Middle Scots
Encyclopedia
Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland
in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 13th century its phonology
, orthography
, accidence, syntax
and vocabulary
had diverged markedly from Early Scots
, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English
. Subsequently its orthography differed from that of the emerging Early Modern English
standard. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, echoes of Chaucerian words, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts or the writings of Scots in exile in England influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers in Paris or the likes of Chepman and Myllar’s English craftsmen in Edinburgh and the use of archaisms in poetry.
identification with the lowland language had finally secured the division of Scotland into two somewhat antagonistic parts, the Gaelic
Highlands and the Anglic Lowlands
. The adherence of many Highlanders to the Catholic
faith during the Reformation
led to the 1609 Statutes of Iona
forcing Clan
chiefs to establish Protestant churches, send their sons to Lowland schools and withdraw their patronage from the hereditary guardians of Gaelic culture – the bards. This was followed in 1616 by an act establishing parish schools in the Highlands with the aim of extirpating the Gaelic language. Just over a hundred years later this endeavour gained almost genocidal proportions after the Jacobite uprising
s.
The Danish dependency of Orkney and Shetland had been held by Scottish magnate
s from the late 14th century. These had introduced the Lowland tongue which then began to replace Norn
. In 1467 the islands became part of Scotland.
By the early 16th century Scottis (previously used to describe Gaelic
in Ireland as well as Scotland) had been adopted for what had become the national language of the Stewart
kingdom. The term Erse (Irish) was used instead for Gaelic, while the previously used term Inglis was increasingly used to refer to the language south of the border. The first known instance of this terminology was by an unknown man in 1494. In 1559 William Nudrye was granted a monopoly by the court to produce school textbooks, two of which were Ane Schort Introduction: Elementary Digestit into Sevin Breve Tables for the Commodius Expeditioun of Thame That are Desirous to Read and Write the Scottis Toung and Ane Intructioun for Bairnis to be Learnit in Scottis and Latin but there is no evidence that the books were ever printed.
From 1610 to the 1690s, during the Plantation of Ulster
, some 200,000 Scots settled in the north of Ireland, taking what were to become the Ulster Scots dialects with them.
Later in the period southern influence on the language increased, owing to the new political and social relations with England prior to and following the accession of James VI
to the English throne. By the Union of Parliaments
in 1707 southern Modern English
was generally adopted as the literary language though Modern Scots
remained the vernacular.
spelling for every word, but operated a system of free variation based on a number of spelling variants. Some scribes used their own variants, but this was relatively rare. The least variation occurred in the later 16th century as printers moved towards fixed spellings. This ended in the 17th century when printers began to adopt imported English conventions. Middle Scots used a number of now obsolete letters and letter
combinations:
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule
is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots period. Here vowel length
is conditioned by phonetic and morphemic environment. The affected vowels tended to be realised fully long in end-stressed syllables before voiced oral continuant
s except /l/, in hiatus
, before word or morpheme boundaries and before /rd/ and /dʒ/.
The major differences to contemporary southern English were the now well established early merger of /ei/ with /e/ (dey 'die', ley 'lie'), early 15th century l-vocalisation where /al/ (except intervocalically and before /d/), /ol/ and usually /ul/ merged with /au/, /ou/ and /uː/, medial and final /v/ was lost (deil 'devil', ser 'serve').
The Great Vowel Shift
occurred partially, /u/ and /øː/ remained unaffected, /ɔː/ became /oː/, /iː, eː, ɛː/ and /aː/ became /ɛi, iː, eː/ and /ɛː/.
An anti-reformation pamphlet printed abroad and circulated in Scotland.
