The charts below show the way in which theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) representsMiddle Scots pronunciations in Wiktionary articles.
Note that Middle Scots is not a single uniform language; at Wiktionary, the term refers to the multifarious Germanic varieties spoken in Scotland from 1500–1700C.E., meaning there was plenty of variation and change in pronunciation across time and space. Unless otherwise noted, the pronunciation discussed here and given in entries represents Early Middle Scots of the first half of 15th century, before the lowering of/ɪ/,/ʊ/ and the operation of theScottish vowel length rule. This choice has been made since it is both easier to apply the necessary sound changes to Early Middle Scots forms rather than reverse them starting from Late Middle Scots forms and because many Late Middle Scots sound changes are dialectally limited or of unclear chronology.
More discussion about the sounds of Middle Scots is available atMiddle Scots#Phonology andPhonological history of Scots.
| | Vowels |
|---|
| IPA | Aitken number | Examples | English approximation | Modern reflexes[h] |
|---|
| Shortmonophthongs |
|---|
| a | 17 | cat | similar toRP pat | a,ɑ | | ɛ | 16 | bed | best | ɛ | | ɪ | 15 | sit[i][j] | kit | ɪ | | ə | — | fadir[i] | again | ə | | ɔ | 18 | spot[k] | similar toRP not orGA caught | ɔ,o | | ʊ | 19 | tusk[j] | put | ʌ | | Longmonophthongs |
|---|
| ɑː | 12 | law | LikeRP cart orGA not[l] | ɑː,ɔː,ɔ | | æː | 8 | wait[m] | AusE bad | e,eː;əi | | ɛː | 4 | bane | likeRP haired | e | | eː | 3 | mele | ScoE face | e,i[n] | | iː | 2,11 | preist | meet | i | | oː | 5 | cole[o] | RP caught | o,oː | | øː | 7 | gude[p] | likeNZE bird | ø,ɪ/eː,i[q] | | uː | 6 | doun[r] | true | ʉ | | Diphthongs |
|---|
| eɪ̯ | 1 | yce | likeRP face | əi | | ɔɪ̯ | 9 | joy | joy | oe | | ʊɪ̯ | 10 | poynt | No English equivalent; Spanish muy | əi,oe | | ɪʊ̯ | 14 | trew[s][t] | No English equivalent; Welsh lliw | jʉ | | ɔʊ̯ | 13 | grow | GA bone | ʌʉ |
| Suprasegmentals |
|---|
| IPA | Examples | Explanation |
|---|
| ˈ | dochter/ˈdɔxtər/ | Primary stress (placed before the stressed syllable) | | ˌ | confortable/kɔnˌfɔrˈtɛːbəl/ | Secondary stress (placed before the stressed syllable) | | . | alienat/ˌɛːlɪ.əˈnɛːt/[u] | Syllable boundary |
|
- ↑1.01.11.21.3Unlike in modern English,/p/,/t/,/t͡ʃ/,/k/ were probably unaspirated in all positions.
- ↑2.02.12.2/t/,/d/,/n/ may have been dental[t̪],[d̪],[n̪].
- ^It is unclear whether and in what positions Middle Scots/l/ was pronounced as something like modern English “dark l”[ɫ]; it is possible that this only occurred when a a back vowel preceded and a consonant followed, with the pronunciation[l] occuring in all positions.
- ↑4.04.1It is usually assumed that in borrowings from Old and Middle French, Early Scots adopted the palatal sounds/ʎ/,/ɲ/ from words that had them in French. However,/ɲ/ became/ŋ/ or/ŋj/ and/ʎ/ became/l/ or/lj/ during the Middle Scots period; both conservative and pronunciations may be given in entries as the exact timing of the development is unclear.
- ^The clusters/nɡ/,/nk/ are pronounced pronounced[ŋɡ] ~[ŋ] and[ŋk] respectively.
- ^Greek theta is usually nativised as/t/ in learned borrowings; the modern English pronunciation of these words with/θ/ is a spelling pronunciation reinforced by modern Greek.
- ^In Middle Scots, spellings such as <quh, qwh, qhu> probably represent something like[xʷ], as in in conservative varieties of Scots and Scottish English. This can be intepreted as either a single sound/xʷ///ʍ/ or a sequence of two sounds/xw/; Wiktionary has opted for the latter interpretation.
- ^Only the most common non-conditioned reflexes are shown here; unusual or developments are not dealt with. If a vowel is subject to theScottish vowel length rule, the shortened reflex is given unless the outcome is only present in a lengthening environment, though the use of⟨ː⟩ typically indicates that a vowel is always long rather than being subject to the SVLR.
- ↑9.09.1On the basis of spelling evidence such assevin(“seven”), seventeenth- and eighteenth-century orthoepic testimony, and sporadic relic forms in modern dialects, it is likely that Northern Middle English and Early Scots had/ɪ/ in many positions where modern Scots and English have/ə/, though some of these words probably varied between/ɪ/ and/ə/.
- ↑10.010.1Though little direct evidence is available, it is possible that/ɪ/,/ʊ/ started to lower towards their modern Scots values[ɛ̈],[ʌ] very early in the Middle Scots period (the symbol ⟨/ɪ/⟩ is traditionally used for the former sound in modern Scots, but it is lower in the vast majority of dialects). Spellings of words that have/ɪ/ with ⟨e⟩ are traditionally adduced as evidence for the lowering of that phoneme, but they may be back-spellings based on variation between/ɪ/ and/iː/ due to the differential operation ofopen-syllable lengthening in pre-literary Early Scots. Furthermore, a later date for the development of/ʊ/ is suggested by 18th-century evidence showing it was possibly still[ʊ] in labial environments and interchanges in spelling between that vowel and/uː/.
