The Development of Modern Scots Orthography

The later Older Scots period is marked by a language shift that saw a drastic reduction in the domains in which Scots was written. The corresponding shift towards the norms of written standard English was probably not always the result of a conscious choice on the part of Scottish writers. It is unlikely that many of those few who were literate during the Older Scots period actually thought of themselves as writing ‘Scots’ as such – it is more likely that, if they considered the issue at all, they would have considered themselves literate in the vernacular, or non-Latin, language they spoke, in the same way as a literate Englishman might also write in the vernacular tongue.

From Orthoepy to Activism: Orthographic Interventions

The present chapter offers a historical survey of commentary on and attempted intervention in the practice of spelling Modern Scots. Four main groups are considered: orthoepists and linguistic scholars, lexicographers, literary commentators, and ‘language activists’. Each group has played a role – and most continue to play a role – in the development of Modern Scots orthography.

Older Scots Vowels

If the consonants of Older Scots present us with a relatively uncomplicated orthographic system, the Older Scots vowels are a different matter. The geographical and chronological variations we find among different accents of Scots are largely a matter of differing vowel sounds: vowels change more than consonants do, over space and time. In this chapter, we consider why vowels are generally less stable than consonants, sketch out the major systemic changes in the vowel system over the Older Scots period, and explore how the variable and changing systems of pronunciation mapped onto the Older Scots vowel graphemes. The most thorough discussion of this topic is in Aitken and Macafee (2002), and this chapter largely offers a synopsis of the much more extensive descriptions found there. A briefer account is given in Smith (2012: 29–33). Other relevant studies that have informed the content of this chapter include Aitken (1977), Johnston (1997a), Lass (1999) and Macafee and Aitken (consonant

The Consonants of Older Scots

This chapter begins a more detailed description of the developments outlined in brief in the introduction. In particular, it details the development of the consonant graphemes that were used in the Older Scots period (1375–1700). The discussion in this chapter considers Older Scots phonology insofar as it impacts on spelling; a much more detailed discussion of the phonological system of Older Scots can be found in Johnston (1997a).

Applying Cluster Analysis to Scots Prose

In this chapter, we apply cluster analysis of the graphemic realisations to prose that contains a substantial element of Scots. We worked with a slightly smaller number of texts for the prose samples, owing to the limitations of suitable material in our broader corpus. The Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing contains a considerable amount of prose material, but the use of Scots in prose largely begins with fiction of the early nineteenth century, and extends to the present day. Our chosen texts illustrate a range of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century literary texts that are at least in part in Scots prose.

Cluster Analysis and Scots Orthography

Given the creative nature of literary texts, there was little pressure on Scots writers to conform to a standard orthography; their goal was rather to draw upon the various resources available to compose a literary text that was intelligible to those readers who were now schooled in the conventions of standard English, and yet which retained features that were identifiably Scots. There were, understandably, numerous ways of achieving this goal, and in the modern period, many literary texts have been produced using Modern Scots orthographies that might at times seem bewilderingly diverse. The modern corpus of literary Scots raises several questions: ● How consistent are the orthographic practices within the repertoire of particular writers and texts? ● How close or diverse are canonical and other writers in their orthographic practices? ● How might the diverse practices of writers of poetry and prose in Scots serve as a resource for the promotion of Modern Scots literacy?

Promoting Literacy in Scots

The final chapter briefly considers general implications and some potential educational applications that arise from the foregoing chapters. At the conclusion of a book such as this, a reader might expect the authors to produce a new suggested orthography for Modern Scots writers. We have resisted the temptation to do so. Rather, this chapter puts the spelling of Scots in a more general context; we then consider a number of final issues: why a fixed spelling system is probably undesirable for writers of Modern Scots, why – despite this lack of desirability – there are often calls to ‘fix’ Modern Scots orthography, how a greater receptive and productive literacy in Scots might nevertheless be fostered, and ways in which the cluster analyses modelled in the last three chapters might be used to support literacy programmes in Scots.

Applying Cluster Analysis to Scots Poetry

As discussed previously, we analyse poetry and prose separately since it is easier to achieve reliable and useful results by comparing like with like. There are various reasons for assuming that spelling in poetry will be unlike spelling in prose; for example, the texts in this literary genre tend to be shorter than prose texts and so they invite formal experimentation, including orthographic experimentation. Our first series of graphs and analysis, therefore, is based on the poetry texts in our corpus. As we observed in the preceding chapter, the main point of cluster analysis is to give an indication of similarity and difference between the orthographic practices of different writers, with respect to the realisation of spelling choices in particular, frequently used lexical items. The analyses that make up Chapters 7 and 8 are by no means intended to offer the final word on the distribution of graphemes in Modern Scots; they are intended, rather, to offer a new technique for analysing such distributions in selected texts.

Introduction

This book is an account of the evolution of the spelling system, or orthography, of Scots, the language of lowland Scotland. Substantial written records in Scots survive from the fourteenth century and they are evidence of a distinctive language that was used in speech and as a language of written record in the Scottish kingdom until the end of the sixteenth century; thereafter broader written use of Scots declined. Written Scots was, however, revived, largely as a medium for literature, in the eighteenth century, and it has been used by a very large number of poets, novelists and dramatists ever since this ‘vernacular revival’ occurred. It thrives as a literary medium today. The way in which Scots has been fashioned in writing, however, has always been characterised by a wide range of variation and diversity in spelling. The present volume surveys the main reasons for this variation and diversity historically, and suggests ways of understanding and exploring it with a view to encouraging literacy practices in Scots.