Talk:Scottish English/Archive 1

message: "Often, lexical differences between Scottish English and Southern Standard English are simply differences in the distribution of shared lexis, such as [...] doubt for "think the worst"[citation needed] (I doubt it will rain meaning "I fear that it will rain" instead of the standard English meaning "I think it unlikely that it will rain")."
meaning "I fear that it will rain" instead of meaning "I think it unlikely that it will rain""
This not only makes no sense, it is neither true. People in Scotland do not say "I doubt it will rain" to mean it will rain. This is blatantly incorrect. I have never heard anyone in Scotland ever use doubt in the way the example puts it so I suggest it should be removed as it is misleading.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.73.105 (talk) 15:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "This not only makes no sense, it is neither true". If your powers of observation are as good as your command of English grammar, it might explain why you have never heard any Scots use "doubt that" to mean "fear that". Luckily many other people have, as you will discover if you read the comments above. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:20, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some twats on here, eh?  I use doubt often in that sense too: "I doot it's gonnae rain" - it means "I think it's going to rain" - although this is more Scots than it is Scottish English.  I think that may be the confusion here - although some Scottish English speakers may also use the phrase without realising its use is "foreign" to most standard English speakers. And some Scottish English speakers who have less contact with Scots may not recognise it at all.--81.147.177.209 (talk) 12:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lexical Scotticisms: the doubt example 

message: The latter's a new one on me.  I'd have thought /x/ was only common in Scots (or Gaelic) words, rather than there being much prevalence of "Scouse k" in Standard vocab. Alai 08:30, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The realisation /x/ for "ch" in loch, technical, etc. 

message: in school and scheme is definitely nonsense. Some of the others are dubious. A lot of the other descriptions in the phonology section are extremely dubious. Can the authors cite any literature to back up their edits? Why half in IPA and the other half in Sampa?	
	
Noah Winner 07.02.05
:Wells (1982:408) writes:
:[Scottish English] retains the velar fricative, /x/, as a member; although in English (as opposed to Scots) /x/ is really restricted to proper names... and sometimes to Greek- or Hebrew-derived words spelt with ch (technical , patriarch /-rx/, epoch, parochial).
:--Angr/ 08:08, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a Scot and I use it in "technical" (and in "technician", "polytechnic", and so forth) but then we've never met so that explains why you've never heard a Scot use it. I wouldn't use it in "school" or "scheme" though. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 02:36, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Where is that, please? It seems like a tidbit we should know, don't you think? Cbdorsett 06:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: /x/ for &lt;ch&gt;

message: Scottish English vowel chart at  ().	
Contrasts and length 	
Length 	
	
Vowel system with key words and sound files 	
Yasser Wull 08.02.05
152.163.100.69 added 'Some speakers, however, distinguish some pairs by vowel length' and gave examples
Any references for this. It doesn't seem to be mentioned in standard reference works. See talk Phonology.
I've deleted it. Provide a reputable reference and I#ll be glad to have learned something new.
Murdoch Soulis 09.05.05
: I've re-deleted the sentence "Some speakers, it is sometimes claimed, may distinguish some pairs by vowel length, for example leek /lik/ vs. leak /liːk/, vane /ven/ vs. vain /veːn/, creek /krik/ vs. creak /kriːk/, etc" until someone provides a specific reference. I don't think this is true of Scottish English at all, but perhaps some dialect of Scots, in which case it should go into that article. Wiki Scot 11:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vowels 

message: I've redone the phonology section using The entry "Scottish English" from The Oxford Companion to the English language and The English Language in Scotland by Charles Jones as references. I also compared with the links suggested above. I removed all that wasn't mentioned in the references as incorrect - why didn't the references mention it? If the originators have references for what I've deleted they would be much appreciated.	
	
