Although Scotland is a part of the UK and English is the official and widely spoken language, there are at least two more languages which are native in Scotland and have a number of native speakers - Scottish Gaelic and Scots.
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic: Gàidhlig [ˈgaːlikʲ]) is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish.The 2001 UK Census showed that a total of 58,652 (1.2% of the Scottish population aged over three years old) in Scotland had some Gaelic ability at that time, with the Outer Hebrides being the main stronghold of the language. The census results indicate a decline of 7,300 Gaelic speakers from 1991. Despite this decline, revival efforts exist and the number of younger speakers of the language has increased.
Scottish Gaelic is not an official language of the European Union, nor of the United Kingdom. However, it is classed as an autochthonous language under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which the UK government has ratified. In addition, the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 gave official recognition to the language and established an official language development body ‒ Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
Defunct dialects
Scottish Gaelic may be more correctly known as Highland Gaelic to distinguish it from the now defunct dialects of Lowland Gaelic. Of these Galwegian Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and seems to have been the last dialect of Gaelic to have been spoken in Lowland Scotland, surviving until the Modern Period. By the 18th century, Lowland Gaelic had been largely replaced by Lowland Scots across much of Lowland Scotland, while the Brythonic language had disappeared. According to a reference in The Carrick Covenanters the last place in the Lowlands where Scottish Gaelic was still spoken was the village of Barr in Carrick.Today, the closest tied Irish dialect with Highland Gaelic is Ulster Irish, spoken in County Donegal – most notably the Gaoth Dobhair Gaeltacht. Written Ulster Irish as well as common grammatical and vocabulary traits reflects more archaic Classical Gaelic still providing more of a solid link between the two languages than with Official Standard Irish, based on the dialects of southern provinces. However, to claim that Ulster Irish is a perfect intermediate between the Irish and Scottish forms of Gaelic still remains perhaps an over-exaggerated statement.
What is known as Scottish Gaelic today seems to have evolved from the Gaelic spoken in The Outer Hebrides and on Skye. Generally speaking, the Gaelic spoken across The Western Isles is similar enough to be classed as one major dialect group, although there is still regional variation, for example the pronunciation of the slender 'r' as [ð] in Lewis, where the Gaelic has a unique Nordic accent, and is described as being 'toned'.
Gaelic in Eastern Scotland is now largely defunct, although the dialects which were spoken in the east tended to preserve a more archaic tone, which had been lost further west. For example, Gaelic speakers in East Sutherland prefer to say 'Cà 'd robh tu m' oidhche a-raoir?' ('Where were you about last night?'), rather than the more common 'Càit an robh thu (oidhche) a-raoir?'.
Writing System
Alphabet
The modern Scottish Gaelic alphabet has 18 letters:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U.
The letter h, now mostly used to indicate lenition of a consonant, was in general not used in the oldest orthography, as lenition was instead indicated with a dot over the lenited consonant. The letters of the alphabet were traditionally named after trees (see Scottish Gaelic alphabet), but this custom has fallen out of use.
Long vowels are either marked with a grave accent (à, è, ì, ò, ù) or are indicated through digraphs (e.g. ao is [ɯː]) or conditioned by certain consonant environments (e.g. a u preceding a non-intervocalic nn is [uː]). Traditional spelling systems also use the acute accent on the letters á, é and ó to denote a change in vowel quality rather than length, but reform from within the Scottish schools system has abandoned these in parts of Gaelic speaking society.
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Orthography
Classical Gaelic was used as a literary language in Scotland until the 18th century. Orthographic divergence between Scottish Gaelic and Irish is the result of more recent orthographic reforms resulting in a pluricentric language situation.
The quality of consonants is indicated in writing by the vowels surrounding them. So-called "slender" consonants are palatalised while "broad" consonants are neutral or velarised. The vowels e and i are classified as slender, and a, o, and u as broad. The spelling rule known as caol ri caol agus leathann ri leathann ("slender to slender and broad to broad") requires that a word-medial consonant or consonant group followed by a written i or e be also preceded by an i or e; and similarly if followed by a, o or u be also preceded by an a, o, or u. Consonant quality (palatalised or non-palatalised) is then indicated by the vowels written adjacent to a consonant, and the spelling rule gives the benefit of removing possible uncertainty about consonant quality at the expense of adding additional purely graphic vowels that may not be pronounced. For example, compare the t in slàinte [s̪lˠ̪aːɲtʲə] with the t in bàta [paːʰt̪ə].
