Dialect Distinctions

Guest   Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:26 am GMT
Hi!!!

I found this website (yes, it is a Wikipedia mirror site, but it's interesting to view):

http://www.info-en.com/index.php/Scottish_English

Are any of these distinctions actually made in Scottish English??? In Wells's Accents of English (Vol. 2), a lot of the distinctions listed are unknown.

Plus, are any of these distinctions even currently made in *ANY* dialects of English:

Vain-Vein distinction: /{I/ vs. /eI/
Rode-Road distinction: /o/ vs. /o@/
Mews-Muse distinction: /Iu/ vs. /y/
Brute-Fruit distinction: /y/ vs. /Y/

None of these are mentioned in Wells's Accents of English, as far as I know. Are there any references containing these distinctions, if indeed they exist??? Thanks
Guest   Sat Jan 28, 2006 1:57 am GMT
If it's a Wikipedia mirror, why not just link to the Wikipedia article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English
Guest   Sat Jan 28, 2006 2:48 am GMT
"If it's a Wikipedia mirror, why not just link to the Wikipedia article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English"

hhmmm ok.. but that still doesn't answer my questions:

Plus, are any of these distinctions even currently made in *ANY* dialects of English:

Vain-Vein distinction: /{I/ vs. /eI/
Rode-Road distinction: /o/ vs. /o@/
Mews-Muse distinction: /Iu/ vs. /y/
Brute-Fruit distinction: /y/ vs. /Y/

& actually does any dialect distinguish between the vowels of hoop & soup also??
Jim   Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:01 am GMT
Wikipedia's "Scottish English" page seems to have had something of a rough ride with people's adding dubious info. Just have a look at its Talk page and its history page. It seems to me that the page has been vandalised.
Damian   Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:27 am GMT
Those links are interesting but parts of it verge on the fictional in my opinion. Lallans (Lowland Scots) is the type of Scottish English prevalent in this area - Edinburgh and the Lothians/Borders region of South East Scotland which borders onto England, my home area which, naturally, I'm most familiar with The distinction between its use and that of Standard English is a pretty fine line but it depends on various factors (social background and level of education for instance). In ordinary casual speech Scots infiltrates a great deal by the use of local Scottish terms and expressions, something which most local people do hereabouts.

However, in more formal contexts, standard English usage is essential if it is to be uderstood outside Scotland. Even so, it's good fun using Scottish terms when away from home, something I've indulged in quite a lot when in England - or in Wales, which in turn has it's own means of baffling the English! A healthy pastime.... :-)
Travis   Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:54 am GMT
One issue here is that many phoneme distinctions in Scots can thusly be considered phoneme distinctions in English, specifically due to the influence of Scots on Scottish English, especially outside of what is called "Standard Scottish English". Consequently, I would probably tend to favor considering cases which are due to Scots influence on English dialects as special cases, and not just as general distinctions that have been merged in most English dialects and preserved in few.
Adam   Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:14 am GMT
" Even so, it's good fun using Scottish terms when away from home, something I've indulged in quite a lot when in England - or in Wales, which in turn has it's own means of baffling the English! A healthy pastime.... "

We just love confusing the Scots with the rules of cricket (and even the rules of football) so we're equal.
Damian   Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:41 pm GMT
Adam de Bolton: ......you're welcome to explain the rules of cricket to me sometime...I only hope I'd be able to stay awake long enough....it must be one of the most boring games ever invented. Only England could devise such a long, drawn out, protracted game in which 90% percent of the time nothing happens except guys stand by doing nothing while one bloke walks to one end of the field then turns and runs like the clappers and then chucks a ball at this other bloke holding a bat in a weird way and sometimes some ancient bloke wearing a funny white hat waves his arms about which means that something's gone wrong apparently. Occasionally the ball the other bloke chucked knocks off bits of wood from three sticks near the bloke holding the bat in a weird way and all the other blokes all yell out "Howzat!" and then this bloke holding the bat in a weird way starts walking away back to the pavilion where ladies are busy brewing tea and making cucumber sandwiches as another guy holding a bat in a weird way walks out of the pavilion to take his place near the three sticks on which some other bloke has replaced the bits of wood knocked flying in the first place.

The only redeeming feature is the scenery.......
Guest   Sat Jan 28, 2006 2:22 pm GMT
Damian, you must play a lot, you are spot on. It is not one of the most boring games. It is the most boring game ever invented.
Guest   Sat Jan 28, 2006 3:20 pm GMT
http://www.info-en.com/index.php/Scottish_English

This page has different information on it, though. It is very different from the actually Wikipedia page. Why is that??