Ken Mair 10.03.05
Am I alone in absolutely hating the table inserted by Nogger on 7th April? It looks awful, is technical and opaque. Also, it is completely inappropriate for an article on Scottish English. It's about Scots.
Tempted to remove it forthwith, but will wait for a bit of a discussion.
Jun 20th 2006
The table illustrates that the vowels system of Scottish English originates in Scots thus illustrating the resulting compromises and lexical transfers some of which are often mistaken for mergers (see  Cot-Caught merger). Of course all that is technical and opaque. Perhaps the table could be better explained, although Background seems to to that. Perhaps that is passing on too much knowledge for Wikipedia and the article should be dummed down?
84.135.247.81 09:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is stretching it a bit to describe the 18th century as recently. Have changed it to "relatively recently". Mutt Lunker (talk) 09:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

text: You should just put the date in, afterall 1100 can be relatively recently. Realtive to what? Gazh (talk) 13:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Phonology

message: This doesn' seem too much like syntax to me.  My hair needs washed could be, but some of the others, especially She's a bonnie lass seem to be a matter of diction.  Also, I would like to meet this bonnie lass... :).  Notthe9 18:12, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They're more examples of Scots than of Scottish English, so they'd be better removed altogether. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syntax section? 

message: I'm afraid I removed Sheriff-substitute as a peculiarly Scottish term, because it no longer exists, and never designated an acting Sheriff in any case (that would be a temporary Sheriff until recently, and a part-time Sheriff now). Sheriffs-substitute were the professional full-time judges who sat locally to hear cases, while the titular Sheriff would be an Edinburgh advocate who would hear appeals from his Sheriff-substitute. When reformed in the 1970's, Sheriffs-substitute became simply Sheriffs, and the appeal function went to the new Sheriff-Principal for each new Sheriffdom. I don't see that historically there was anything peculiarly Scottish about it: it merely designated the person who sat as substitute for the Sheriff.
There's a ton of legal stuff which could be added, but surely it's just examples of a technical vocabulary, in the same way that English and French both have technical legal vocabularies? Killiedaft 23:31, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal Scots 

message: The "needs washed" phenomenon is a standard example in US introductory linguistics textbooks of regional syntactic differences within that country, although I don't recall where it occurs.  — Pekinensis 17:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since so much of North America was settled by speakers of Scots or of Scottish English that doesn't surprise me. Many North Americans also pronounce "solder" as "sodder" which is the Scots (but not the Scottish English) pronunciation of the word. There is undoubtedly a lot of Scottish influence on the way many North Americans speak English. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs washed 

message: This was deleted. I strongly feel as a user of Scottish English that this belongs here; 'aye' meaning always is certainly Scots, but I think my example meets all the criteria for inclusion, as  well as undoubtedly being the commonest example used where I live (Leith). Thoughts? Guinnog 19:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ken", "canna" and "dinna" are Scots rather than Scottish English but I must admit that "aye" probably straddles the divide (just as "wee" does). "Aye" meaning "yes" is used by some non-Scots in phrases like "Aye aye, captain". -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Aye" and "nay" are used in American English, but only in the context of parliamentary votes - parliamentary in the sense of committees and social organizations as well as lawmaking institutions (Congress and state legislatures). Cbdorsett 06:39, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye is also used throughout Northern England, and 'Cannet' (for can't/cannot) 'Dinnit/Divint' (for don't/do not) are used in the NE of England, would appear to be a variation of Canna and Dinna, and i think it would be ludacrous to suggest the NE speaks a type of Scots. These word must be Scottish-English. Gazh 12:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is ludicrous. After all, both French and Spanish use the word "Si", meaning "yes". That doesn't mean that that we should call the word "Si", "French-Spanish" or claim that the Spanish speak a type of French. So why on Earth would anyone want to do the equivalent for the word "aye", meaning "yes", just because it exists in both Scots and in English ? The word is Scots, Scottish English, Northern English, and even (archaic) Southern English. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While I agree with your point, I'd like to correct you in that the French and Spanish word si means "if."  For "yes", the Spanish word is sí and the French word is oui.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was taught that the word "si" has the meaning "yes" in French as well as the meaning "if" (and a few others see Si). It is used to mean "yes", in contexts where the questioner expected a "non" answer. Otherwise "oui" is used. For example "Les ours n'aiment pas le miel, n'est-ce pas ?". "Si, ils l'aiment beaucoup!" and "Les ours aiment le miel, n'est-ce pas ?". "Oui, ils l'aiment beaucoup!". -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Well sure if you want to talk about real French and not my crappy don't-look-at-the-second-entry-in-my-dictionary French then yeah that would be a correct description.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Aye (meaning yes)

