1.1: Scottish English
Scottish English results from language contact between Scots and the Standard English of England after the17th century. The resulting shifts to English usage by Scottish-speakers resulted in many phonological compromises and lexical transfers, so that many linguists who are unfamiliar with the history of Scottish English often make mistakes.
Of the three Celtic areas left in present-day Britain, Scotland is definitely the one that kept most of the old forms of English, both written and spoken.
In Scotland, English was strongly established during the early period of Middle English, later it spread northwards from the Northumbrian dialect area. It is the area lying north of the river Humber and south of Cheviot mountains, which form a natural boundary between England and Scotland. 1
Scotland is an area with a unique linguistic tradition. The three main languages that are spoken today in Scotland are: Scottish Gaelic, Scots and (Scottish) English.
Providing a definition of Scottish English is an uneasy task because the terminology used by various sources is incoherent. Many authors concord that Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland, others say that Scottish English is Standard English spoken with Scottish accent or they define Scottish English a bipolar linguistic continuum with Broad Scots at one end and Scottish Standard English at the other.
The formal language in which people speak today is the Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English. Standard Scottish English can be defined as “the characteristic speech of professional class and the accepted norms in schools.” (McClure 1994: 79-80)
This is the language very prevalent in Scotland today. It is a mixture of the vocabulary and syntax of Standard English, and the pronunciation system, some vocabulary and grammatical aspects of Scots.
The ‘anglicization’ of Scottish writing became noticeable after the joining of the crowns of England and Scotland in 1603 and was increasingly dominant throughout the 17th century, then in 1707 with the Union of Parliaments the official written language of Scotland mixed, and came to one level with that of England. So, Standard English has been used as the language of religion, education and government, gradually it became the socially prestigious form adopted by the middle class. And during the following centuries Standard English continued to be spoken with a variety of local accents. Within a decade southern English became the printing model, apart from in certain legal and literary texts, and by the end of the 17th century there was little sign of a distinctively Scottish variety in manuscript writing. Southern English speech also became the norm with the use of ‘Scotticism’.
Scottish English (SE) is customarily distinguished from Scots, which is regarded by some linguists as a dialect of English and by others as a language in its own right.2
The speakers of English in the early period were usually the English settlers; they had been invited by the Scottish king to settle down there to live and to render the arable plain of the Lowlands. The advance of English in Scotland was at the cost of Gaelic, which was pushed out of the Lowlands into Highlands. In the course of time and due to the mixed marriages and gradual assimilation of the Gaelic speaking community, Gaelic became weaker and weaker. And it finally disappeared in the 18th century.
In the 20th century there could be distinguished at least four distinct varieties of Scottish English.
Lallands: the most original of all varieties of Scottish English.
Contact English: spoken by speakers of both Scottish Gaelic and English.
Standard Scottish English : the flavored version of mainland British English (derived from RP)
And 4th: recently developed urban varieties spoken chiefly in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Today we find a complex dialect picture, which is beginning to be understood through such surveys as The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland (from 1975).
The present-day dialect boundary between England and Scotland is one of the most well-defined in Britain. Although there are several features shared with dialects from the north of the England such as some lexical items and some pronunciations, there are many uniquely distinguishing features, found in various distributions north of the border.
As mentioned above, of all varieties of English which have developed within the British Isles, there are none more distinctive or more divergent from Standard English than some of those associated with Scotland. It is unique because it was once a variety used in the late Middle Ages, when Scotland was an independent nation, and it is unique because it has clearly defined history of it own, with a strong literary tradition beginning in Middle English, its own dialect variants, its own ‘golden age’ and period of decline, and a contemporary sociolinguistic stature which other dialects of English do not share. There are many more Scottish dialect expressions in current use in Scotland than there are English dialect expressions in current use in any dialect of England. The term ‘dialect island’ is sometimes used to capture the character of the Scottish situation.
In practice, the distinction between those who speak Scots and those who speak Standard Scottish English is rather blurred. One minute we can immediately differentiate a person according to which variety he or she speaks, and one moment it becomes difficult and even impossible. Especially in urban areas, speakers usually speak in both forms of the language. Scots is generally, but not always, spoken by the working classes, while Scottish Standard English is typical of educated middle class speakers. In other words, they speak Standard English mixed with the local accent. However for a learner of Standard English will not be a great difficulty to understand the speech of a Scottish English speaker.
The identity of English in Scotland is much more than a distinctive regional accent and the occasional habitual feature of grammar and vocabulary. It reflects an institutionalized social structure, at its most noticeable in realms of law, local government, religion, education, etc.