Written Scots

In most literate post industrial societies writing occurs in a number of registers, such as colloquial, formal, and expository, according to audience, purpose, and context. Within those written registers are also styles reflecting the choices writers make within those situations.

The generally accepted definition of Scots is that it "varies in its spoken form, ranging from the 'broad' usage of some fishing and farming communities, through various intermediate mixtures of Scots and English, to a variety of Standard English spoken in a Scottish accent (i.e. Standard Scottish English)." Consequently the overwhelming expectation is that written Scots should reflect the spoken vernacular rather than written Standard (Scottish) English, the de facto Standard form of the language from which the vernacular is perceived to deviate.

That expectation informs the approach of those who dominate Scots language promotion. Consequently any kind of language planning and a polyphonemic pan-dialect standard form A polyphonemic pandialect orthography (spelling system) is designed to represent all the different regional dialects of a language at the same time using a single unified set of underlying phonemes (distinct units of sound). Such an orthography works by mapping out the core phonemes that cover historical or current splits and merges across all regional varieties to establish the underlying sound inventory. Users then apply spelling conventions consistently to the base phonemes rather than favouring one single spoken standard. As there is no standard pronunciation speakers of different local dialects are allowed to read the exact same written text and pronounce the words according to their own regional dialect. Thus bridging mutually intelligible dialects that lack a single dominant spoken prestige form with a shared written form. for formal and expository written Scots is rejected, leaving Standard (Scottish) English for that.

The rejection of the language planning required to institutionalise a generally accepted written Standard for formal and expository written Scots has resulted in the previous fairly homogenous prestigious pan-dialect literary Scots spelling conventions that manifested themselves through the 18th and 19th centuries being rejected in favour of creative personal self-expressive representations of colloquial speech, which has now largely become a spoken mixture of Broad Scots forms, colloquial forms originating in non-standard varieties of English spoken elsewhere, and Standard English.

The written form for that is then expected to show other English speakers how the author or character pronounces the words, based on perceived sound-to-letter correspondences of Standard English, in much the same way written representations of dialects of English from elsewhere manifest themselves in popular culture. As literacy is achieved through the medium of standard English rather than Scots, written representations of colloquial speech more often than not tend to follow the grammatical conventions of Standard English rather than those of traditional Broad Scots.

As an expository register is generally eschewed for Scots, writing intended to inform or illuminate then takes the form of a folksy first person and/or second person narrative as if addressing someone sitting beside you in an informal setting such as at home by the fireside or in a public house. The third person being reserved for Standard English expository writing. Alternatively Scots is used for spoken dialogue and third person Standard English for narration.

Occasionally, Scots is used for formal and expository texts. However, that represents the author's imagining of how such a register would manifest itself both orthographically and stylistically rather than reflecting a generally accepted institutionalised norm for that.

The spellings in this dictionary draw on the prestigious literary Scots spelling conventions mentioned above are intended to be pronounced by the reader as per their own dialect making them innately suitable for writing expository Scots. Those conventions should be familiar to anybody aquainted with Scots literature from the 18th to well into the 20th centiry. Other readers may reject it on the grounds that the intended Scots sound-to-letter correspondence do not match the perceived Sandard English sound-to-letter correspondences for their dialect, or that they don't speak like that expecting a phonetic representation of the spoken vernacualar rather than a refined expository written form.

In the past written Scots also manifested itself in formal and expository registers. Vocabulary from those registers, often derived from Latin, Norman French, and Greek, is also included if examples of usage could be verified. Particularly by consulting the Scottish National Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue. The citations in the latter pretty much exclusively from expository texts.