Dundee Scots
Dundee Scots
Like other urban dialects Dundonian also
suffers from a loss of much traditional agricultural and
countryside vocabulary. Dundee lies just inside the south
northern dialect 'border' subsequently the pronunciation
of Dundee Scots shares some features with north
east central Scots.
Consonants usually have the same phonetic
values (pronunciation)
in as in English.
Words that traditionally have Medial and
Final <ch> /x/
now generally take the English pronunciation in words
with English cognates i.e. bought (bocht), draught
(draucht), enough (eneuch), laugh (lauch),
night (nicht), right (richt), rough (roch),
sight (sicht) and tight (ticht) etc. /x/
remains in words with no English cognates like loch.
Initial <wh> is pronounced
/ʍ/ in common
with north
east central Scots.
The initial <th> in words like thing,
naething and think is often pronounced
/h/.
<h> 'dropping' is seldom but is possible
in rapid speech in unstressed pronouns like he,
her and him etc. His is often rendered
[(h)i:z].
Vowels and diphthongs are usually similar to those
of the surrounding dialects but note the following:
A final glide /-(j)əl/
or epenthetic vowel may occur in words like
spyle, byle, birl and [e:rʌm]
airm etc.
<a>, <au> and <aw>
have the northern pronunciation /a/
e.g.
aff, alang, crabbit, drap,
shak, tak, tap, twa, awa,
wha, faw, awbody, baw,
waw, awfu, blaw, braw and
chaw etc.
<ai> and <a(consonant)e>
are usually pronounced /e/
but /ɛ/ may
occur before/r/
and in some words like gaither, jaiket,
maiter and skail.
<ea> is usually /e/
in words like beast, cheap, cheat, fear, leave, neat and
seat etc.
<ei> is usually /e/
in words like deif, heid, leid
(metal), reid etc.
<ie> is usually /i/
in words like gie, piece, sieven
etc.
<i> is usually /ɪ/
but /ʌ/
also occurs i.e. brither, cliver, finger,
girn, git, hing, iver, wir,
wis and yit etc. with /ɪ/
but birl, fit, lift, lip,
whit and will etc. with /ʌ/.
The well-known Dundee marker is the pronunciation /ɛ/
in words like by, buy, ay,
forby, fry, cry,
pie, sky, drive,
five, size and diary
etc. This also occurs where English cognates have replaced
the Scots words i.e. eye (ee), I (A),
lie (lee) and my (ma) etc.
The <ui> generally takes
the pronunciation /e/
but is often /u/
before <v>, <th> and <z>
in words like buith (booth), muive (move), suithe (sooth),
ruise, and in many common words with English cognates.
Note dinna, didna, juist and tae
(to) with /ɪ/
In words with English cognates the <eu>
is usually pronounced /u/
i.e. beuk (book), heuk (hook), leuk
(look) and teuk (took) etc. in particularly Scots
words e.g. speugie /ju/
may also occur.
Glottal stops are often seen as the hallmark of urban Scots dialects especially for final /t/
and /k/ and medial
/t/ in words like
bat, night, bottle, watter and
back.
Adverbial and adjectival <(l)y>
varies between /e/
and /i/. Similarly
with final <-(a)e> in words like
borrae, nairae, orra, swallae
and windae etc. <-fu> is /fi/
e.g. awfu.
The negative <-na> is /na/
e.g. canna, dinna, didna, isna,
needna and winna etc.
The past tense <-it> is usually
/ɪt/ e.g. barkit,
crabbit, dytit, glaikit, hackit, hallockit, nakit, pentit
and sleekit etc. but final <-t> e.g. clypt
etc. may also be /d/
e.g. couart and drount etc.
Literature:
McCluskey, Mick (1990) Dundonian
for Beginners, Edinburgh: Mainstream.
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