1.5 Modified consonants in Ulster-Scots

Several consonants, including the letters 's', 't', 'l', 'w' and 'd', are modified in Ulster-Scots when combined with 'h'. These modifications contrast with English usage.

's' 'sh' and 'sch' in Ulster-Scots

The behaviour of the consonant 's' in combination with 'h' and 'ch' in Ulster-Scots has already been examined in the light of the documentary and historical record (section 1.2). On occasion, the English 'sh' spelling is written as in its historical 'sch' form in Ulster-Scots, while the English 's' spelling is written as 'sh' in Ulster-Scots if it is modified to this sound in Ulster-Scots only. For example, English 'short' can be written schoart or schairt in Ulster-Scot, while 'soon' is shuin (usually pronounced [shane]). The surname 'Shaw' was frequently written Schaw or Schae in the 17th century.

In the example given above, 'soon' is often written shuin in Ulster-Scots, but just as frequently shune or shane. The plural of shoe ('shoes'), however, is also written shune in most of the traditional literature. If the above 'rules' were to be consistently applied, only the spelling of the English word 'shoes' in Ulster-Scots should be schune - and in the historical record this form is well attested.

In terms of general pronunciation, the 's' sound in Ulster-Scots is very often modified to 'sh' when compared to the comparable English word. A 'pussy-cat' is a wee pushie, harnish is 'harness', shoo is 'sew', shooper can be used for 'super', a 'lease' is a leash and a 'vessel' is veshel. Even with consonant groupings of 'st' and 'sl', the actual sound of words like stour or slabber can approach [sshtoor] or [sshlabber]. Rubbisch ('rubbish') is pronounced [rubbitch], but other words ending in -sch, such as fäsch ('fish') are pronounced with a final [-sh] sound. Pusch ('push') differs from English in the vowel sound rather than the 'sh' sound, as it rhymes with English 'slush'.

Several English words such as 'school' and 'schedule', are pronounced with a [sk-] rather than a [sh-] sound. In Ulster-Scots an 'sc-' spelling is used: scuil ('school'), and scedule ('schedule'), although 'sk-' and 'sch-' spellings also occur.

'wh' and 'quh' in Ulster-Scots

In the 'standard' pronunciation of English words such as 'where' and 'were', there is no sound difference between the 'wh' and 'w'. In Scots and Ulster-Scots, however, when a word is spelt 'wh-', there is a marked [hw] sound as the 'w' is aspirated. The historical Scots orthographic form of quh for 'wh' has presumably been revived by some modern Ulster-Scots writers partly to emphasis this pronunciation. In this book this usage has been followed only for pronouns and adverbs such as 'who' quha, 'when' quhan, 'where' quhar, and so on - but not for words such as wheen ('some'), whun ('gorse') etc.

'tw' and 'qw' in Ulster-Scots

The [kwa] sound appears to have been very extensively used in Older Scots. Indeed, it appears that the quh- orthographic convention in Scots (for 'wh-') originally indicated a [kwa] pronunciation. The 'q' sound emerges in unexpected circumstances - for example the name 'Hugh' can be rendered [shooey] [queue] or [queuey].

Historically, the 'tw' consonant combination was not only also represented as 'qw' in Older Scots, but was pronounced as such as well. The best known examples of this are in the aqween and aqweesh forms for 'between'. In South-West Scotland and parts of Co Antrim, this also survives in the (now rare) forms of qwa, qwarthie, qwonnie and qwal ('two' 'two or three', 'twenty' and 'twelve'). The Hamely Tongue also records in current Antrim speech quust for 'twist' and quuster for a straw-rope 'twister'.

Modification of the consonants 't' and 'd'

The English consonants 't' and 'd' are often modified by sounding with the tongue between the teeth (i.e. interdentally) in Ulster-Scots to sound very close to 'tth' and 'dh', - or their sound can even be lost altogether. Most noticeably and commonly these changes happen when the 't' or 'd' is followed by the consonant 'r'. The consonant 't' can also be replaced by a glottal stop ( a catch in the throat). When 'th' occurs in English in the middle of words, the Ulster-Scots form may lose the consonant sound altogether. 'Father', 'brother', 'mother', 'bother' and 'rather' are not always pronounced [faither], [brither] etc as in Scots, but sometimes as [faa-er], [brae-er], [maw-er], [baw-er] and [raa-er]. This feature is characteristic of Belfast vernacular, but also occurs in some Ulster-Scots speaking areas, although not in the 'core' areas of mid and north Antrim. As in the above sections, an asterisk will be used after such words to distinguish those not found among the broadest Ulster-Scots speakers (where faither, brither, mither and rether are used).