Vain-Vein distinction: /{I/ vs. /eI/
Rode-Road distinction: /o/ vs. /o@/
Mews-Muse distinction: /Iu/ vs. /y/
Brute-Fruit distinction: /y/ vs. /Y/
Hoop-Soup distinction: /u/ vs. /u:/

Ok. After looking up Sots, I can undertsand how the Brute-Fruit & Mew-Muse distinctions is preserved because they are different sounds in a lot of Scots dialects, apparently. But the other three still don't make sense. As much as I could find, no Scots dialect distinguishes between Rode-Road, Vain-Vein & Hoop-Soup. Are these distinctions directly from Scottish Gaelic then??

Plus I thought the spelling <oa> was used as a digraph for long o to distinguish it from <oo> because the two long o's weren't distinguished in Middle English. How did <oa> gain diphthongal properties other than /o:/ or /oU/???
Travis   Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:31 pm GMT
>>http://www.info-en.com/index.php/Scottish_English

This page has different information on it, though. It is very different from the actually Wikipedia page. Why is that??<<

This is probably because it is using a cached rather than fresh copy of the content from Wikipedia.

>>Ok. After looking up Sots, I can undertsand how the Brute-Fruit & Mew-Muse distinctions is preserved because they are different sounds in a lot of Scots dialects, apparently. But the other three still don't make sense. As much as I could find, no Scots dialect distinguishes between Rode-Road, Vain-Vein & Hoop-Soup. Are these distinctions directly from Scottish Gaelic then??<<

These wouldn't be from Scottish Gaelic. Rather, these would be related to sound changes that occurred during the Middle English period, which must have had different results in different areas speaking Anglic dialects, whether English or Scots, than in southern English English and later North American English.
Travis   Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:46 pm GMT
>>Plus I thought the spelling <oa> was used as a digraph for long o to distinguish it from <oo> because the two long o's weren't distinguished in Middle English. How did <oa> gain diphthongal properties other than /o:/ or /oU/???<<

Actually, <oa> and <oo> refer to two distinctly different monophthongs in Middle English, which underwent the changes below from Late Middle English to Early Modern English, from which Scots split:

<oa> : /O:/ -> /o:/ -> /oU/
<oo> : /o:/ -> /u:/ (-> /U/ (-> /V/))

Consequently, it is quite reasonable to propose that at least in different places, Middle English /O:/ and /o:/ became something different in Scots than in Modern English, especially considering that Scots never underwent the Great Vowel Shift.
Guest   Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:19 pm GMT
"Actually, <oa> and <oo> refer to two distinctly different monophthongs in Middle English, which underwent the changes below from Late Middle English to Early Modern English, from which Scots split:

<oa> : /O:/ -> /o:/ -> /oU/
<oo> : /o:/ -> /u:/ (-> /U/ (-> /V/))"

Ooops sorry I meant they weren't distinguished in spelling. I knew the sounds were distinguished.

"Consequently, it is quite reasonable to propose that at least in different places, Middle English /O:/ and /o:/ became something different in Scots than in Modern English, especially considering that Scots never underwent the Great Vowel Shift."

Ok, that would make since, but the word rode also would've had /O:/ in Middle English, which means that rode also would've became /o@/ in the dialects in which road became that. So.. is this distinction a case of spelling pronunciation rather than an actual phonemic change. And for that matter also for the spellings <ea & ei> which seemed to have gone through similar processes.
Travis   Sun Jan 29, 2006 6:31 pm GMT
>>Ok, that would make since, but the word rode also would've had /O:/ in Middle English, which means that rode also would've became /o@/ in the dialects in which road became that. So.. is this distinction a case of spelling pronunciation rather than an actual phonemic change. And for that matter also for the spellings <ea & ei> which seemed to have gone through similar processes.<<

However, there could have just been two parallel changes of the long middle lax vowels [E:] and [O:] which turned them into the diphthongs [e@] and [o@], just happening to coincidentally match the spellings for such in English today. Another way such could have happened is that [E:] and [O:] never truly existed as such in Scots, but rather were something different in Middle Scots than Middle English. For example Middle English [E:] comes from Old English [{A]; there could have been a shift [{A] -> [e@] instead of [{A] -> [E:] in Middle Scots, which could be quite plausible in and of itself.
Guest   Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:31 pm GMT
/O:/ came from Old English /A:/ didn't it????

I think I might have a theory (maybe not supported, though)!!! Words with /o:/ might've came from Latin/French?? rode is English, but it is a past tense.. & those seem to be exceptions to everything, don't they?? I wonder how that would work out. Or maybe it has something to do with short vowels that may have been lengthened I'll do some research on that.