Scottish English (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM)

[Caoimhin O Donnaile]

Karen,

> I don't think what I'm seeing referred to as Standard Scottish English is 
> what you're referencing below. I don't see it mentioned as a "business 
> dialect". Do you have a link where this is described?

I didn't mean to suggest that Standard Scottish English is a
business dialect - just that if you wanted to hear what could be
described as "Standard Scottish English", a meeting of Scottish
businessmen would be the kind of place to go to.

There isn't any "standard" for Scottish English, of course.  The term
"Standard Scottish English" might be used by some people in a broad
sense to mean "Scottish English" - English speech which might sound
Scottish but isn't Scots.  But I think it would mostly be used in a
narrow sense to mean the kind of speech which many educated well-off
people in Scotland would gravitate towards.  They wouldn't gravitate
towards English "Received Pronunciation" - If they did it would just
cause amusement.

Here are a couple of references taking the view that "Standard
Scottish English" refers to the speech of educated well-to-do Scots:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/individual/scotland-morningside-currie-audrey.shtml
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/individual/scotland-kelvinside-cameron-james.shtml

Such a definition would exclude, I expect, most of the speech in
the films you need to catalogue, so I think it is best to just say
"Scottish English" rather than "Standard Scottish English".

Caoimhín