message: Here are some references for the discussion to add to Wells (1982). I'll try to select some good ones for the article - if "goodness" includes ease of accessibility.
Abercrombie, D. (1979). The accents of Standard English in Scotland. In Languages of Scotland, eds. Aitken A. J. & McArthur, T., pp. 65-84. Chambers, Edinburgh.
Foulkes, P. & Docherty, G. J. (Eds.) (1999) Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles. Arnold, London.
Hewlett, N., Matthews, B. M., & Scobbie, J. M. (1999). Vowel Duration in Scottish English Speaking Children. In Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp. 2157-2160. San Francisco.
Hughes, A., Trudgill, P. & Watt, D. (2005) English Accents and Dialects (4th Ed.) Arnold, London.
Johnston, P. (1997) Regional Variation. In The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language ed. C. Jones. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Jones, C. (1997) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Lawson, E. & Stuart-Smith, J. (1999). A sociophonetic investigation of the “Scottish” consonants (/x/ and /hw/), in the speech of Glaswegian children. In Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, pp. 2541-2544. San Francisco.
Macafee,C. (1983). Varieties of English around the world: Glasgow. Amsterdam, Benjamins.
Macafee, C. (1994) Traditional dialect in the modern world: a Glasgow case study. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main.
Marshall, J. (2004). Language change and sociolinguistics: Rethinking social networks. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Robinson, C. & Crawford, C. A. (2001). Scotspeak: a guide to the pronunciation of modern urban Scots. Scots Language Resource Centre, Perth.
Scobbie, J. M., Hewlett, N., & Turk, A. (1999a). Standard English in Edinburgh and Glasgow: the Scottish Vowel Length Rule revealed. In Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles, eds. P.Foulkes & G.Docherty, pp. 230-245. Arnold, London.
Stuart-Smith, J. (1999). Glasgow: accent and voice quality. In Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles, eds. P.Foulkes & G.Docherty, pp. 203-222. Arnold, London.
Stuart-Smith, J. (2003) The phonology of modern urban Scots. In eds. Corbett, J., McClure, J. D., & Stuart-Smith. pp. 110-137. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
Wiki Scot 23:14, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: What format is that soundfile? My computer can't do anything with it. I bet I'm not alone. Seems to have been a bit of a pointless excercise.
Technotwat
:Hi Technotwat, the file is in .ogg format which is the only permitted sound format on wikipedia. Believe me, I'd rather use MP3 but it's not allowed. There's a page here: Wikipedia:Media help (Ogg) which should help you play them. By the way, I won't take it personally if someone can find a better representative accent than mine, but I do think there should be one! Thparkth 23:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound Files 

message: I'm not a dab hand with Wells' lexical sets. The table may need correcting/adjusting or adding to.
Nogger 19:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't make any sense out of it and I'm usually pretty good with phonology stuff.  I'm tempted to take it out.  What is it supposed to illustrate?  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was an answer to that above. 84.135.216.17 13:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahh, thank you for directing me to that.  I stand by my deletion, but if someone cares to restore it please also make it less confusing.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scottish vowel system 

message: I've never heard of this in any part of Scotland.  The Urban Dictionary suggests it might be Cumbrian.  Devilgate 14:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peeve meaning alcoholic drink 