In some cases use of a 'th' or 'dh' is sufficient to represent the sound of 't' and 'd', so giving us butther, sthrae (straw), dhrap (drop), shoodher (shoulder), but in some cases it is impractical. 'Tractor', for example, would become *thraycther, and 'tree' would become *tthree. The Ulster-Scots pronunciation of 'tree' should not be confused with the numeral 'three', because in 'tree' the 'tr' sounds are modified together to 'ttrh-'. In fact, the difference between interdental 't', 'd' and interdental 'th', 'dh' is that the first are stop consonants (sounded by a firm closure of the tongue between the teeth), while the second are spirants ( sounded so that the passage of breath does not wholly cease).

In the 1960s Professor Gregg and Brendan Adams addressed this orthographic problem, and advocated capitalising the letters 'T' and 'D' (even in the middle of words) when they were affected along with a following 'r' sound. Thus we find spellings in their transcriptions such as:

DReekh

DReer

DRawin

guTTers

claaTTer

TRue

beTTer

DRänk

TRäcks

However, other writers do not seem to have adopted this convention, and in recent years some have turned to the use of an accent over the vowel immediately following the modified consonants to achieve the same result: drèekh, drèer, guttèrs, bettèr, etc.

In this practice 'tree' becomes trèe rather than *tthree or *TRee, and 'water' if written watèr is pronounced [watther]. In James Fenton's dictionary, The Hamely Tongue, this feature is described (see section 1.7), but no orthographic device is necessary in his work, where a particular word such as butter can have a pronunciation guide inserted after: eg butter (-tth-). The use of an accented vowel to indicate modification of the preceding consonant or group of consonants is adopted in this book. It has the advantage of a certain degree of current usage by modern writers, and also has the capability of indicating loss of the consonant sound altogether. The latter is achieved by adding an 'h' to the 't' or 'd', and accenting the following vowel. Thus watèr, pronounced [watther], can be distinguished from wathèr*, pronounced [waa-er].
eg

shoulder	-	shouldhèr, shoodèr, or shouldèr* [shouller/shoodher/shouldher]
dander	-	dandhèr or dandèr [danner/dandher]
brother	-	braithèr [bra-er]*
mother	-	maithèr [ma-er]*
children	-	childhèr or childèr [chiller/childher]*
Ulster	-	Ulstèr [Ullsther]

Modification of initial 'th' to 'h', represented by thì, thà, etc

Certain words beginning with 'th' in their English equivalents are sometimes, locally, pronounced with an initial 'h' sound in Ulster-Scots. This modification is represented by an accent over the following vowel. So 'think' in Ulster-Scots can become thìnk* (pronounced [hink]). Other examples include thanks - thànks* (pronounced [hanks]), and 'thing' - thìng* [häng].

Loss of initial 'h' represented by hò etc

Several words beginning with 'h-' have no initial consonant sound in either English or Ulster-Scots (eg 'honest', 'honour' etc)., but this can also occur with several other words in Ulster-Scots.

hospital	-	hòspittal [ospittle] (historically also spittal)
hotel	-	hòtel [o-tel]
he	-	hè [ee]

Although 'hour' is not pronounced in English or Ulster-Scots with an initial 'h-', hoor in Ulster-Scots is 'whore' and oor is 'our'. In this book 'hour' is represented as hòor.

It must be remembered that these modifications of initial 'th' and 'h' are exceptional, and the vast majority of Ulster-Scots words beginning with a 'th' or 'h' are pronounced as spelt.

