1.2 Older Scots spelling in Ulster-Scots before 1750

In the early 1600s, most Ulster-Scots were writing everything (letters, legal documents and so on - not just poetry or fiction) according to the 'rules' of Scots literacy in which they had been schooled. In other words, the great majority of Scottish settlers in Ulster, at the time of the Ulster plantation, spoke - and if literate wrote - Scots. In 1624, an extra Clerk of the Council was appointed in Dublin to deal with official correspondence which "being written in the Scotch hand are either not read or understood". Until the early 1630s even the titled Plantation landlords were writing in Scots, as this was the way in which they too had been schooled. At that time (and of course, before then), Scots had some very distinctive spellings that were to give way almost completely to English 'rules' later in the 17th century. However, traces of the Older Scots system were still being used through the 18th century. For almost a century, between 1650 and 1750, the educated Ulster-Scots learned only English spelling rules, and Ulster-Scots had to survive as a spoken language. Second generation Ulster-Scots landlords and their better educated tenants wrote their letters and reports in English after about 1640, even if they continued to speak Scots. At the same time, old session books of Presbyterian churches in Antrim and Down did contain entries that reveal that some old spellings and some Scots grammatical constructions were still being used many years later.

Thus, 18th and 19th century Ulster-Scots writers did not use many of the Older Scots spellings. Robert Burns and the 'Scotch poets' who preceded him in Ulster and Scotland were deliberately reviving a written form for what was to them only a spoken language. For this they almost always used English grammar and spelling rules. They were largely unaware of, or had lost contact with, the earlier spelling conventions of the 17th century and before.

Consonants in Older Scots

quh- for 'wh-'

One of the most distinctive characteristics of Older Scots spelling is the quh- used in place of 'wh-'. We find in Ulster-Scots documents between 1550 and 1650 such spellings as the following:

quha	-	wha (who)
quhairto	-	whairto (whereto)
quhais	-	whais (whose)
quhar/quhair	-	whar/whair (where)
quhat	-	what
quhatever	-	whatever
quhan	-	whan (when)
quhilk	-	whilk (which)
quhyt	-	white

and quhairof, quhairin, quhairfoir, quharas, quhorbz ('whereby'), etc.

This feature was so widely used then that Ulster-Scots scribes even took 'English' words (like 'which' rather than whilk, 'who' rather than wha, and so on) and used the 'quh- spelling to give: quhich, quho, quhoum ('whom') etc. 

Sometimes the spelling was slightly different ('qh-'  or 'qu-') and abbreviations such as qlk ('which'), qo ('who'), qn ('when') and qrof ('whereof') are often found in old kirk session books. Sometimes this feature occurred in the middle of words as well as the beginning: umquhille, as in 'the umquhille Mr Crawford', means 'the late' or 'former', and is probably from 'some while'. In earlier times, this quh- spelling reflected a [kwa] pronunciation (see section 1.5 ), and this is suggested by the apostrophe in the spelling used by Samuel Thomson, Bard of Carngranny (Antrim) in a poem of 1793:

"Had umqu'hile Spence a listener been"

z for 'y'

One individual letter that was common to Older Scots and Middle English in the medieval period was called 'yogh', and was generally written: '3' .  However, in Early and Middle Scots manuscripts, from the 14th century, the letters '3' and 'z' were indistinguishable as 3, for example in 3outh and 3ele (=zeal). 16th century Scots printers took to printing 'z' for both, because there was no separate '3' font. By 1600, most Scots writers were using the 'z' form of the letter as equivalent to 'y' in English. This rule was most frequently at the beginning of words such as ze ('you') and zeir ('year'). In both English and Scots at that time the letter 'y' could be understood to represent the old letter Þ (called 'thorn' and which became 'th'). By the late 14th century, 'thorn' survived only as a letter indistinguishable from 'y'. As both languages, therfore, had ye for 'the' and yat for 'that', confusion is possible for the modern reader:

the (or, you)	-	ye
ye/you	-	ze/zou
their	-	yair
year	-	zeir
your	-	zour

A number of surnames retain the traces of 'yogh' letter and sound. Dalzell, although not normally pronounced 'Da-yell' in Ulster today, would often be so pronounced in Scotland. The Antrim name MacFadzean is of course pronounced [MacFadgeyin], and the surnames Bailey and Taylor are pronounced [bail-ye] and [tail-yer] in Ulster-Scots. The early spellings of these names were Bailze and Tailzer. Occasionally, a name like 'William' was written Vilzame. Mawhinney is pronounced [Mawhun-ye] in Co Down, and McFarlane as [McFarlyane] in parts of Co.Antrim. For a fuller description of the 'yogh' sound, and its representation in Ulster-Scots, see section 1.6.