message: Is the intrusive R commonly used in Scotland? --The Lazar 04:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Scottish accents are all rhotic -- although a few use back-R instead of front-R -- which means that our pronunciation differentiates between long vowels and vowels followed by R. Hence we never add non-existent "R"s to long vowels as speakers with non-rhotic accents (like RP) often do. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:41, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's called hypercorrection, I think. Cbdorsett 06:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intrusive R 

message: I was once told that most Scottish accents differentiated from English accents by having distinct pronunciations for or, oar and awe. If this is true, it would be a good example to list in this article. --ML5 12:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They do have different pronunciations. That's why they have different spellings. In fact from the Scottish point of view, there is a fourth member of the group, 'owe', which is 'oar' without the 'r', just as 'awe' is 'or' without the 'r'. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Or'', ''oar'' and ''awe'' 

message: I was wondering if someone skilled with phonetics could add to the page an explanation of how long 'i' in Scottish English is a mix of long 'i' plus a bit of a long 'e' at the end (e.g. in the words fight, light, right).  Just a suggestion, unless it's already there and I somehow missed it.  Also, in many cases, short 'i' becomes short 'e'.  "Fifty" is pronounced close to "fefty," for example.
:Depends upon the part of the country that the speaker's from. In the North-east, we'd say techt, fecht, recht and fefty. without even thinking about it but in other parts of the country that might not be so true. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Tight" long 'i' sound, and short 'i' becomes short 'e' 

message: I can't find anything about his accent anywhere online.  I can't find anything about how he changes his "s" sounds to "sh" sounds.  Maybe that's unique to him. 208.104.45.20 16:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd guess he has some sort of speech impediment. Digsdirt (talk) 00:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh alright.  I thought it was a Scottish dialect feature. Thegryseone (talk) 02:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

text: It's his wallies (false teeth) they don't seem to fit him properly...77.99.98.37 (talk) 16:34, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sean Connery 

message: My friend uses "ken" the way standard English speakers use "ya know;" that is, as a kind of attention and agreement confirming mechanism.  She also uses it in place of the present tense of the verb "to know."  This makes sense to me, as I speak Norwegian and the verb "kjenne" means to know in the sense of being familiar with something or someone.   It is one of many, many examples I can think of where Scottish English shows its strong Scandinavian connection.  Other examples include "kirk" for church and "flittin" (not sure if it's spelled that way or "flyttin") for moving house.  The use of the negative participle is also completely consistent with the way things are done in Scandinavian languages. --Ejwagneresq (talk) 06:29, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. All these languages are Germanic so it's not too surprising that they share some basic vocabulary. But Scots almost certainly inherited the use of "ken" from its Northumbrian roots. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Wrong, ken is from Old English cennan not cnāwan. See Wiktionary. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ken" and Scandinavian Connection 

message: Why is it that words like "bit" and "rid" come to sound like "bet" and "red" respectively, in (at least some) dialects of Scottish English?  Why isn't that in this article? 208.104.45.20 (talk) 21:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a north-east Scottish thing, isn't it? It's still relevant, though, so I guess it could be added somewhere. Nowtynowt (talk) 22:41, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bit and Rid 

message: I have never heard the term Scottish English used for Scots living in England! Isn't the term used Anglo-Scots?--Jack forbes (talk) 14:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scots in England 

message: This was Included:
:In some areas there is a substantial non-standard lexis (shared with Scots) apparently acquired from the Romany language and from Eastern European languages
Then the following was added months later:
:examples include shan (harsh, unfair), gadge (lad, chap) and peeve (alcoholic drink), hoose (house, legal home), oxters (armpits)
Non-standard vocab. would normally be attributed to Scots. The above reference to Romany language and from Eastern European languages:
:shan very likely from Gaelic sean
:gadge from gadgie from Romany
:peeve likely Romany
:hoose from Anglo-Saxon
:Oxters from Anglo-Saxon
We'll have to do better than that to make claims of substantial non-standard lexis apparently acquired from the Romany language and from Eastern European languages. 84.134.248.194 (talk) 22:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lexis 