B. Thair be tua kynd of prayeris in the kirk, the
ane is priuat, quhilk euerie man sayis be him self, the
vthir is publik, quhilk the preistis sayis in the name of
the hail kirk. As to the priuate prayeris, na Catholik
denyis bot it is verie expedient that euerie man
pray in his auin toung, to the end he vndirstand that
quhilk he sayis, and that thairbie the interior prayer
of the hairt may be the mair valkinnit, and conseruit
the bettir; and gif, onie man pray in ane vther toung,
it is also expedient that he vnderstand the mening of
the vordis at the lest. For the quhilk caus in the
catholik kirk the parentis or godfatheris ar obleist
to learne thame quhom thay hald in baptisme the
formes of prayeris and beleif, and instruct thame
sufficiently thairin, sua that thay vndirstand the
same: Albeit the principal thing quhilk God requiris
is the hairt, that suppois he quha prayis vndirstand
nocht perfytlie the vordis quhilk he spekis, yit God
quha lukis in the hairt, vill nocht lat his prayer be in
vane. As to the publik prayeris of the kirk, it is not
necessar that the pepill vndirstand thame, becaus it
is nocht the pepill quha prayis, bot the preistis in the
name of the hail kirk, and it is aneuche that thay
assist be deuotione liftand vp thair myndis to God or
saying thair auin priuate oraisonis, and that be thair
deuotione thay may be maid participant of the kirk.
As in the synagogue of the Ieuis, the peopill kneu not
quhat all thay cerimonies signifeit, quhilk vas keipit
be the preistis and vtheris in offering of thair sacri-
fices and vther vorshipping of god, and yit thay
did assist vnto thame; ye, sum of the preistis thame
selfis miskneu the significatione of thir cerimoneis
Than gif it vas aneuche to the pepill to vndirstand
that in sik ane sacrifice consisted the vorshipping of
God, suppois thay had not sua cleir ane vndirstand-
ing of euerie thing that vas done thairin, sua in the
catholik kirk, quhen the people assistis to the sacrifice
of the Mess, thay acknaulege that thairbie God is
vorshippit, and that it is institute for the remem-
brance of Christis death and passione. Albeit thay
vndirstand nocht the Latine toung, yit thay ar not
destitut of the vtilitie and fruit thairof. And it is
nocht vithout greit caus that as in the inscrptione
and titil quhilk pilat fixed vpone the croce of Christ
Iesus thir thre toungis var vritt in, Latine, Greik,
and Hebreu, sua in the sacrifice and the publik prayeris
of the kirk thay ar cheiflie retenit for the con-
seruatione of vnitie in the kirk and nationis amang
thame selfis; for, gif al thingis var turnit in the
propir langage of euerie cuntrey, na man vald studie
to the Latine toung, and thairbie al communicatione
amangis Christiane pepil vald schortlie be tane auay,
and thairbie eftir greit barbaritie inseu. Mairatour
sik publique prayeris and seruice ar keipit mair
perfytlie in thair auin integritie vithout al corrup-
tione; for gif ane natione vald eik or pair onie
thing, that vald be incontinent remarkt and reprouit
be vther nationis, quhilk culd not be, gif euerie
natione had al thai thingis turnit in the auin propir
langage; as ye may se be experience, gif ye vald
confer the prayeris of your deformit kirkis, togidder
vith the innumerabil translationis of the psalmes,
quihlk ar chaingit according to euerie langage in
the quhilk thay ar turnit. It is not than vithout
greit caus, and ane special instinctione of the halie
Ghaist, that thir toungis foirspokin hes bene,
as thay vil be retenit to the end of the varld. And
quhen the Ieuis sall imbrace the Euangel than sall
the sacrifice and other publik prayeris be in the
Hebreu toung, according to that quhilk I said befoir,
that on the Croce of Christ thai thrie toungis onlie
var vrittin, to signifie that the kirk of Christ suld
vse thay thre toungis cheiflie in his vorshipping, as
the neu and auld testament ar in thir thre toungis
in greitast authoritie amangis al pepill.
Scottish Lowlands
The Scottish Lowlands is a name given to the Southern half of Scotland.The area is called a' Ghalldachd in Scottish Gaelic, and the Lawlands ....
in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 13th century its phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
, accidence, syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
and vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
had diverged markedly from Early Scots
Early Scots
Early Scots describes the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English...
, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
. Subsequently its orthography differed from that of the emerging Early Modern English
Early Modern English
Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English...
standard. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, echoes of Chaucerian words, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts or the writings of Scots in exile in England influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers in Paris or the likes of Chepman and Myllar’s English craftsmen in Edinburgh and the use of archaisms in poetry.
