The Scottish Vowel Length Rule (also known as Aitken's law after

A. J. Aitken Adam Jack Aitken (19 June 1921 – 11 February 1998) was a Scottish lexicographer and leading scholar of the Scots language. Education and military service Aitken was born on 19 June 1921 in Edinburgh, grew up in Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, a ...

, the Scottish linguist who formulated it) describes how

vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word ...

Scots Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: * Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland * Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland * Scoti, a Latin na ...

Scottish English Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standa ...

, and, to some extent,

Ulster English Ulster English ( sco, label=Ulster Scots, Ulstèr Inglish, ga, Béarla Ultach, also called Northern Hiberno-English or Northern Irish English) is the variety of English spoken in most of the Irish province of Ulster and throughout Northe ...

and

Geordie Geordie () is a nickname for a person from the Tyneside area of North East England, and the dialect used by its inhabitants, also known in linguistics as Tyneside English or Newcastle English. There are different definitions of what constitute ...

is conditioned by the phonetic environment of the target

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...

. Primarily, the rule is that certain vowels (described below) are phonetically long in the following environments: *Before . *Before a

voiced fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

(). *Before a

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone ar ...

boundary. *In a word-final open syllable, save for the vowel (or, in Geordie, ). Exceptions can also exist for particular vowel phonemes, dialects, words, etc., some of which is discussed in greater detail below.

Phonemes

The underlying

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s of the Scottish vowel system (that is, in both Scottish Standard English dialects and Scots dialects) are as follows: ★ = Vowels that definitively follow the Scottish Vowel Length Rule.

Rule specifics and exceptions

The Scottish Vowel Length Rule affects all vowels except the always-short vowels 15 and 19 ( and ) and, in many

Modern Scots Modern Scots comprises the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, from 1700. Throughout its history, Modern Scots has been undergoing a process of language attrition, whereby successive generations o ...

varieties, the always-long Scots-only vowels 8, 11, and 12 (here transcribed as , and ) that do not occur as phonemes separate from in Scottish Standard English.Aitken A.J. (1984) 'Scottish Accents and Dialects' in 'Language in the British Isles' Trudgill, P. (ed). p. 98. The further north a Scots dialect is from central Scotland, the more it will contain specific words that do not adhere to the rule. * and (vowels 15 and 19) are usually short in all environments. * In some Modern Scots varieties may merge with in long environments. In Ulster Scots , and are usually always long and the realisation of is short before a

voiceless consonant In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

or before a

sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels ar ...

followed by a voiceless consonant but long elsewhere. * , , , , , , and ,(vowels 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and 14) are usually long in the following environments and short elsewhere: A.J. Aitken in ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', Oxford University Press 1992. p. 894 ** In stressed syllables before

s, namely , and also before . In some Modern Scots varieties, before the monomorphemic end-stresses syllables , + any voiced consonant, and . In

Shetland dialect Shetland dialect (also variously known as Shetlandic; broad or auld Shetland or Shaetlan; and referred to as Modern Shetlandic Scots (MSS) by some linguists) is a dialect of Insular Scots spoken in Shetland, an archipelago to the north of main ...

the realisation of underlying , usual in other Scots varieties, remains a long environment. ** Before another vowel and ** Before a morpheme boundary so, for example, "stayed" is pronounced with a longer vowel than "staid" . * (vowel 12) usually occurs in all environments in final stressed syllables. * Vowel 8a, which only occurs stem-finally, and vowel 10 are always short; therefore, vowel 1 in its short form (according to the Rule), vowel 8a, and vowel 10 all merge as the

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

. In its long form, vowel 1 is here transcribed as .

History

The Scottish Vowel Length Rule is assumed to have come into being between the early

Middle Scots Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtua ...

and late Middle Scots periods.Aitken A.J. (1981) 'The Scottish Vowel-Length Rule' in 'So meny People Longages and Tonges' Benskin, M. and Samuels M.S. (eds). p. 137.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scottish Vowel Length Rule Scottish English Phonology Scots language Vowels Vowel shifts