The rule has no effect on the pronunciation of vowels. For example, plurals in Gaelic are often formed with the suffix -an, for example, bròg [prɔːk] (shoe) / brògan [prɔːkən] (shoes). But because of the spelling rule, the suffix is spelled -ean (but pronounced the same) after a slender consonant, as in taigh [tʰɤj] (house) / taighean [tʰɛhən] (houses) where the written e is purely a graphic vowel inserted to conform with the spelling rule because an i precedes the gh.
In changes promoted by the Scottish Examination Board from 1976 onwards, certain modifications were made to this rule. For example, the suffix of the past participle is always spelled -te, even after a broad consonant, as in togte "raised" (rather than the traditional togta).
Where pairs of vowels occur in writing, it is sometimes unclear which vowel is to be pronounced and which vowel has been introduced to satisfy this spelling rule.
Unstressed vowels omitted in speech can be omitted in informal writing. For example:
Tha mi an dòchas. ("I hope.") > Tha mi 'n dòchas.
Once Gaelic orthographic rules have been learned, the pronunciation of the written language is in general quite predictable. However learners must be careful not to try to apply English sound-to-letter correspondences to written Gaelic, otherwise mispronunciations will result. Gaelic personal names such as Seònaid [ˈʃɔːnɛdʲ] are especially likely to be mispronounced by English speakers.
Pronunciation
Most varieties of Gaelic have between 8 and 9 cardinal vowels ([i e ɛ a o ɔ u ɤ ɯ]) that can be either long or short. There are also two reduced vowels ([ə ɪ]) which only occur short. Although some vowels are strongly nasal, instances of distinctive nasality are rare. There are about nine diphthongs and a few triphthongs.
Most consonants have both palatal and non-palatal counterparts, including a very rich system of liquids, nasals and trills (i.e. 3 contrasting l sounds, 3 contrasting n sounds and 3 contrasting r sounds). The historically voiced stops [b d̪ ɡ] have lost their voicing, so the phonemic contrast today is between unaspirated [p t̪ k] and aspirated [pʰ t̪ʰ kʰ]. In many dialects, these stops may however gain voicing through secondary articulation through a preceding nasal, for examples doras [t̪ɔɾəs̪] "door" but an doras "the door" as [ən̪ˠ d̪ɔɾəs̪] or [ə n̪ˠɔɾəs̪].
In some fixed phrases, these changes are shown permanently, as the link with the base words has been lost, as in an-dràsta "now", from an tràth-sa "this time/period".
In medial and final position, the aspirated stops are preaspirated rather than aspirated.
Grammar
Scottish Gaelic is an Indo-European language with an inflecting morphology, a Verb–subject–object word order and two grammatical genders.
Noun inflection
Gaelic nouns are normally either classed as masculine or feminine. A small number of words that used to belong to the neuter class show some degree of gender confusion, for example am muir "the sea" behaves as a masculine noun in the nominative case, but as a feminine noun in the genitive (na mara).
Nouns are marked for case in a number of ways, most commonly by involving various combinations of lenition, palatalization and suffixation.
Verb inflection
There are 12 irregular verbs. Most other verbs are derived following a fully predictable paradigm although polysyllabic verbs ending in laterals can deviate from this paradigm as they show syncopation.
There are:
- Three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
- Three numbers: singular, dual and plural
- Two voices: active and passive
- Two non-composed tenses (future, perfect) and several composed tenses (e.g. pluperfect, future perfect)
Word order
Word order is strictly verb–subject–object, including questions, negative questions and negatives with severe restrictions on what particle may occur before the verb.
Personal names
Some traditional Gaelic names have become so well-known, that English versions of them are used outside Gaelic-speaking areas. Also, Gaelic has its own version of European-wide names which also have English forms. Names which fall into one or other of these classes are : Ailean, Aonghas, Dòmhnall, Donnchadh, Coinneach, Murchadh (Alan, Angus, Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdo). Iain (John), Alasdair (Alexander), Uilleam (William), Catrìona (Catherine), Raibert (Robert), Cairistìona (Christina), Anna (Ann), Màiri (Mary), Seumas (James), Pàdraig (Patrick) and Tómas (Thomas). The well-known name Hamish, and the recently established Mhairi (pronounced [vaːri]) come from the Gaelic for, respectively, James, and Mary, but derive from the form of the names as they appear in the vocative case: Seumas (James) (nom.) → Sheumais (voc.), and, Màiri (Mary) (nom.) → Mhàiri (voc.).
