The English Language In Scotland

The English language as it is used in Scotland has a genuine claim to be considered one of the important varieties of English in the world today. Scots has also had a major influence outwith its home territory, notably in Ulster and, to a smaller, but no less important extent, in Canada and Australia where both vocabulary and grammatical features of Scots can be found to this day.

The first book-length exploration of 'standard Englishes' with contributions by the leading experts on each major variety of English discussed.

This is the first full scale attempt to record the diachronic development of this important English language variety and includes extensive essays by some of the foremost international scholars of the Scots language. The book attempts to provide a detailed and technical description of the syntax, phonology, morphology and vocabulary of the language in two main periods: the beginnings to 1700 and from 1700 to the present day. The language's geographical variation both in the past and at the present time are fully documented and the sociolinguistic forces which lie behind linguistic innovation and its transmission provide a principal theme running through the book.WINNER of the Saltire society/National Library of Scotland Scottish Research Book of the Year Award

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, RWTH Aachen University, course: Geographical varieties of English, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the topic ''Scotland'' and is written behind the background of geographi-cal varieties of English. Thus we focus on the main topics historical development and present day language situation in Scotland, linguistic issues and sociolinguistic characteristics. In order to point out what differences between Standard English and Scottish English exist we take a closer look on the multicultural history of Scotland, which reflects in the many different dialects that used to be spoken in Scotland. French, Roman and Celtic influences made the Scottish language so versatile. This reflects not only in its vocabulary, but also in its grammar and phonology. Another important point is the geographical division of Scotland that also exerts influence on the Scottish language, because people on the mainland and the islands use to speak different languages. Finally we want to show that today there are only slight differ-ences between Scottish English and English English that mainly consider the prestige of the languages and the function of identification, but that there used to be differences in the past that are important to the Scots as individual and independent nation.

The Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English (WAVE) presents grammatical variation in spontaneous spoken English, mapping 235 features in 48 varieties of English (traditional dialects, high-contact mother tongue Englishes, and indiginized second-language Englishes) and 26 English-based Pidgins and Creoles in eight Anglophone world regions (Africa, Asia, Australia, British Isles, the Caribbean, North America, the Pacific, and the South Atlantic). The analyses of the 74 varieties are based on descriptive materials, naturalistic corpus data, and native speaker knowledge.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Tubingen (Englisches Seminar), course: Englisch Grammar: Phonetics, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction It's a braw bricht muin-licht nicht the nicht. (literally: It's a beautiful bright moonlight night tonight.) Kiddingly, Scottish people love to let English people try to pronounce this sentence from Scots. For English people it is hard to pronounce the Scottish sentence since it contains the /x/-phoneme that English Standard English does not know. Therefore Scots is in the eyes of English Standard English Speakers a quite foreign language. But what happens when the two languages – English Standard English and Scots – merge and make up a new language, namely Scottish Standard English? When did the influence of English on Scots start? How much of the language heritage from Scots was imported into SSE? Which special features in phonetic, grammar and lexis can be found? What other languages influenced SSE and which so-called loanwords can still be found? This term paper will try to give answers to these questions. Therefore in (2.) will be given a definition of SSE in contrast to Scots. Then there will be given a rough overview of the historical background and development of SSE (3). Afterwards, certain differences of SSE and English Standard English in phonetic (4.1), grammar (4.2) and lexis (4.3) will be described. Then there shall be given an insight in SSE nowadays (5). 2.

This volume gives a detailed overview of the varieties of English spoken on the British Isles, including lesser-known varieties such as those spoken in Orkney and Shetland and the Channel Islands. The chapters, written by widely acclaimed specialists, provide concise and comprehensive information on the phonological, morphological and syntactic characteristics of each variety discussed. The articles are followed by exercises and study questions. The exercises are geared towards students and can be used for classroom assignments as well as for self study in preparation for exams. Instructors can use the exercises, sound samples and interactive maps to enhance their classroom presentations and to highlight important language features.