gaelic:

• r after vowels is retained;

• "pure" vowels ([e:] rather than [ei], [o:] rather than [ou]);

• [] and [] > [t] and [d] respectively;

• The distinction between w /w/ and wh /hw/, as in wine vs. whine, is preserved;

• A distinction between [ɛɹ]-[ɪɹ]-[ʌɹ] in herd-bird-curd may be found;

• The vowels in words such as boat and cane are usually monophthongs outside of Dublin: [boːt], and [keːn];

• The /aɪ/ in "night" may be pronounced in a wide variety of ways, e.g. [əɪ], [ɔɪ], [ʌɪ] and [ɑɪ], the latter two being the most common in middle class speech, the former two, in popular speech;

• In some varieties, speakers make no distinction between the [ʌ] in putt and the [ʊ] in put, pronouncing both as the latter;

• In some highly conservative varieties, words spelled with ea and pronounced with [iː] in RP are pronounced with [eː], for example meat, beat;

• In words like took where "oo" usually represents [ʊ], speakers may use [uː]. This is most common in working-class Dublin accents and the speech of North-East Leinster;

• [eɪ] often becomes [ɛ] in words such as gave and came (becoming "gev" and "kem");

• Consonant clusters ending in [j] often change:

- [dj] becomes [dʒ], e.g. dew/due, duke and duty sound like "jew", "jook" and "jooty";

- [tj] becomes [tʃ], e.g. tube is "choob", tune is "choon".

As with the English of the Scottish Highlands, the English of the west coast of Ireland, where Gaelic is still spoken, is lilting, with pure vowels. It, too, is particularly pretty.