-ie for '-y'

Where 'y' is found at the end of a word in English spelling, this was (and is) avoided in Scots in favour of -ie. So, 'Aunty' becomes Auntie, 'Willy' becomes Willie or Wullie, and 'granny' becomes grannie. Of course, Scots words with no English equivalents such as dominie ('teacher') also follow this pattern. Surnames such as Montgomery were usually spelt Montgomerie.

many	-	monie
very	-	verie
any	-	onie
mostly	-	maistlie

The following sentence from an early 17th century Ulster document illustrates many of the Older Scots spelling features:

Ye quhilk soume of monies ye umquhile Claude Hamiltonne grantit ye zeir of god 1615.

'The which sum of money the umquhile (late) Claude Hamilton granted the year of God 1615'.

sh for 's', and sch for '-sh-'

Some Ulster-Scots speakers have a tendency to pronounce 's' as [sh] and so we might sometimes hear Miss (an abbreviated form of 'mistress') pronounced [massh], although it would never be written in this way. 'Vessel', however, was written veshel in some of the early Ulster-Scots documents, 'sugar' was written as shugger, and 'soon' as shune. According to the Concise Scots Dictionary, the modern Scots word sheuch (' a drain, or open ditch with water lying in it') is derived from an Early Middle English word sogh, meaning a 'wet, swampy place'. In each of these cases, the sh spelling in modern Ulster-Scots contrasts with an 's' spelling in the English or Older Scots/Middle English equivalent.

On the other hand, where 'sh' is used in the English spelling of a word to represent the same sound, for example with 'she', 'ship', 'bishop' etc, 'sch' was used regularly in Older Scots (scho, schippe, bischop, etc), as in other Germanic languages. The modern uses of s, sh, and sch in Ulster-Scots are discussed further in section 1.5.

The development of the Older Scots forms suld 'should' and sall 'shall' is not parallel to that from sogh to sheuch. However, it should be noted that shud is current Ulster-Scots for 'should'. Although the forms sall and I'se ('I shall') appear in the Ulster-Scots literary record, 'shall' or sall are not used today at all.

Interchangeable letters 'v', 'u' and 'w'

In Older-Scots, the letters 'w', 'v' and 'u' were used interchangeably, but on occassion the substitution of 'w' for 'v' reflected a contrast of pronunciation with English.

over	-	ower (modern Scots - owre)
give	-	giwe (modern Scots - gie)
have	-	hawe (modern Scots - hae)
dove	-	dowe (modern Scots - doo)
love	-	lowe (rare in modern Scots, except for in belowit 'beloved'

The Ulster-Scots poets used words like lo'ed for 'loved', and co'erd for 'covered'. Before that, in the 1600s, w was often substituted for 'v' in words such as adwise, craew ('crave'), Dawid, Gawan ('Gavin'), lewie ('levy'), wozd ('void') and elewint ('eleventh'). Sometimes, u was also found in place of 'w' in words such as ansuer, auin ('own'), duell, neuis, puer ('power'), sourd ('sword'), toune, tua and tuell. W was substituted for 'u' in perswade, trew, zow ('you'), dowble and grows ('grouse'). V was used in place of w for avay, vitt, vas, vater, ve and varrent, etc. The interchangeable v and w raises the question of the Ulster-Scots adjective brave ('good' or 'pleasing'), which is synonymous with some meanings of the Scots adjective braw.

Note: Occasionally, f was substituted for 'v': serf ('serve'), giffen ('given'), etc. The v in gavel ('gable') and ville- ('bally-','town') is original, and not an alteration of the 'b' in the English and Gaelic equivalents.

Final -it for '-ed'

The Scots past tense verb ending in '-it' or '-t' (rather than '-ed' or '-d'), is of course a historical form but it also reflects a pronunciation contrast with English.