Having finished the course on Scottish Paleography, I have formulated several conclusions:
- Constant change: Language is changing continually as new words are adopted and others fall into disuse. Scottish adopted English words and even French words. Now however, we are adopting American words. I am not at all happy with ‘surreal’, I’m good’ (instead of ‘well’), ‘like’ stuck in everywhere, etc.
- Pronunciation: The ‘in’ accent is either American or common English ‘I’ pronounced /oi/ not /ai/ and all end ‘t’s omitted. In films (movies!), the heroes are American, the commoners use common English and the baddies use Standard (Oxford) English.
- Writing: Spelling has been standardized by the Oxford Dictionary in G.B. and the Webster in the U.S.A. but both go behind changing speech norms and words no longer represent sounds, e.g. night, bough, cough, laughter, etc. Nowadays, we are unsure whether ‘realise’ or ‘realize’ is correct, especially as correctors dislike British English and even British authors adopt American spelling (Joanna Penn).
- Dialects: The regional differences sometimes considered vulgar but really more colourful and legitimate than BBC English were preserved by lack of communication. Now, they are being eliminated by the spread of mass media.
- Criteria: The James Tait Black Prize 2017 was given to a book without punctuation and not popular with many. The point of writing is to communicate and is a way of putting random thoughts in order. If the writing is confusing and disorganized, communication is compromised.
- Marketing: Principles applied for effective sales are short sentences, easy language, and punchy lines. This leads to an impoverishing of expression. People get used to this style and are incapable of reading a classic literary work. Most children do not read books, lack rapid reading skills and worse still their writing suffers.
- Adopt and adapt: English words are being adopted in other languages, often incorrectly, ‘le parking’ in French or ‘el parking’ in Spanish is a car park. Words like ‘scanner’ are adapted, as in Spanish which is syllabic ‘escaner’ changes a word with a main stress on ‘scan’ to a word with three stresses ‘es’ ‘ca’ ner’, with a long e at the end instead of schwa. To scan is ‘escanear’.
- A.P.I.: There is an International Phonetic Alphabet whereby all languages can be transcribed phonetically with a common system of pronunciation. A language like English could be made easier for foreigners if we used it. I believe it would be fairly easy for people to learn. The problem lies in the different accents. /ai laik kofi:/ could be /oi loik kofi/ in London and /e lek ka:fi/ in the U.S. OR MAYBE people would adapt their pronunciation to the phonetics. Books could be written in phonetics – /its kwait i:zi/
- Surprise: I discovered that Scottish English is closer to Old English than Modern English. This is understandable as new influences come from the south, and the Scots have clung on to their own expressions. So Scottish is not at all alien, it is how our English ancestors spoke!
- Tendencies: The further south in Britain, the more open the sounds seem to be. book is /bu:k/ in the north and /buk/ in the south. Each region has its sounds and the same words sound completely different, like in the joke ‘Where ‘st thou been?’ sounds like ‘Where’s the bin?’ A consciousness of the coincidence of phonetic spelling with sounds could even this out.