Modification of 'th-' in 'that', 'the', 'them'

In Scots, generally, 'that' is pronounced and spelt at, and so no other device such as *thàt is necessary to represent the loss of initial 'th'. Only rarely, however, is thaim (meaning 'those' or 'them') written 'em, although this is frequently the pronunciation. This book follows the practice of spelling 'the' and 'them' as tha and thaim when the 'th' is sounded, and thà and thàim when there is a loss of the initial 'th' sound. However, the behaviour of these three words is not consistent in Ulster-Scots. That, tha and thaim lose 'th' and become at, thà and thàim only when the preceding word ends with a consonant rather than a vowel sound. The loss of 'th-' does not occur at the beginning of a sentence, or of the preceding word in a sentence ends with a vowel sound. For example, we would not find Get oot o *at or *Thà Broons is for cumin themorra but rather Get oot o that and Tha Broons is for cumin themorra. In contrast, we would find Get at oot o here and Is thà Broons for cumin?

The glottal stop for 't' represented by 'tt'

One of the most characteristic features in rural Ulster-Scots speech is the glottal stop. The glottal 't' is sounded by a 'coughing' or catching action which closes the top of the throat, rather than by the action of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth. There are no orthographic conventions to indicate its presence in earlier Scots or in English, so its history cannot be traced from the documentary record. In Danish an apostrophe is used to indicate the glottal stop, but given the conventions adopted elsewhere this would be liable to confuse in Ulster-Scots.

Unlike the circumstances where 't' is sounded similarly to 'tth' in Ulster-Scots (when followed by the 'r'), the glottal stop occurs when preceded by a vowel, and when followed by 'l'. For example bottle and nettle usually contain glottal stops, but bustin and nestit would not. Buster would have its 't' modified [bustther], while bitter might be aspirated [bitther] or have a glottal stop [bi'er]. Indeed, for words such as butter, matter, bitter, many native speakers sound both a glottal stop and an aspirated 'th': [bu'ther], [ma'ther], [bi'ther] etc

The glottal stop should be assumed when the spelling in Ulster-Scots in this book involves a double 'tt' preceded by a vowel; words with 't' in English are respelt as 'tt' (eg 'metal' to mettal).

In summary, there are five ways in which the consonant 't' may be sounded in a simple word like 'water'. Only the last four of these are characteristic of Ulster-Scots speech.

The 'interdental' modification of '-nn-' and '-nd-'

Certain words such as 'wonder' can be represented as wunner or wandher in Ulster-Scots literature. However, the most common pronunciation is not [wunner] (with the 'n' sounded by touching the tongue on the roof of the mouth) or [wun-dher] (with a distinct 'd' audible. Rather, the '-nn-'is sounded by touching the tongue on the back of the teeth, and is represented here as wunnèr. This pronunciation is found with many words which - like danner/dander - can be spelt either with '-nn-' or '-nd-'.  In the Gregg/Adams spelling system described above (where the letters 't' and 'd' were capitalised to represent their 'interdental' - ie tongue between the teeth - pronunciation), they also advocated capitalizing the letters '-nn-' for the same reason: eg daNNer and wuNNer.

In James Fenton's dictionary, The Hamely Tongue (see section 1.7), words like 'under' are represented as unther, rather than the more conventional unner, to indicate the same pronunciation. The word 'winner' using this spelling system, becomes *wunther, while 'winter' is *wunter, with a pronunciation reminder (-tth-). The 'interdental' sounding of '-nn-' does produce a barely perceptible, soft 't' or 'th' sound, but without allowing a full 't' or 'tth' sound as in wuntèr or wunter [wuntther]. The following words with '-nd-' spellings in their English equivalents are provided in The Hamely Tongue:

under	-	unther (here spelt unnèr)
underground	-	unthergrun (here spelt unnèrgrun)
thunder	-	thunther (here spelt thunnèr)
wander	-	wanther (here spelt wannèr)
Anderson	-	Antherson (here spelt Andèrson)
Connor	-	Conther (here spelt Connòr)
render	-	renther (here spelt rennèr)

The following words with '-n-' or '-nn-' spellings in their English equivalent are also provided in The Hamely Tongue:

banner	-	banther (here spelt bannèr)
dinner	-	dinther (here spelt dinnèr)
general	-	gentheral (here spelt genèral)
honour	-	onther (here spelt hònòr)
mineral	-	mintheral (here spelt minèral)

N.B In all these examples the '-nn-' and '-nd-' modification only occurs when these consonants are followed by an 'r'.