- ^This sound is sometimes reconstructed as lower[ɒ] or higher[o̞]; perhaps the pronunciation varied between dialects as in modern Scots.
- ^Like today, some dialects likely had a more fronted pronunciation[aː], but the[ɔ(ː)] that is sometimes found is probably a later development.
- ^The operation of sound change means/æː/ has a somewhat limited distribution. Firstly, despite/æː/ generally being a continuation of Early Scots/æi̯/, that sound instead becomes/ɛː/ before the labial and alveolar fricatives/f/,/v/,/θ/,/ð/,/s/,/z/ and the alveolar trill/r/. Secondly, the diphthongal realisation (Vowel 8a)[æ̈ɪ̯] of/æː/ that occurs in final position (especially after the labial consonants/b/,/m/,/p/,/w/ or the dorsal consonants/k/,/ɡ/,/h/) separates from/æː/ and becomes attached to/eɪ̯/ during the course of the 16th century, resulting in the modern Scots situation withwait/wet/ butpey/pəi/. However, the reconstruction adopted here follows Johnston; it was traditionally hypothesised (followingAitken) that this sound remained a diphthong[æɪ̯] or[ɛɪ̯] throughout the 16th century.
- ^In most modern Scots dialects, this vowel has merged with either/ɛː/ or/iː/ as/e/ or/i/ respectively; this process already began during the Middle Scots period. The latter merger has spread at the expense of the former due to the prestige ofCentral Belt dialects which have it andstandard English, which has the analogousmeet-meat merger.
- ^Some linguists reconstruct a lower value for this sound[ɔː] on the basis of Orkney Scots and Shetland reflexes; it is possible that pronunciation varied.
- ^This vowel may be either reconstructed as[yː] as preconsonantal Old and Middle French/y/ was identified with it or as[øː], extrapolating from the usual realisation in modern dialects where it has not been unrounded; this unrounding is mostly a modern Scots development, but a merger with/iː/ already occurs in 16th century Northern Scots. However, the discrepancy may reflect a lowering of Early Scots[yː] to Middle Scots[øː] (except in Northern Scots).
- ^Orkney Scots and Shetland and scattered relic areas usually preserve a pronunciation[ø], while in Northern Scots, the usual modern outcome is/i/, though a development to/wi/ after the velars/k/,/ɡ/ occurs in Mid Northern. However, the predominant modern outcome is/ɪ/ where theScottish vowel length rule causes shortening (this is sometimes kept separate from/ɪ/ inherited from Middle Scots), but/eː/ where it induces lengthening.
- ^Occasional spelling confusion between/uː/ and/øː/ suggests that the fronting of older/uː/ to[ʉ] ~[y] so characteristic of modern Scots and Scottish English had already started in West Central Scots.
- ^It is likely that this diphthong had already developed to[juː] in many varieties, although peripheral dialects retained[ɪʊ̯] into modern times.
- ^Words with/ɪʊ̯/ from Old French/y/ in hiatus occasionally rhyme with/uː/; when combined with spelling evidence, this is best explained by postulating that these words had a rare alternate pronunciation with/uː/ despite the absence of modern dialectal evidence. Macafee explains this by positing that Old French hiatic/y/ was initially adopted as */yː/ and developed into/uː/ in some varieties through an intermediate stage *[yu̯], but it is possible that these pronunciations reflect a direct adoption of/y/ as/uː/ either parallel or identical to the "lower-class" adaptation of Old French/y/ as/uː/ that occured in non-Northern Middle English.
- ^Only used when needed for disambiguation.
References and further reading
[edit]- Aitken, A[dam] J., Macafee, Caroline, editors (2002),The Older Scots Vowels: A History of the Stressed Vowels of Older Scots from the Beginnings to the Eighteenth Century (Scottish Text Society, Fifth Series; 1),Edinburgh:Scottish Text Society,→ISBN,→OCLC.
- Aitken, A[dam] J. (1977), “How to pronounce Older Scots”, in Caroline Macafee, editor,Collected Writings on the Scots Language[1],Perth, Scotland:Scots Language Centre, published2015, archived fromthe original on27 November 2021
- Beal, Joan C. (2002) [1999], “5. The Phonology of Eighteenth-Century English: Evidence from Spence'sGrand Repository and Contemprorary Pronouncing Dictionaries”, inEnglish pronunciation in the eighteenth century: Thomas Spence's Grand repository of the English language[2],Oxford:Oxford University Press,→ISBN,→OCLC,§ 5.7,pages152-162.
- Johnston, Paul (1997), “3: Older Scots Phonology and its Regional Variation”, in Jones, Charles, editor,The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Part 1: The Beginnings to 1700,Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press,→ISBN,→OCLC, pages47-111.
- Macafee, Caroline;Aitken, A[dam] J[ack] (2004–present), “History of Scots to 1700: 6. Phonology”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries,→OCLC, reproduced fromA Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], volume XII (War–Zurnbarrie), Oxford, Oxfordshire:Oxford University Press, 2002, pages xxix–clvii,→OCLC.
- Macafee, Caroline;Aitken, A[dam] J. (2003), “The phonology of Older Scots”, inCollected Writings on the Scots Language[3],Perth, Scotland:Scots Language Centre, published2015, archived fromthe original on27 November 2021