message: Since when is "I doubt something" a primarily Scottish construction?  I live in Cambridge and use and hear "doubt" used as a verb all the time.  I didn't even have a clue that it was linked to Scotland in any way. Hpesoj00 (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for noticing! The construction I doubt it will rain meaning "I think it's unlikely it will rain" is commonly used wherever English is spoken *except* in parts of Scotland, where the meaning may be quite different: "I fear that it will rain."  That's exactly what the article used to say, before an anon screwed it up--again, thank you.  (And I apologize for editing the article without checking the history first.) Jack(Lumber) 13:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this limited to a specific area of Scotland? I've lived pretty much my whole life in and around Glasgow and have never heard "doubt" used except in the sense of "unlikely".  I note this particular line has a "citation needed" on it, so I would presume that somebody else had the same doubts about this being true. Reveilled (talk) 22:54, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the culprit here: it was deleted here without explanation, so I returned it, adding the {cn} because I've only encountered this use in old texts - but then, I don't live in Scotland, so for all I know it may be an archaism or it may be absolutely common. --Thrissel (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  I doubt... 

message: "In colloquial speech shall and ought are wanting, must is marginal for obligation and may is rare."
What does this mean? Does it mean that "shall" and "ought" are missing? or that "shall" and "ought" mean "wanting"? Or is it some technical linguistic term that I'm just ignorant of? What is "marginal for obligation"? 
Is this sentence an example of Scottish English or just linguistic jargon? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose it's not the clearest sentence. Simply put, in common speech shall and ought are used by few; respectively, will and should are used in their place by most. Must and may are generally not used, though most people might occasionally use them, generally using need to and might, respectively, in their place..Mnealon (talk) 00:46, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation please! 

message: Thanks for the citations for "Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish dialects" and "cat and cart are distinguished only by means of the r; and marry rhymes with starry". I don't have the text of the citation so don't know exactly what is said therein, but if that's what Wells says, I can't dispute its inclusion. That said, as a native speaker, there are subtle but clear distinctions in both cases. Caught is slightly longer and more dipthongised (if that's a word(?)) compared to cot. Cat and marry are short compared to cart and starry. In each of these cases the distinction may be less marked than in other forms of English but it is still present nonetheless. Not sure how to proceed though as it would be difficult to cite that these words are in fact differentiated... Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: He says that some speakers do make a distinction, but it's apparently a difference in quality rather than in length (pp. 402-403). I'm Jack(Lumber) and I approve this message. 21:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does Wells have cloth ears? 

message: ""Why not?" is often rendered as "How not?"." Or more likely "How no?"77.99.98.37 (talk) 16:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: How No

message: I noticed the article said that the vowels in "herd", "bird" (or rather "third", because "bird" is often pronounced "burd", as I'm sure a lot of you will be aware) and "curd" were always distinguished in Scottish English, but I don't (not now; I used to, I'm sure, but don't seem to distinguish them now). I also know a fair few speakers here in Aberdeen who are much the same, but are definitely Scottish and speak with an otherwise normal Scottish accent. Could this be noted, or is a reliable academic source required? Even better, has anyone else noticed this? 92.27.214.225 (talk) 22:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herd-bird-curd distinction 

message: The surname and year wasn't enough for me to find it.
Meanwhile, I'm removing a sentence from the history section: "the mother tongues of Scottish people remained overwhelmingly Gaelic and Scots". This could use a time-period - for how long did they remain so? Also, the fuzzy distinction between Scots and Scottish English makes this claim problematic, so more details would help.
--winterstein (talk) 15:13, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  More details needed for the McClure (1994) reference 