Like dannèr, other Ulster-Scots words with no English equivalents can sometimes be spelt '-nd-' or '-nn-', but usually the '-nn-' forms dominate in the literature. Rander, or more commonly ranner ('to ramble on without meaning'), is given as ranther by Fenton, raNNer by Gregg/Adams, and in this work, as rannèr.

The consonants 'ng'

The present participle ending ('-ing' in English) is always pronounced [-in], and is written -in in modern Ulster-Scots (eg slaepin* 'sleeping', waakin 'walking',footèrin 'fidgeting' etc). When 'ng' is not in a final position, but is following by 'th' in English words such as 'length', 'strength' etc, it becomes nth in Ulster-Scots: lenth, strenth, etc.

Elsewhere, when the consonants 'ng' occur together in a word, the 'g' is sounded as in English 'singer', and not as in English 'anger' - ie [ang-er] not [ang-ger]. For example, langle and angle in Ulster-Scots are sometimes spelt *langhle and *anghle to emphasis the softer sound of the 'g'. The hard [g] sound, as in words beginning with 'g-' such as gye, get, gairden etc, is sounded as in English. However, words which in English retain the hard [g] sound after 'ng', as in 'finger', 'hunger' and anger' [fing-ger, etc], are pronounced in Ulster-Scots without the following [g]: [fing-er], [hung-er] and [ang-er]. Modern writers have occasionally omitted the 'e' to give *fingr, *langl, etc. In this book, however, an apostrophe is used to represent this modification:

fing'r

hung'r

ang'r

lang'l

ang'l

The consonants 'gh' and 'ch'

The Germanic 'ch' sound, as in 'loch' or 'lough', is one of the most characteristic sounds in Scots and Ulster-Scots. English spellings of words like 'light', 'bright', and 'night' were used by Ulster-Scots writers during the late 1700s and early 1800s, apparently without any realisation that this could be misinterpreted by readers who were not Scots speakers. During the mid 1800s some of our writers such as Robert Huddleston of Moneyreagh began to introduce apostrophes as an indication of the correct pronunciation. Thus we find in some poems of the 1850s spellings such as li'ght, bri'ght and ni'ght. However, it is now widely accepted by modern Scots writers that the spellings licht, bricht and nicht are more appropriate. This principle applies even where the sound for 'gh' is [f] in English but is [ch] in Ulster-Scots, for example 'enough' and 'tough' are eneuch and teuch (pronounced [enyeuch] and [tyeuch]) in Ulster-Scots.

The loss of the final consonants '-t' and '-d'

Many words which, in English, end in '-st', '-pt', '-ld' or '-nd', lose their final 't' or 'd' sound in their Ulster-Scots equivalents.

The loss of the final 'd' in 'and', 'hand' and 'land' (to give an, haun* or hann, and laun* or lann) is, of course, a characteristic feature of all Ulster vernacular speech, both Ulster-English and Ulster-Scots. 'And' is universally spelt an (historically an'), while 'hand' can be haun* for both Ulster-English dialect (especially Belfast and mid-Ulster) and some adjacent Ulster-Scots speaking areas, or, han in mid and north Antrim. This distinction of pronunciation within Ulster-Scots is not simply a geographical one, as many speakers will pronounce 'land' and 'hand' as laun etc in some contexts, but lann in others. For example, you might skail wrack on thà laun ('spread seaweed on the land'), but an 'island' or 'Scotland' would be as islann and Scawtlann.

Examples of this feature abound in all Ulster-Scots literature, and while it is frequently represented as -n, -n', or -nn, the '-nn' usage is adopted hereafter, with the exception of the following examples:

land	-	laun* (but also lann)
hand	-	haun*, han
and	-	an
pound	-	pun, (also poon and poun)
round	-	roon
ground	-	grun
hound	-	houn, hoon
found	-	fun

For English words ending in '-ind', some Ulster-Scots equivalents end in -ynn to avoid confusion with other words, eg kynn and mynn for 'kind' and 'mind', rather than *kine, *kinn, *mine, etc. However, other equivalents such as 'blind', 'bind' and 'find' end in -in or -inn.

