Scottish English (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM

Caoimhin O Donnaile caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk
Fri Aug 24 03:52:41 CEST 2007


I have been getting a bit out of my depth on some of the questions which
have arisen following Karen's request - I have just been speaking from
my own experience as someone who lives in Scotland and who is interested
in languages, rather than from any particular expertese in Scottish
dialects.  So I e-mailed a couple of people who are much more expert
than myself,  namely:
 - Derrick McClure of Aberdeen University
    http://www.abdn.ac.uk/langling/mcclure.htm
 - Lorna Pike, a lexicographer who has worked on Scottish dictionaries
    http://www.faclair.ac.uk/english/project_team.html

Lorna in turn forwarded my questions to a colleague at Scottish National
Dictionaries:
 - Chris Robinson of Edinburgh University:
    http://www.englang.ed.ac.uk/people/chris.html
who sent me a very full reply.  Derrick McClure, too, sent me a very
full and independent reply.  Included below are copies of their replies
(together with the questions I put to them), and here is a brief summary
of what they had to say:

 - All three of them felt strongly that Scottish English should
   certainly be registered as a variant of en.

 - All three of them preferred the tag en-scotland to en-scottish
   (so I withdraw the slight preference I previously expressed for
   en-scottish).

 - I see that I have been getting muddled myself between the
   terms "Scottish Standard English" and "Standard Scottish English".
   Chris Robinson pointed out that "Scottish Standard English" is
   the normal name for Scottish English - to such an extent that the
   abreviation "SSE" is in common use.  "Scottish Standard English"
   is also the term which Lorna Pike used in her reply.
     Derrick McClure preferred the term "Scottish English", pointing
   out that there is no such thing as "Standard English".  I guess that
   the word "Standard" in "Scottish Standard English" was inserted
   mainly a practical expedient, to help prevent the term being misapplied
   to Scots.  I suppose it is up to us to choose whether to name
   en-scotland (if that is what we go for) as the more logical
   "Scottish English" or the more commonly used "Scottish Standard English",
   and that the other name can be included as a comment.

 - Both Derrick and Chris pointed out that even the *dubbed* version of
   the film Gregory's Girl will be Scottish English (SSE), and that to
   distinguish the original it should be given a different tag.

 - Chris said that the most appropriate tag for Glasgow dialect would be
   sco-glasgow, not en-glasgow.  Derrick appeared to accept my suggestion
   of en-glasgow, but maybe that was because he did not realise that
   sco-glasgow might be a possibility.  Obviously this is a point which
   needs sorting out.  As a layman, I'd have said that Glasgow dialect
   lies somewhere intermediate between English and Scots.  I previously
   expressed an inclination towards "en" rather than "sco", but this is
   something which needs to be settled by the experts.

Caoimhín (Kevin)

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Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:36:03 +0100 (BST)
From: Caoimhin O Donnaile <caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk>
To: j.d.mcclure at abdn.ac.uk, Lorna Pike <sm00lp at uhi.ac.uk>
Subject: Language code for "Scottish English"

Derrick, Lorna,

A topic has arisen on which you might possibly have some advice or
opinions to offer: a proposal to register "en-scottish" (or possibly
"en-scotland") as a code for cataloguing "Scottish English".

The background is that there is an international standard system
of codes for languages, which is widely used on the Internet.
This has for example:

  en - English
  fr - French
  de - German
  ga - Irish Gaelic
  gd - Scottish Gaelic

and a major extension which is in the last stages of becoming
official extends this to all the languages of the world - e.g.:

  sco - Scots

However, sometimes finer levels of granularity are required,
and there is a system for this - e.g.:

  en-GB - British English ) These two arose early because of
  en-US - US English      ) differences in orthography
  en-scouse

and there is a system for registering further "variant tags".
I happen to be on the e-mail list (ietf-languages at alvestrand.no)
where these requests are discussed before being accepted or
rejected.

A request has come in to register "en-scottish".  This was from
someone in charge of a video library who has a real need right now
to catalogue two versions of the same film, one in Glasgow (mostly)
dialect, and the other dubbed by the same actors into more standard
English.

The request has generated quite a lot of discussion.  Many of the
participants in the list are in America; many are not native
English speakers; a few are in Ireland or England; none except
for myself live in Scotland - So any insight you have to offer
might be very helpful.

Some of the questions so far have been:

 - Is "Scottish English" a useful concept?  If so, how would
   you delineate it?  Are there any good references which attempt
   to delineate it?

 - Might "Scottish Standard English" be a more useful term/concept?

 - Might it be better to register "en-glasgow", "en-edinburgh", etc,
   and forget "en-scottish"?