message: Has any consideration been given to using the label "Caledonian English" instead of "Scottish English".  The latter presents a problem in being descriptive of all sorts of national traditions, not just language; thus, "Scottish English" is or can be very confusing (among other things, it could refer to some thing or trend that is simultaneous Scottish and English). Conversely, the label "Caledonian English" is much clearer - like saying Canadian English, American English, Hiberno-English (or Hibernian English), etc.
A thought for Scottish and English linguists to contemplate, eh?
71.198.146.98 (talk) 06:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Where would I, born and bred in Lothian, fit into this new Caledonian vision, I wonder? Kim Traynor (talk) 02:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Caledonian English cf. Scottish English

message: Does "Aye, right!" really mean "Definitely not"? It looks like it means its exact opposite. Is this simply a case of sarcasm or something? JIP | Talk 21:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I can see where the "Definitely not" comes from but to be more precise, it generally means "I don't believe you/it" or "Pull the other one, it's got bells on". So yes, I suppose that it is sarcasm. I might well say "aye, right" with a different intonation to mean "yes, I completely agree". -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:07, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone once wrote that sarcasm is the basis of all Scottish humour, and there's an old joke that Scots is the only language where two positives make up a negative. I posted this phrase (since removed) in the (perhaps mistaken) belief that one would hear it from the mouth of a Scottish English speaker but not from the mouth of an English speaker south of the border. It therefore seemed to me to be a Scotticism, regardless of whether sarcasm is involved. Kim Traynor (talk) 01:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aye, right! 

message: It seems to me that the Scots nationalists have got hold of this topic and distorted history, as they so often do. Variants of what I call 'Anglish' were spoken throughout the whole of Britain from the Dark Ages onwards. And different 'Anglish' kingdoms existed throughout the length of Britain. One such kingdom Northumbria stretched from Edinburgh to Hull. 'Scotland' the kingdom of the Scots tribe was then just one small kingdom in the west of today's Scotland. The many kingdoms in Britain then began a  series of mergers. In what is now England the Kingdom of Wessex gained the ascendancy. Somewhat later, in what is now Scotland, the kingdom of the Scots took over the other northern kingdoms. But here's the rub: the most impportant and most populous of those northern, henceforth 'Scottish', kingdoms was the upper half of Northumbria - an Anglish kingdom, inhabited by Anglish speakers. The idea that Scottishness is somehow totally distinct from Englishness is more about political nationalism than any real cultural differences (All that Disneyfied  kilt and bagpipes imagery was never mainstream Scottishness, but rather a minority Highland culture exploited for nationalistic purposes) . Most Scots are and were really just as 'English' as most Englishmen - not least as English as the English who live in Nothumberland, Durham and Yorkshire. So called Scots English is and was simply another Anglish dialect, spoken by Anglish people just like Yorkshire dialect , or Wessex dialect - and indeed, just like all of them, it has been superceeded by standard English. Politicians, and warriors like King Robert the Bruce (himself Norman French), have always tried to emphasise differences in order to establish their own self-centred conception of 'Freedom!'  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.1.26 (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you've got the wrong article. This is the Scottish English article. Your comments would be more appropriate for the Scots Language article since you appear to be talking about the descendant of Northumbrian English rather than the descendant of Wessex English which this article covers. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't forget the Normans and their linguistic imperialism imposed on the men of Wessex. Isn't that one of the main reasons for the divergence, historically speaking, of English south and north of the Humber? Kim Traynor (talk) 02:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  We're all Anglish 