Final '-d' is also lost in words such as 'old', 'cold', and 'hold' to give oul, coul or cowl, and houl or howl. These spellings and pronunciations are now shared between vernacular Ulster-English and Ulster-Scots, with the Scottish-Scots (and Ulster-Scots literary) forms of auld, cauld and haud being rarely heard in speech in Ulster today, apart from in haudins ('holdings') and hauden ('held'). Typical of the earlier usage by many of the Ulster-Scots poets are the following lines:

"Laigh in a vale there hauds a fair" (Thomson)

"But haud ye, a jiffey" (Sloan)

Other examples of current forms include:

told	-	toul
bold	-	boul
fold	-	foul
mould	-	moul
gold	-	gowl, also gowl(d) (historic and literary form gowd)
sold	-	soul (rhymes with [howl])

Note: 'Soul' is sowl, and also rhymes with [howl]. The consonant 't', when it occurs as the last letter in some English words, is also lost in Ulster-Scots. This regularly occurs with English words which end in '-st' and '-pt'. The '-pt' ending, for example, becomes -pp in Ulster-Scots, although -p and -p' spellings may also be encountered:

apt	-	app
kept	-	kepp
slept	-	slepp
swept	-	swepp
tempt	-	tempp

Similarly, English '-st' endings can become -ss in their Ulster-Scots equivalents:

lest	-	less
feast	-	feess/faiss*, feesht
beast	-	beess/baiss*, beesht
priest	-	preess, preesht
interest	-	intèress
nearest etc	-	nearess, neardess etc
manifest	-	mannyfess
harvest	-	hairvess, hairs
best	-	bess
nest	-	ness

The plural forms of words such as 'nests', 'beasts' etc, can simply involve a longer 's' sound at the end of the word ([ness]) for 'nests' rather than [nez] for 'nest'), but the -ss spelling adopted here remains the same for both.

The loss of the consonant 'l', and the final consonants '-ll'

Perhaps no feature of Scots pronunciation and spelling is better known than the loss of '-ll' from the ending of words such as the following:

all	-	aa
ball	-	baa
call	-	caa
fall	-	faa
wall	-	waa
hall	-	haa (usually Haw in place-names)
knoll	-	knowe (rhymes with [cow])
pull	-	pu
full	-	fu
roll	-	row (also rowl)

When these words are used to form compound words, such as 'altogether', the 'l' or 'll' element can still be omitted even though it is not in a final position (aathegither). There are numerous compound words formed with '-full', which in Scots and Ulster-Scots became -fu (eg nievefu 'fistful', pooerfu 'powerful', etc).

When the 'l' is not in a final position as in English words 'salt', 'malt', 'multure', 'pulpit', 'gold', 'hold' and 'shoulder', the 'l' can also be lost in the Ulster-Scots equivalents: saut, maut, mooter ('miller's portion'), poopit, gowd and haud (also gowl and houl) and shooder.

The loss of the consonant 'r'

In Scots speech, fae is often preferred to the traditional written Scots frae ('from'). Indeed, so widespread is the fae usage in some dialects of Scots that frae is regarded as a 'literary' form, despite the fact that fae also occurs frequently in modern Scots writing. In some Ulster-Scots areas, particularly the marginal ones, the situation is much the same, except that a similar dropping of the 'r' can extend to those words which begin 'thr-'. So 'throw', 'through', 'three' and 'throat' can be thow* (rhymes with 'so'), thoo*, thie* and thoát* in some local Ulster-Scots dialects. This feature is also common in Belfast speech, and in urban Ulster-Scots. Similarly, throughither ('untidy') is sometimes pronounced [thoo-irr*] and the spelling thouithèr* may be occasionally used in this book. The 'r' can even be lost, albeit rarely, after initial 'b', for example, 'brigade' is sometimes bigade*, and 'British' Bitisch*.

The reversal of 'r' and adjacent vowel

In words such as 'children', 'brethren', 'apron', 'modern', 'pretty', 'grass' and 'western', the Ulster-Scots forms often involve a reversal of the position of the letter 'r' and the adjacent vowel; childern, brethern, apern, modren, purtie*, girse and wastren.