1.3 Representation of vowel sounds in Ulster-Scots

Many pairs of English words, for example, 'meat' and 'meet', sound the same even if they have different meanings and different spellings. A common (and historic) pronunciation of 'meat' in Scotland and Ulster is [mate]. Similarly, 'eat', 'cheat', 'seat', 'beat', 'clean' and 'cheap' can be pronounced [ate], [chate], [sate], [bate], [clane] and [chape] in many parts of Ulster and Scotland.

The most consistent Scots spelling for this feature is -ai-. The Concise Scots Dictionary records the following equivalents, all of which have some currency in Ulster-Scots:

beard	-	baird
gleam	-	glaim
beagle	-	baigle
eat	-	ait
easy	-	aisy
cheat	-	chait (or chate)
east	-	aist
bleat	-	blait
feasible	-	faisible
cheap	-	chaip (or chape)
clear	-	clair
heathen	-	haithen
measles	-	maisles
mean	-	main
plead	-	plaid
seat	-	sait/sate
sheaf	-	shaif
tease	-	taise
treason	-	traison
treat	-	trait
weak	-	waik
sneak	-	snaik
beast	-	baist/baste
beat	-	bait/bate

Of course, not all words with an 'ea' spelling in English have this [ee] vowel sound in their Standard English pronunciation (like the metal 'lead'). Other words with an 'ea' spelling in English which do have the [ee[ vowel sound (like 'fear') retain the same vowel sound and spelling in their Scots equivalents.

As a general rule, words such as 'meet' which have the same [ee] vowel sound in English, but have an 'ee' rather than an 'ea' spelling, do not have a vowel sound change in their Ulster-Scots equivalents. This means that words such as 'green', 'teen', 'meet', 'beet' and 'week' are spelt the same in Scots as in English, apart from several exceptions. 'Queer' is universally quare or quair throughout Ulster, but the other exceptions such as fate or faet and maet for 'feet' and 'meet' only represent unusual and occasional local anomalies. Where a word like 'meet' is pronounced [mate] locally, a maet* spelling is adopted to maintain the clear and simple parallels reflected in the English synonyms, giving mait ('meat') and maet ('meet'); waik ('weak') and waek ('week') etc.

It should be stressed that while mait for 'meat' is quite regular in Scots and Ulster-Scots, the '-ee-' to [ai] vowel sound change in maet for 'meet' is not. The latter represents a localised feature in the east Antrim dialect of Ulster-Scots (although also heard occasionally in Belfast and north Down). Many words such as 'green' and 'beef' do not occur as *graen or *baef, and those such as quaen or faet that can occur locally, even so, are used only occasionally, eg Get yer faet* aff the sait.

Mait, incidentally, refers to any type of food in Ulster-Scots, and not just flesch, while any form of butcher's meat is beef, eg Mawhunnyie's beef-cairt ('Mawhinney's butchers van').

N.B Dialectal differences within Ulster-Scots can be quite marked, especially for some of the following features. Those examples which are rare in the core Ulster-Scots speaking area of mid and north Antrim, but frequent in the other areas (perhaps because of the contact with Mid Ulster-English dialects, where similar pronunciations occur), are distinguished by an asterisk after the example eg 'clean' - clain*.

Ulster-Scots ai corresponding to English 'ea'

beard	-	baird
heart	-	hairt (rhymes with English 'pert')
read	-	raid (rhymes with English 'made')*
meat	-	mait
lead (verb)	-	laid*
clean	-	clain
death	-	daith

Ulster-Scots ae corresponding to English 'ee'

queer	-	quaer (rhymes with English 'lair')
feet	-	faet (rhymes with English 'fate')*
queen	-	quaen (rhymes with English 'lane')*
beetle	-	baettle (rhymes with English 'fatal')*
sixteen	-	saxtaen*
meet	-	maet*
seen	-	saen