History
The now established StewartHouse of Stuart
The House of Stuart is a European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of Great Britain and Ireland...
identification with the lowland language had finally secured the division of Scotland into two somewhat antagonistic parts, the Gaelic
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
Highlands and the Anglic Lowlands
Scottish Lowlands
The Scottish Lowlands is a name given to the Southern half of Scotland.The area is called a' Ghalldachd in Scottish Gaelic, and the Lawlands ....
. The adherence of many Highlanders to the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
faith during the Reformation
Scottish Reformation
The Scottish Reformation was Scotland's formal break with the Papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation; and in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the re-establishment of the church along Reformed lines, and politically in...
led to the 1609 Statutes of Iona
Statutes of Iona
The Statutes of Iona, passed in Scotland in 1609, required that Highland Scottish clan chiefs send their heirs to Lowland Scotland to be educated in English-speaking Protestant schools. As a result some clans, such as the MacDonalds of Sleat and the MacLeods of Harris, adopted the new religion...
forcing Clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
chiefs to establish Protestant churches, send their sons to Lowland schools and withdraw their patronage from the hereditary guardians of Gaelic culture – the bards. This was followed in 1616 by an act establishing parish schools in the Highlands with the aim of extirpating the Gaelic language. Just over a hundred years later this endeavour gained almost genocidal proportions after the Jacobite uprising
Jacobite rising
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...
s.
The Danish dependency of Orkney and Shetland had been held by Scottish magnate
Magnate
Magnate, from the Late Latin magnas, a great man, itself from Latin magnus 'great', designates a noble or other man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or other qualities...
s from the late 14th century. These had introduced the Lowland tongue which then began to replace Norn
Norn language
Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in Shetland and Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland, and in Caithness. After the islands were pledged to Scotland by Norway in the 15th century, it was gradually replaced by Scots and on the mainland by Scottish...
. In 1467 the islands became part of Scotland.
By the early 16th century Scottis (previously used to describe Gaelic
Goidelic languages
The Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
in Ireland as well as Scotland) had been adopted for what had become the national language of the Stewart
House of Stuart
The House of Stuart is a European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of Great Britain and Ireland...
kingdom. The term Erse (Irish) was used instead for Gaelic, while the previously used term Inglis was increasingly used to refer to the language south of the border. The first known instance of this terminology was by an unknown man in 1494. In 1559 William Nudrye was granted a monopoly by the court to produce school textbooks, two of which were Ane Schort Introduction: Elementary Digestit into Sevin Breve Tables for the Commodius Expeditioun of Thame That are Desirous to Read and Write the Scottis Toung and Ane Intructioun for Bairnis to be Learnit in Scottis and Latin but there is no evidence that the books were ever printed.
From 1610 to the 1690s, during the Plantation of Ulster
Plantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...
, some 200,000 Scots settled in the north of Ireland, taking what were to become the Ulster Scots dialects with them.
Later in the period southern influence on the language increased, owing to the new political and social relations with England prior to and following the accession of James VI
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
to the English throne. By the Union of Parliaments
Acts of Union 1707
The Acts of Union were two Parliamentary Acts - the Union with Scotland Act passed in 1706 by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland - which put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706,...
in 1707 southern Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
was generally adopted as the literary language though Modern Scots
Modern Scots
Modern Scots describes the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster from 1700.Throughout its history, Modern Scots has been undergoing a process of language attrition, whereby successive generations of speakers have adopted more and more features from...
remained the vernacular.
Orthography
On the whole Middle Scots scribes never managed to establish a single standardisedStandard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
spelling for every word, but operated a system of free variation based on a number of spelling variants. Some scribes used their own variants, but this was relatively rare. The least variation occurred in the later 16th century as printers moved towards fixed spellings. This ended in the 17th century when printers began to adopt imported English conventions. Middle Scots used a number of now obsolete letters and letter
combinations:
- þ (thornThorn (letter)Thorn or þorn , is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the...
) was equivalent to the modern th as in thae. þ was often indistinguishable from the letter y and often written so. - (yoghYoghThe letter yogh , was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing y and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Old English form of the letter g.In Middle English writing, tailed z came to be indistinguishable from yogh....
) in was /ɲ/ as in the French Bretagne. It later changed to /ŋ/ or /nj/ leading to the modern spellings with z and y as in MenziesMenziesMenzies is a Scottish surname probably derived, like its Gaelic form Méinnearach, from the Norman name Mesnières.The name is historically pronounced , since the was a surrogate for the letter . Today it is often given its spelling pronunciation...
