divide Scots into four groups of dialects, the larger of which have major subdivisions. There are many more subtle changes of dialect than can be covered here, and, particularly in areas where the majority of the population have lived locally all their lives, many people can distinguish between the speech of people from one town or village and their neighbours from a nearby area.
Central Scots, despite its name, is spoken throughout the area south and west of the Tay, with the exception of a small area in the Borders and Eastern Dumfriesshire. It is the most widely spoken form of Scots, and can be divided into East Central Scots, West Central Scots, and Southwestern Scots. One of the chief differences between them is that the vowel sound in words such as a’, cauld, and wa (all, cold, and wall) is pronounced aw in the West and ah elsewhere. Throughout the Central Scots area, the -u- or -ui- or -oo- vowel in words such as guid (good), school, or moon is usually pronounced -i- (as in English hid).
Northern Scots is the other main form of Scots, within which Northeastern Scots, spoken in the area north of Stonehaven and East of Inverness, forms a distinct dialect. The most immediately obvious feature of Northern Scots is that wh- at the beginning of a word is usually pronounced f-, for instance in fit (what) or fite (white). The vowel in guid, school, and moon is generally pronounced with an -ee- (as in English heed), but in the Northeast when this sound follows a hard g or k it is pronounced -wee- (gweed, skweel). All forms of Northern Scots frequently drop the initial thin words such as the, this, and that. A noticeable grammatical feature of Northern dialects is the tendency to use this and that instead of these and those when referring to more than one person or thing: did you see that two mannies?
Island Scots. Orkney and Shetland formerly spoke a Scandinavian language known as Norn which had been superseded by Scots by the end of the 18th century. However many Norn words, such as voe (a narrow bay) have survived into the present-day dialects. Other distinctive features of Orkney and Shetland dialects are the preservation of the distinction between the formal you and the informal thou, and the pronunciation of th as d or t, as in tink (think), blide (blithe, happy), or da (the).
Southern Scots is spoken in Eastern Dumfriesshire and along most of the Border. Its speakers tend to say -ow and -ey at the ends of words, where people from elsewhere in Scotland would say -oo and -ee. It is sometimes referred to as the “yow and mey” dialect as a result.
The Highlands and the Western Isles, where Gaelic was (and some times still is) the main language, are generally described as speaking Highland English rather than Scots, although many Scottish words are in common use there.
The different histories of Scotland and England have meant that Scots and English have not only emerged from different Germanic dialects, but have absorbed words from different sources.
Much of Northern and Eastern Scotland was settled by the Vikings, and their Old Norse tongue has contributed terms such as kirk (church), brig (bridge), and lowp (leap), some of which also exist in Northern English.
Later, political and trading alliances with France provided words like ashet (a type of plate), fash (to bother or annoy), and gigot (a cut of meat).
Other trade links with the Netherlands endowed Scots, particularly its Eastern dialects, with a number of words, with howff (a pub), loon (a boy or young man), and pinkie (the little finger) all coming from Dutch or Flemish.
Gaelic was formerly much more widely spoken than it is today, and many words have passed from it into Scots. Some words, such as glen (a narrow valley), keelie (a generally derogatory term for an urban working-class man), and partan (a crab), are general Scots, others, such as bourach (a heap or a mess), cailleach (an old woman), and laroch (a ruin) are restricted to areas in the North or West where Gaelic was historically strongest or where there has been large-scale immigration from Gaelic-speaking areas.
Scots also shares a number of words, such as hooley (a wild party), with Irish English: over the centuries there has been a long tradition of migration between the two countries, to the extent that dialectologists regard the language of some parts of Northeastern Ireland as “Ulster Scots” rather than a dialect of Irish English.
Lastly, there are a number of words that have come into Scots, and particularly its Eastern and Northern dialects, from the language of the travelling people, for example barrie (excellent) and gadgie (a man or youth).
Headwords are shown in bold.
Variant Spellings. Modern Scots is more often spoken than written, and many words therefore have variant spellings based on the writer’s attempt to represent his or her pronunctiation of the word. The main entry for a word can be found at the spelling which we believe is most common in current use. We have tried to minimize the number of variants shown to make the text easier to follow, but where a number of spellings are in common use, the most common variant (or variants) is shown after the headword. For example:
cock-a-leekie or cockie-leekie Cock-a-leekie is soup made from a fowl boiled with leeks. Some recipes include prunes.
fae (fay) or frae (fray) Fae means from: some guy fae Tollcross; Where’d he get that fae?
The variant form is given an entry of its own, referring the reader to the main entry, unless the variant would come within five entries of the headword. Hence, there is an entry for frae but not one for cockieleekie:
frae (fray) A variant of fae.
Pronunciations are given for words which might be difficult or confusing for the non-Scots speaker. They are shown either by respelling, with the stressed syllable in bold, or by rhyming them with a word with a similar pronunciation.
ca’ or caa (caw) …
caber (rhymes with labour) …
ceilidh (kale-ee) …
There are a number of regional variations in pronunciation in Scotland: in general the form shown is a West Central Scotland one, that being the most widely spoken dialect, but where a word is most common in a particular area, the pronunciation appropriate to that region is given.
Where more than one way of pronouncing a word is in widespread use, all these pronunciations are shown.
dicht (diCHt or dite) …
In respellings, each syllable has been shown in a form likely to be clear to all speakers of British English. However, the following points should be noted:
g always represents the hard “g” in gun, never the soft “g” in gin
ch represents the “ch” in cheese or church
CH