 - If "Scottish English" is a useful concept, might "en-scotland"
   be a better code for it, on the grounds that:
   a) there would then be less likelihood of it being misapplied to Scots;
   b) it could form the basis of a system which would also include 
      "en-england" and "en-wales".

I'll forward to you copies of a few relevant messages from the list.

Actually, another thought has just occured to me.  The librarian
requesting the tag, Karen Broome, wants to use "en-scottish"
to tag the Glasgow dialect version of the film, and "en" to
distinguish the version dubbed into more standard English.
However, if the same Scottish actors were doing the dubbing,
then the chances are that the dubbed version is in fact
"Standard Scottish English" and the original version is stronger
stuff.  I'll e-mail her and ask her what the particular film in
question is.

Kevin


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Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:53:06 +0100
From: Lorna Pike <sm00lp at groupwise.uhi.ac.uk>
To: Caoimhin O Donnaile <caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk>
Cc: Chris.Robinson at ed.ac.uk,
     Maggie Scott <maggie.scott at scotsdictionaries.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Language code for "Scottish English"

Dear Kevin

Thanks for this, I am copying my reply to colleagues in Scottish
Language Dictionaries who will have a view on this.  Derrick may also
contact them.   My own initial feeling would be that anything in
Scottish Standard English would be best tagged en-Scotland (and would
fit in well with en-England, en-Wales, etc.) and anything Scots would be
tagged Scots.  I'd be reluctant to use en-Glasgow etc as this could
easily be misapplied to Scots and Scots could end up by being accounted
for only in terms of English labels. 

Full marks to Karen for raising this and regrettable that she met with
resistance.

All best
Lorna

Lorna Pike
Project Co-ordinator
Faclair na Gàidhlig
Website:  www.faclair.ac.uk


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Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:58:33 +0100
From: Chris.Robinson at ed.ac.uk
To: Lorna Pike <sm00lp at groupwise.uhi.ac.uk>
Cc: Caoimhin O Donnaile <caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk>,
     Maggie Scott <maggie.scott at scotsdictionaries.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Language code for "Scottish English"

Dear All,

This is a very interesting question. As Scots is now recognised as a  
separate language, it should, obviously, have its own sco tag.  
English, as spoken in Scotland is widely referred to as Scottish  
Standard English (SSE) and en-Scotland would be the obvious tag, as  
Lorna suggests. The dialects of Glasgow and Edinburgh are best seen as  
dialects of Scots rather than of English, although, as with almost all  
examples of Modern Scots, there will be some SSE forms included. It is  
best to tolerate these as 'shared' forms rather than fail to recognise  
the Scots content. In an ideal world, we would have sco-Glasgow and so  
on.


To take the questions in turn

>  - Is "Scottish English" a useful concept?  If so, how would
>    you delineate it?  Are there any good references which attempt
>    to delineate it?

Yes, Scottish English or, better, SSE is an recognised concept. There  
are several good articles/chapters on this which I will forward when I  
am back in my office. The major differences lie in the pronunciation  
and a clear account of this appears in H. Giegerich's book, An  
Introduction to English Phonology (I think - will confirm) and in  
addition there are some grammatical differences and some vocabulary  
items.

>  - Might "Scottish Standard English" be a more useful term/concept?

Yes - this is the accepted one.

>  - Might it be better to register "en-glasgow", "en-edinburgh", etc,
>    and forget "en-scottish"?

Absolutely not. SSE, even if it is an artificial construct, approaches  
a standard and pulls together similarities in the Scottish English  
throughout Scotland, tying in with notions of a Scotland-wide  
'correctness'. The ways in which the dialect areas of Scotland differ  
are predominantly products of the Scots elements of their language.

>  - If "Scottish English" is a useful concept, might "en-scotland"
>    be a better code for it, on the grounds that:
>    a) there would then be less likelihood of it being misapplied to
>       Scots;
>    b) it could form the basis of a system which would also include
>       "en-england" and "en-wales".

I agree totally. en-scotland for the English language as spoken in  
Scotland is a logical follow-on from en-England, en-Wales.

> Actually, another thought has just occured to me.  The librarian
> requesting the tag, Karen Broome, wants to use "en-scottish"
> to tag the Glasgow dialect version of the film, and "en" to
> distinguish the version dubbed into more standard English.
> However, if the same Scottish actors were doing the dubbing,
> then the chances are that the dubbed version is in fact
> "Standard Scottish English" and the original version is stronger
> stuff.  I'll e-mail her and ask her what the particular film in
> question is.