/ˈmɪŋʌs/ and Cunyie /ˈkʌnjiː/. - quh [xw] was equivalent to the modern wh.
- sch was equivalent to the modern sh.
- A ligature of long sLong sThe long, medial or descending s is a form of the minuscule letter s formerly used where s occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word, for example "ſinfulneſs" . The modern letterform was called the terminal, round, or short s.-History:The long s is derived from the old Roman cursive...
and short s, similar to German ßßIn the German alphabet, ß is a letter that originated as a ligature of ss or sz. Like double "s", it is pronounced as an , but in standard spelling, it is only used after long vowels and diphthongs, while ss is used after short vowels...
, is sometimes used for s. - The initial ff was a stylised single f.
- The inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
-ys, -is was realised /ɪz/ after sibilate and affricate consonants and other voiced consonants, and /ɪs/ after other voiceless consonants, later contracted to /z/ and /s/ as in Modern Scots -s. The spelling -ys or -is also occurred in other words such as Inglis [ˈɪŋlɪs] and Scottis [ˈskotɪs] . The older Scots spelling surviving in place names such as Fowlis [fʌulz], GlamisGlamisGlamis is a small village in Angus, Scotland, located four miles south of Kirriemuir and five miles southwest of Forfar. It is the location of Glamis Castle, the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.-History:...
[ɡlɑːmz] and WemyssWemyssWemyss can refer to:Places*Wemyss Bay, a large village in Inverclyde, Scotland**Wemyss Bay railway station**Castle Wemyss, a demolished mansion in Wemyss Bay, Scotland*East Wemyss, Fife, Scotland*West Wemyss, Fife, Scotland...
[wimz]. - d after an n was often (and still is) silent i.e. barrand is [ˈbarən] = barren.
- i and j were often interchanged.
- h was oftten silent.
- l after a and o had become vocalised and remained in use as an orthographic device to indicate vowel lengthVowel lengthIn linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
. Hence the place names Balmalcolm /ˈbɑːməkoːm/, FalkirkFalkirkFalkirk is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies in the Forth Valley, almost midway between the two most populous cities of Scotland; north-west of Edinburgh and north-east of Glasgow....
/ˈfɑːkɪrk/, KirkcaldyKirkcaldyKirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...
/kərˈkɑːdi/, CulrossCulrossThe town of Culross, pronounced "Coo-ros", is a former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland.According to the 2006 estimate, the village has a population of 395...
/ˈkuːrəs/ and CulterCoulter, South LanarkshireCoulter or Culter is a small village and civil parish in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It lies approximately south of Biggar. Some old maps and local modern houses also have the spelling Cootyre - " a safe place for cows."Nearby are two notable Scottish hills, Tinto and Culter Fell. The River...
/ˈkuːtər/. - i after a vowel was also used to denote vowel length, e.g. ai /aː/, ei /eː/ oi /oː/ and ui /øː/.
- u, v and w were often interchanged.
- After -ch and -th, some scribes affixed a pleonastic final -t (-cht, -tht); this was unpronounced.
- The word ane represented the numeral ane as well as the indefinite articleArticle (grammar)An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
an and a, and was pronounced similar to Modern ScotsScots languageScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . 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...
usage. For example, Ane Satyre of the Thrie EstaitisAne Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie EstaitisA Satire of the Three Estates is a satirical morality play in Middle Scots, written by makar Sir David Lyndsay. The play was first performed outside in the playing field in June 1552 during the Midsummer holiday in Cupar, Fifeshire where the action took place under Castle Hill...
was pronounced a satyre o the thrie estaits. - The verbal noun (gerundGerundIn linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
) -yng (-ing) differentiated itself from the present participleParticipleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
-and /ən/, in Middle Scots, for example techynge, cryand and bydand—-the motto of the Gordon Highlanders. Both the verbal noun and present participle had generally merged to /ən/ by 1700.