message: This article states there was no Scots Bible. Not so. 
In the 1520s, a century before the King James Bible helped standardise spelling across Britain part of a 'Scots language' bible was published in Scotland by Nisbet. The English translation (from Latin and Greek) of the Bible was published in England by Purvey.
Ignore the unfamiliar spelling, and what is blindingly obvious is that they are both written in exactly the same language. There seems to have been no truly distinct 'Scots English'.
(Purvey - English) And he gaderide to gidre alle the prynces of prestis, and scribis of the puple, and enqueride of hem, where Crist shulde be borun. And thei seiden to hym, In Bethleem of Juda…Thanne Eroude clepide pryueli the astromyens, and lernyde bisili of hem the tyme of the sterre that apperide to hem. And he sente hem in to Bethleem, and seide, Go ye, and axe ye bisili of the child, and whanne yee han foundun, teel ye it to me, that Y also come, and worschipe hym.
(Nisbet -Scots) And he gaderit togiddir al the princes of prestis and scribis of the pepile, and inquirit of thame quhar Crist suld be born. And thai said to him, In Bethlem of Juda…Than Erode callit priuelie the astronomyers, and leirit besilie of thame the tyme of the stern that apperit to thame. And he send thame into Bethelem, and said, Ga ye and ask ye besilie of the child: and quhen ye haue fundin, tel ye to me, that alsa I cum and wirschip him.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.12.78 (talk) 18:21, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "Nisbet was translating not from the original Greek or Latin but from an English version originally made by John Wycliff in the 14th century and revised by Purvey in the 1520’s."  I doubt he would "translate to the same language" just for the sake of an unfamiliar spelling. --Thrissel (talk) 01:49, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

text: Nisbet's "Bible" is just the New Testament anyway. It's not a complete translation of the Bible and it may have existed as a manuscript but it certainly wasn't published in the sense of being printed and distributed, so the article is correct. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:44, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Scots Bible? Not so. 

message: If there can be a Wiki page Scottish-English then why no page on         English-English, or even British-English? Discussion would be so much easier if the English language had been called 'British' rather than 'English', which misleadingly frequently conflates it solely with England and the people of England. The 'British language' is however the historical name given to Welsh, so it can't be used - otherwise we would be able to happliy talk about the various dialects of British spoken in Great Britain without having to sort of pretend there is a special Scots version of English, but not any equally distinct English varieties in England (or in Wales for that matter).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.3.141 (talk) 20:08, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Here you are: English language in England, British English. And for good measure: Welsh English. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:45, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

text: Scottish English is just one of a large number of similar articles. For a list see List of dialects of the English language. -- Derek Ross | Talk 15:30, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why Not English-English? Or British-English. 

message: The idea of a sudden and total eclipse of Scots is highly misleading. As is the idea that printing or the King James Bible created a sudden change. Scots began life as Northern English and though the two variants, English and Scots, seem to have begun to diverge somewhat in medieval times, they no doubt began to slowly (re)converge partly as a result of printing beginning in 1476. But that process of (re)convergance and the emergence of Modern English/Scottish English, seems to have been an evolutionary process. If one looks at an original copy of the King James Bible (1611) for example you can see that it is certainly not written in Modern English, indeed if you were told it was written in 'Scots' you might well believe it. One of the other issues is the assumption of a false dichotomy between English and Scots, the presumed existence of a standard Scots and a standard English, and the cultural 'imposition' of the latter on the former. The truth seems to be that there were many 'Englishes' in England and several 'Scots' in Scotland. A standard written language was equally novel to England as to Scotland, and it took a couple of hundred years  or more for spelling for example to become standardised throughout all Britain. The process of introducing a standard English to both the English and the Scots seems to have orginally been osmotic, and only much later was it encouraged, and indeed imposed, in both countries, through formal education. By then however, say in 1800, neither language variant could be said to be the same language they had been two hundred or more years earlier.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.10.66 (talk) 11:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Not Scots but "Scots as a literary language" and, correct or not, we have a citation for McClure saying this in the Cambridge History; if the above is even in contradiction to this, who notably says so? Mutt Lunker (talk) 13:07, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:   'sudden and total eclipse of Scots... ' 

message: The "Reduced vowels" subtable is missing an entry for the Scottish respresentation of ɨ. Is it supposed to be missing or is it ɨ, too? Buriaku (talk) 13:33, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reduced vowels table in phonology section missing Scottish variety of ɨ 

