THEDIALECTS

THE DIALECTSOF
OF
SCOTLAND
SCOTLAND
Scottish English is difficult to
define but here are a few things
to look out for we are going to
compare standard Scottish
English to the English standard
called receive pronunciation or
RP for short.
Scottish English is the set of
varieties of the English language
spoken in Scotland. The
transregional, standardized
variety is called Scottish
Standard English or Standard
Scottish English (SSE).
 PHONOLOGY
Although pronunciation features vary among speakers (depending on region and social status), there
are a number of phonological aspects characteristic of Scottish English:

1) “Rolling” or "Tapped” /r/

Scottish is a rhotic accent so you will hear the /R/ sound.  A rolled R is a sound you might know
from languages such as Spanish or Italian. In linguistics, it is called a “trill”. The most common
R sound in Scotland today is called an alveolar tap. The reason this type of R is called so is
because to make the sound, your tongue must quickly tap the alveolar ridge

Bring, Green, Grass, Terrible

 1) Aspirating the consonant cluster "wh“

What, Which, Why

2) Glottal Stop (lose of /t/)

The glottal stop is made when you close off airflow in your throat during a word to
pronounce "t".

glottal - glo’al, potato - pota’o, butter - bu’er

 3) The drop of /g/ endings

playing - playin’, bringing - bringin’

4) /p/, /t/ and /k/ are not aspirated
5) /eɪ/ instead of contractions
can’t - /kæneɪ/, doesn’t - /dʌzneɪ/
didn’t - /dɪnneɪ/
 5)/u:/ instead of /ʊ/
Scottish English doesn't have the / ʊ / vowel which in RP you'll find in words
such as put and look and took in Scottish English the vowel will be pronounced
like an /u:/.

I pulled the fool from the pool

6) /u/ instead of /aʊ/ and /əʊ/
Down, Show
 7) happY vowel
The happY vowel is most commonly /e/ (as in face),
but may also be /ɪ/ (as in kit) or /i/ (as in fleece).
 The Scottish Vowel Length Rule (SVLR)
Let us now turn to a characteristic phenomenon of Scottish English, and which expressly
involves durational differences. According to the Scottish Vowel Length Rule (or Aitken’s
Law) there will occur:

That is, the vowel sound in troop, shoot, spook, tube, rude, krug, smooch, huge, hoof, tooth,
loose, bush, room, rune, rule is shorter than in move, smooth, lose, rouge, brew, blue, brewed,
blueness (at the end of the word, even if a suffix is added and the vowel is no longer word-final,
the longer variant is used).
 Intonation
The intonation patterns are very similar in almost all regions of the United Kingdom.
However, the northern regions of England, the cities in particular, together with Belfast
and Glasgow show rather different intonation from received pronunciation. The speakers
from the mentioned locations have rising intonation in declarative sentences. The falling
intonation is palpable in declaratives and questions in the utterances of the most of the
remaining Scottish regions. Concerning other areas of Scotland, the series of falls (or
rise-falls) with one fall on each onset and another fall on nucleus is very common. The
sequence of rise-falls is prominent with accented syllables. Concerning wh-questions,
we perceive the sequence of rise-fall and low-rise, and finally, the sequence of mid-fall
and rise-fall is prominent for yes/no questions.
 Received Pronunciation has a distinctive, clear intonation with a
noticeable tendency for high-falling patterns. It is particularly common
among younger speakers to use lengthened vowels and creaky voice
towards the end of a sentence or tone unit.
The intonation of Scottish English often shows obvious regional
variability. For accents of Scotland other than those found in Glasgow,
statements and questions will invariably show “a sequence of falling
tones”. Rising tones are reported for many northern cities, for example in
Glasgow.
The main difference between the speech of Edinburgh and Glasgow is in
terminating mid-to-low falls in Edinburgh but a tendency towards high
rising patterns in Glasgow. Northern Irish influence may be invoked to
some extent to explain distinctive Glaswegian patterns.
 Stress
Received Pronunciation tends to stress the first syllables in verbs suffixed by -ize.
Therefore, in the following words: advertize, realize and recognize, the primary stress in
Received Pronunciation falls on the first syllables while in Standard Scottish English it is on the
final syllables.
 
In words of porpoise and tortoise , the main stress lies on the first syllables in Received
Pronunciation, while Standard Scottish English have equal stress on each syllable.

Besides, words like lamentable and preferably have the primary stress on the first syllables in
Received Pronunciation and on the second syllables in Standard Scottish English.
 Nevertheless, both Received Pronunciation and Standard Scottish
English distinguish between verbs and nouns by stressing the second
syllable in the case of a verb and on the first syllable in the case of a
noun.
 
Thus in words like present and record, both Received
Pronunciation and Standard Scottish English have the second
stressed syllable in case of being verbs and the first stressed syllable
in case of being nouns.
 Thankyou
Thank youfor
foryour
yourattention!
attention!