Phonology
The development of Middle Scots vowels:| Middle Scots | |||
| Early Early Scots Early Scots describes the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English... Scots Early Scots Early Scots describes the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English... | Early c1575 | Late c1600 | |
| Long Vowels | |||
| 1: | iː → | ei → | ɛ(ː)i |
| 2: | eː → | iː → | i(ː) |
| ↗ | |||
| 3: | ɛː → | eː | |
| ↘ | |||
| 4: | aː → | ɛː → | e(ː) |
| 5: | o̞ː → | oː → | oː |
| 6: | uː → | uː → | u(ː) |
| ↗ | |||
| 6a: | u̞lː#, u̞lːC → | u̞l → | öl |
| 7: | øː → | ø(ː) (iː) → | øː |
| Diphthongs | |||
| 8a: | ai# → | ɛi → | ɛi |
| 8: | aiː → | æi → | ei |
| 8b: | ?äː#, ?ɑː# → | aː → | e̞ː |
| 9: | o̞i → | o̞i → | oɪ |
| 10: | ui → | u̞i → | öi |
| 11: | ei → eː → | iː → | i# |
| 12: | au → | ɑː(aː) → | ɑː(aː) |
| 12a: | al#, alC# ↗ → | al → | al |
| 13: | o̞u → | o̞u → | o̞u |
| 13a: | ol ↗ → | ol | |
| 14a: | iu → iu → | iu → | iu, ju |
| 14b: | ɛːu → ɛu ↗ | ||
| Short Vowels | |||
| 15: | ɪ → | ɪ (ɛ̽) → | ɪ(ɛ̽) |
| 16: | ɛ → | ɛ → | ɛ |
| 17: | a → | a → | a |
| 18: | o̞ → | o → | o |
| 19: | u̞ → | u̞ → | ö |
The Scottish Vowel Length Rule
Scottish Vowel Length Rule
The Scottish vowel length rule, also known as Aitken's law after Professor A.J. Aitken, who formulated it, describes how vowel length in Scots, Scottish English, and to some extent Mid Ulster English, is conditioned by environment.- Phonemes :...
is assumed to have come into being between the early Middle Scots and late Middle Scots period. Here vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
is conditioned by phonetic and morphemic environment. The affected vowels tended to be realised fully long in end-stressed syllables before voiced oral continuant
Continuant
A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. That is, any sound except a stop or nasal. An affricate is considered to be a complex segment, composed of both a stop and a continuant.-See also:...
s except /l/, in hiatus
Hiatus (linguistics)
In phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant. When two adjacent vowel sounds occur in the same syllable, the result is instead described as a diphthong....
, before word or morpheme boundaries and before /rd/ and /dʒ/.
The major differences to contemporary southern English were the now well established early merger of /ei/ with /e/ (dey 'die', ley 'lie'), early 15th century l-vocalisation where /al/ (except intervocalically and before /d/), /ol/ and usually /ul/ merged with /au/, /ou/ and /uː/, medial and final /v/ was lost (deil 'devil', ser 'serve').
The Great Vowel Shift
Great Vowel Shift
The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in England between 1350 and 1500.The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen , a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term....
occurred partially, /u/ and /øː/ remained unaffected, /ɔː/ became /oː/, /iː, eː, ɛː/ and /aː/ became /ɛi, iː, eː/ and /ɛː/.
Sample text
On Praying in Latin. by Nicol Burne (1581)An anti-reformation pamphlet printed abroad and circulated in Scotland.
B. Thair be tua kynd of prayeris in the kirk, the
ane is priuat, quhilk euerie man sayis be him self, the
vthir is publik, quhilk the preistis sayis in the name of
the hail kirk. As to the priuate prayeris, na Catholik
denyis bot it is verie expedient that euerie man
pray in his auin toung, to the end he vndirstand that
quhilk he sayis, and that thairbie the interior prayer
of the hairt may be the mair valkinnit, and conseruit
the bettir; and gif, onie man pray in ane vther toung,
it is also expedient that he vnderstand the mening of
the vordis at the lest. For the quhilk caus in the
catholik kirk the parentis or godfatheris ar obleist
to learne thame quhom thay hald in baptisme the
formes of prayeris and beleif, and instruct thame
sufficiently thairin, sua that thay vndirstand the
same: Albeit the principal thing quhilk God requiris
is the hairt, that suppois he quha prayis vndirstand
nocht perfytlie the vordis quhilk he spekis, yit God
quha lukis in the hairt, vill nocht lat his prayer be in
vane. As to the publik prayeris of the kirk, it is not
necessar that the pepill vndirstand thame, becaus it
is nocht the pepill quha prayis, bot the preistis in the
name of the hail kirk, and it is aneuche that thay
assist be deuotione liftand vp thair myndis to God or
saying thair auin priuate oraisonis, and that be thair
deuotione thay may be maid participant of the kirk.