message: According to The Concise Scots Dictionary (1985) "stookie" is from "stucco" (plaster of Paris). While a "stookie" refers specifically to "a plaster-cast encasing a broken limb", it also means a stucco figure, and by extension "a slow-witted, dull or shy person". "Stookies" in the plural is "a children's game in which the players try to remain motionless as long as possible"; ergo, "to stand like a stookie" is more likely to mean to stand motionless rather than resemble a plaster-cast! Kim Traynor | Talk 20:09, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Ref'd. --Thrissel (talk) 23:36, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an unconvincing list of examples.  A derivation from the English and Scots "stook" in the sense of "a number of sheaves of grain stacked upright in a field for drying" seems a more likely origin than "stucco."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.152.98.247 (talk) 12:35, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of "stookie" 

message: Rather than the potentially confusing "Scottish English" (which also is arguably a contradiction in terms, viz. since when has something Scottish been 'English'?), it might make more sense to title this article "Caledonian English" or, alternatively, "Scottish Varieties of English".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.162.218.153 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: "Scottish English" is what it is referred to as, the term is no more a contradiction than e.g. "American English", it is never referred to as "Caledonian English" and if there were an issue with contradiction, which there isn't, the latter term would be no better or worse in that respect. Mutt Lunker (talk) 00:13, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caledonian English 

message: Quote from [x]-section: "Some Scottish speakers use it in words of Greek origin as well, such as technical, patriarch, etc.;(Wells 1982, 408) that is not precisely a hyperforeignism, because the chi represented by the "ch" in these words is in fact pronounced /x/ in Modern Greek and even in Late Koine Greek, but was pronounced /kʰ/ in the Ancient Greek from which the words or their roots are borrowed."
:I agree that this is not a "hyperforeignism", but for a very different reason. Namely, that [x] is simply not a foreign sound in Scots and Scottish English. The same Greek words are pronounced with [x] or [ç] in languages like German, Dutch or Polish. But nobody would call that a "hyperforeignism". Again: because the sound isn't foreign to begin with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.133.57 (talk) 22:16, July 27, 2015‎
::The fact that it is not a foreign sound doesn't mean it is a historically valid sound in those words. I don't know whether it's really a hyperforeignism or not, but your reasoning is invalid. What you should do is find out whether the historical pronunciation was with [x] or [k] (for example), and if it was [k] and only changed into [x] later, that might signal hyperforeignism. LjL (talk) 00:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It was pronounced [kʰ] in Ancient Greek but had changed into [x] by the Medieval Greek period, just like Ancient Greek [pʰ] had changed into [f] and Ancient Greek [tʰ] into [θ]. (See Koine Greek phonology#Consonants.) Usually, the pronunciation of Greek-derived words is not based on the Classical Greek norm (as it has been reconstructed by scholars only in the 20th century) and the only reason that ch in technical is usually pronounced as [k] rather than [x] is no doubt the lack of [x] as a phoneme or even (allo-)phone in English outside Scotland, where [x] is present as a phoneme and usually spelt ‹ch›, so it makes sense to pronounce technical with [x]. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:33, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I suspect the original sound in patriarch, etc. was a , because the words were probably borrowed from Greek through Latin or the Romance languages, which merged the non-native  of learned Koine with the native Latin . If this is correct, it makes more sense to call patriarch with  hypercorrection, or spelling pronunciation, since the word never really had . It doesn't make sense to call it hyperforeignism. For it to be hyperforeignism, Scots speakers would have to have heard Greek spoken, but I doubt there's been any significant amount of contact between Scotland or Scotsmen and Greece or Greeks. Spelling pronunciation, on the other hand, is where a Scotsman thinks, Oh, ch usually is pronounced  in words that I know, and therefore patriarch should be pronounced with . Technically, patriarch never had a  sound in Latin, so it's a spelling pronunciation. — Eru·tuon 03:20, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hyperforeignism