Surnames
The most common class of Gaelic surnames are, of course, those beginning with mac (Gaelic for son), such as MacGillEathain (MacLean). The female form is nic (Gaelic for daughter), so Catherine MacPhee is properly called in Gaelic, Caitrìona Nic a' Phì. [Strictly, "nic" is a contraction of the Gaelic phrase "nighean mhic", meaning "daughter of the son", thus Nic Dhomhnuill, really means "daughter of MacDonald" rather than "daughter of Donald".] Although there is a common misconception that "mac" means "son of", the "of" part actually comes from the genitive form of the patronymic that follows the prefix "Mac", e.g., in the case of MacNéill, Néill (of Neil) is the genitive form of Niall (Neil).
Several colours give rise to common Scottish surnames: bàn (Bain – white), ruadh (Roy – red), dubh (Dow – black), donn (Dunn – brown), buidhe (Bowie – yellow).
Scots
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Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster (where the local dialect is known as Ulster Scots). It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.
Since there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots. Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects do exist, these often render contradictory results. Scots is often regarded as one of the ancient varieties of English, but with its own distinct dialects. Alternatively, Scots is sometimes treated as a distinct Germanic language.
A 2010 Scottish Government study of "public attitudes towards the Scots language" found that 64% of respondents (around 1,000 individuals being a representative sample of Scotland's adult population) "don't really think of Scots as a language", but it also found that "the most frequent speakers are least likely to agree that it is not a language (58%) and those never speaking Scots most likely to do so (72%)".
Native speakers sometimes refer to their vernacular as braid Scots (or "broad Scots" in English) or use a dialect name such as the "Doric", "Teri" or the "Buchan Claik". The old-fashioned Scotch, an English loan, occurs occasionally, especially in Northern Ireland. The term Lallans, a variant of the Modern Scots word lawlands [ˈlo̜ːlən(d)z, ˈlɑːlənz],is also used, though this is more often taken to mean the Lallans literary form. Scots in Ireland is known in official circles as Ulster-Scots (Ulstèr-Scotch in revivalist Ulster-Scots) or "Ullans", a recent neologism merging Ulster and Lallans.
Orthography
The orthography of Early Scots had become more or less standardised by the middle to late sixteenth century.
The eighteenth-century Scots revival saw the introduction of a new literary language descended from the old court Scots, but with an orthography that had abandoned some of the more distinctive old Scots spellings and adopted many standard English spellings. Despite the updated spelling, however, the rhymes make it clear that a Scots pronunciation was intended. These writings also introduced what came to be known as the apologetic apostrophe, generally occurring where a consonant exists in the Standard English cognate. This Written Scots drew not only on the vernacular but also on the King James Bible and was also heavily influenced by the norms and conventions of Augustan English poetry. Consequently this written Scots looked very similar to contemporary Standard English, suggesting a somewhat modified version of that, rather than a distinct speech form with a phonological system which had been developing independently for many centuries. This modern literary dialect, 'Scots of the book' or Standard Scots once again gave Scots an orthography of its own, lacking neither "authority nor author." This literary language used throughout Lowland Scotland and Ulster, embodied by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Murray, David Herbison, James Orr, James Hogg and William Laidlaw among others, is well described in the 1921 Manual of Modern Scots.
Other authors developed dialect writing, preferring to represent their own speech in a more phonological manner rather than following the pan-dialect conventions of modern literary Scots,[66] especially for the northern and insular dialects of Scots.
During the twentieth century a number of proposals for spelling reform were presented. Most proposals entailed regularising the use of established eighteenth and nineteenth century conventions, in particular the avoidance of the apologetic apostrophe which supposedly represented "missing" English letters. Such letters were never actually missing in Scots. For example, in the fourteenth century, Barbour spelt the Scots cognate of 'taken' as tane. Since there has been no k in the word for over 700 years, representing its omission with an apostrophe seems pointless. The current spelling is usually taen.
Through the twentieth century, with the decline of spoken Scots and knowledge of the literary tradition, phonetic (often humorous) representations became more common.
Grammar
Modern Scots follows the subject–verb–object sentence structure as does Standard English. However, the word order He turnt oot the licht to 'He turned the light out' and Gie's it (Give us it) to 'Give it to me' may be preferred.