As in the synagogue of the Ieuis, the peopill kneu not
quhat all thay cerimonies signifeit, quhilk vas keipit
be the preistis and vtheris in offering of thair sacri-
fices and vther vorshipping of god, and yit thay
did assist vnto thame; ye, sum of the preistis thame
selfis miskneu the significatione of thir cerimoneis
Than gif it vas aneuche to the pepill to vndirstand
that in sik ane sacrifice consisted the vorshipping of
God, suppois thay had not sua cleir ane vndirstand-
ing of euerie thing that vas done thairin, sua in the
catholik kirk, quhen the people assistis to the sacrifice
of the Mess, thay acknaulege that thairbie God is
vorshippit, and that it is institute for the remem-
brance of Christis death and passione. Albeit thay
vndirstand nocht the Latine toung, yit thay ar not
destitut of the vtilitie and fruit thairof. And it is
nocht vithout greit caus that as in the inscrptione
and titil quhilk pilat fixed vpone the croce of Christ
Iesus thir thre toungis var vritt in, Latine, Greik,
and Hebreu, sua in the sacrifice and the publik prayeris
of the kirk thay ar cheiflie retenit for the con-
seruatione of vnitie in the kirk and nationis amang
thame selfis; for, gif al thingis var turnit in the
propir langage of euerie cuntrey, na man vald studie
to the Latine toung, and thairbie al communicatione
amangis Christiane pepil vald schortlie be tane auay,
and thairbie eftir greit barbaritie inseu. Mairatour
sik publique prayeris and seruice ar keipit mair
perfytlie in thair auin integritie vithout al corrup-
tione; for gif ane natione vald eik or pair onie
thing, that vald be incontinent remarkt and reprouit
be vther nationis, quhilk culd not be, gif euerie
natione had al thai thingis turnit in the auin propir
langage; as ye may se be experience, gif ye vald
confer the prayeris of your deformit kirkis, togidder
vith the innumerabil translationis of the psalmes,
quihlk ar chaingit according to euerie langage in
the quhilk thay ar turnit. It is not than vithout
greit caus, and ane special instinctione of the halie
Ghaist, that thir toungis foirspokin hes bene,
as thay vil be retenit to the end of the varld. And
quhen the Ieuis sall imbrace the Euangel than sall
the sacrifice and other publik prayeris be in the
Hebreu toung, according to that quhilk I said befoir,
that on the Croce of Christ thai thrie toungis onlie
var vrittin, to signifie that the kirk of Christ suld
vse thay thre toungis cheiflie in his vorshipping, as
the neu and auld testament ar in thir thre toungis
in greitast authoritie amangis al pepill.
See also
- History of the Scots languageHistory of the Scots languageThe history of the Scots language refers to how Anglic varieties spoken in parts of Scotland developed into modern Scots.-Origins:Speakers of Northumbrian Old English settled in south eastern Scotland in the 7th century, at which time Celtic Brythonic was spoken in the south of Scotland to a little...
- Phonological history of the Scots languagePhonological history of the Scots languageThis is a presentation of the phonological history of the Scots language.Scots has its origins in Old English via early Northern Middle English; though loanwords from Old Norse and Romance sources are common, especially from ecclesiastical and legal Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle French borrowings...
- Dictionary of the Scots LanguageDictionary of the Scots LanguageThe Dictionary of the Scots Language is an online Scots-English dictionary, now run by Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, a charity and limited company...
Further reading
- A History of Scots to 1700 in A Dictionary of Older Scots Vol. 12. Oxford University Press 2002.
- Aitken, A.J. (1977) How to Pronounce Older Scots in Bards and Makars. Glasgow, Glasgow University Press.
- Jones C. (ed) The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language, Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh Press. ISBN 0-7486-0754-4