If this is what it appears then what we really want is sco or
sco-Glasgow contrasting with the dubbed version which, as you say,
is likely to be en-Scotland

It is really good to know that these issues are being tackled. I'll  
get back to you (hopefully later today) with some references. Feel  
free to ask anything else that occurs to you meanwhile.

Chris.


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Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:52:28 +0100
From: "McClure, J. Derrick" <j.d.mcclure at abdn.ac.uk>
To: Caoimhin O Donnaile <caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk>, Lorna Pike <sm00lp at uhi.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Language code for "Scottish English"

Dear Kevin,

            Many thanks for message - very interesting (and promising)
that this has come up.  To give my thoughts on your questions as you ask
them (maybe the best way to avoid getting sidetracked or writing in more
detail than you need):

 

> - Is "Scottish English" a useful concept?  If so, how would
>   you delineate it?  Are there any good references which attempt
>   to delineate it?

It's an INDISPENSIBLE concept.  It refers to the international English
language as spoken in Scotland: distinguishable from other forms of
English, first and most obviously by accent, but also to some extent by
vocabulary, grammar and idiom.  With due modesty, my chapter on "English
in Scotland" in the Cambridge History of the English Language, vol. 5, is
as good an attempt to expound what it is, where it came from, how it
relates to Scots, etc., as there is in print; but I can give you other
references if you need them!  The three articles cited in Karen Broome's
letter are all excellent descriptive studies - Wells is the most
detailed, Trudgill contains a few errors (if I remember rightly).  

 
> - Might "Scottish Standard English" be a more useful term/concept?

Well, I wouldn't say more useful.  If you bring in the word "standard"
you're implicitly emphasising the concept of "English" as something which
has a world-wide "standard form" (that can only be as far as grammar and
vocabulary are concerned - there was never any question of an
international standard of pronunciation) - but I'm increasingly inclined
to see that as a dubious notion.  The various forms of English - I
dislike the expression "Englishes", but it's getting very popular in
linguistic circles" are steadily becoming more divergent, and the
speakers of each of them more independent-minded about their distinctive
forms: the idea of a "standard" is becoming ever more tenuous.  I
personally would just say "Scottish English" - "American English" -
"English English" etc.

 

> - Might it be better to register "en-glasgow", "en-edinburgh", etc,
>   and forget "en-scottish"?

It might certainly be useful to use "en-glasgow", etc., but not instead
of "en-scottish": those are sub-sets of "en-scottish".  That is, at least
as I see the situation, although the forms of English spoken in Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Galloway, Fife etc. certainly differ from each
other, they all are Scottish to the extent that they all share features
with each other that they don't share with any NON-Scottish forms of
English (except POSSIBLY some Northern Irish forms).  There is a
"Scottish type" of accent with lots of sub-classes.  (In the same way,
I'm inclined to think there's a "Southern Hemisphere type" in that
Australian, New Zealand, South African and (white) Zimbabwean accents
have features in common though they're all different; I'm doubtful
whether there is a "North American type" which could subsume everything
from Texas to California to the Canadian Maritimes but some might argue
that there is; and there certainly is no "British type" which would
subsume all Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh accents (from which it
follows that "en-UK" is simply erroneous, though I'm sure it's commonly
used).  So you could use "en-glasgow" for a voice which is pointedly and
unmistakeably Glaswegian and "en-scottish" for one where the regional
features are less strongly marked.

 
> - If "Scottish English" is a useful concept, might "en-scotland"
>   be a better code for it, on the grounds that:
>   a) there would then be less likelihood of it being misapplied to
>      Scots;
>   b) it could form the basis of a system which would also include
>      "en-england" and "en-wales".

Logically, "en-scotland" would be of a piece with "en-glasgow": if you
say "en-scottish" then you should also say "en-glaswegian"!  Pedantry
apart, though, your point that "en-scotland" might be less liable to be
misapplied to Scots is a good one, I think.
 

> Actually, another thought has just occured to me.  The librarian
> requesting the tag, Karen Broome, wants to use "en-scottish"
> to tag the Glasgow dialect version of the film, and "en" to
> distinguish the version dubbed into more standard English.
> However, if the same Scottish actors were doing the dubbing,
> then the chances are that the dubbed version is in fact
> "Standard Scottish English" and the original version is stronger
> stuff.  I'll e-mail her and ask her what the particular film in
> question is.

This is an excellent case in point for the "sub-set" issue.  Most likely,
the original version is "en-glasgow" and the dubbed one "en-scottish".
 Though she calls it "British English", surely to Pete the original
actors wouldn't use an RP-type accent, which is what she probably thinks
"British English" is!  


I hope these thoughts are helpful: please get back to me if there's
anything you'd like clarified or discussed further.

            Yours aye,

            Derrick.

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