The indefinite article a may be used before both consonants and vowels. The definite article the is used before the names of seasons, days of the week, many nouns, diseases, trades and occupations, sciences and academic subjects. It is also often used in place of the indefinite article and instead of a possessive pronoun.
Scots includes some irregular plurals such as ee/een (eye/eyes), cauf/caur (calf/calves), horse/horse (horse/horses), cou/kye (cow/cows) and shae/shuin (shoe/shoes) that do not occur in Standard English. Nouns of measure and quantity remain unchanged in the plural.
The relative pronoun is that for all persons and numbers, but may be elided. Modern Scots also has a third adjective/adverb this-that-yon/yonder (thon/thonder) indicating something at some distance. Thir and thae are the plurals of this and that respectively.
The present tense of verbs adheres to the Northern subject rule whereby verbs end in -s in all persons and numbers except when a single personal pronoun is next to the verb. Certain verbs are often used progressively and verbs of motion may be dropped before an adverb or adverbial phrase of motion.
Many verbs have strong or irregular forms which are distinctive from Standard English. The regular past form of the weak or regular verbs is -it, -t or -ed, according to the preceding consonant or vowel.
The present participle and gerund in are now usually /ən/ but may still be differentiated /ən/ and /in/ in Southern Scots and, /ən/ and /ɪn/ North Northern Scots.
The negative particle is na, sometimes spelled nae, e.g. canna (can't), daurna (daren't), michtna (mightn't).
Adverbs usually take the same form as the verb root or adjective especially after verbs. Haein a real guid day (Having a really good day). She's awfu fauchelt (She's awfully tired).
Phonology
Consonants
Most consonants are usually pronounced much as in English but:
- c: /k/ or /s/, much as in English.
- ch: /x/,[21] also gh. Medial 'cht' may be /ð/ in Northern dialects. loch (fjord or lake), nicht (night), dochter (daughter), dreich (dreary), etc. Similar to the German "Nacht".
- ch: word initial or where it follows 'r' /tʃ/. airch (arch), mairch (march), etc.
- gn: /n/. In Northern dialects /ɡn/ may occur.[22]
- kn: /n/. In Northern dialects /kn/ or /tn/ may occur.[22] knap (talk), knee, knowe (knoll), etc.
- ng: is always /ŋ/.[23]
- nch: usually /nʃ/.[24] brainch (branch), dunch (push), etc.
- r: /r/ or /ɹ/ is pronounced in all positions,[25] i.e. rhotically.
- s or se: /s/ or /z/.
- t: may be a glottal stop between vowels or word final.[22] In Ulster dentalised pronunciations may also occur, also for 'd'.
- th: /ð/ or /θ/ much as is English. In Mid Northern varieties an intervocallic /ð/ may be realised /d/.[26] Initial 'th' in thing, think and thank, etc. may be /h/.[27]
- wh: usually /ʍ/, older /xʍ/.[21] Northern dialects also have /f/.[27]
- wr: /wr/ more often /r/ but may be /vr/ in Northern dialects.[27] wrack (wreck), wrang (wrong), write, wrocht (worked), etc.
- z: /jɪ/ or /ŋ/, may occur in some words as a substitute for the older <ȝ> (yogh). For example: brulzie (broil), gaberlunzie (a beggar) and the names Menzies, Finzean, Culzean, Mackenzie etc. (As a result of the lack of education in Scots, Mackenzie is now generally pronounced with a /z/ following the perceived realisation of the written form, as more controversially is sometimes Menzies.)
Silent letters
- The word final 'd' in nd and ld but often pronounced in derived forms. Sometimes simply 'n' and 'l' or 'n'' and 'l'' e.g. auld (old) and haund (hand) etc.
- 't' in medial cht ('ch' = /x/) and st and before final en e.g. fochten (fought), thristle (thistle) and also the 't' in aften (often) etc.
- 't' in word final ct and pt but often pronounced in derived forms e.g. respect and accept etc.
Vowels
In Scots, vowel length is usually conditioned by the Scottish Vowel Length Rule. Words which differ only slightly in pronunciation from Scottish English are generally spelled as in English. Other words may be spelt the same but differ in pronunciation, for example: aunt, swap, want and wash with /a/, bull, full v. and pull with /ʌ/, bind, find and wind v., etc. with /ɪ/.
The unstressed vowel /ə/ may be represented by any vowel letter.
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