Étude comparative des pratiques des langues locales dans les diglossies de La Réunion et en Écosse

[Travis B.]

From listening to that again, now I can tell how the story he specifically speaks in Doric differs from English. For instance, I can hear how he pronounces /ʍ/ as [f] and I can recognize the lexical differences as being different from Standard English.

[Travis B.]

I have been listening to some of the examples at https://www.ayecan.com/understand_scots, and I can say that while in a lot of these examples I can gather what is meant by context, and very often it seems like I should understand what is being said because it sounds awfully English-like, at the same time I have limited understanding of many of the forms the speakers use.

[Raphael]

This discussion of Scots reminds me of my own experiences with Swiss German. I've seen subtitled Swiss German video clips where I had absolutely no trouble understanding anything and was confused about why the people who published them felt the need to include standard German subtitles. But I've also seen other subtitled Swiss German video clips where the subtitles were really useful for me.

[bradrn]

I have been listening to some of the examples at https://www.ayecan.com/understand_scots, and I can say that while in a lot of these examples I can gather what is meant by context, and very often it seems like I should understand what is being said because it sounds awfully English-like, at the same time I have limited understanding of many of the forms the speakers use.

Yes, I have to say that these are the best examples of Scots I’ve yet encountered. My intelligibility is definitely limited for at least some of them, and it’s very clear that it’s natural speech.

Phonetically that guy's Scots seems as far from Standard English as basilectal forms of my native English are ─ and I am most definitely a native English speaker.

I mean, judging from all you’ve said, I have on occasion wondered whether the current Anglic languages aren’t English, Scots and Travis-ese…

This discussion of Scots reminds me of my own experiences with Swiss German. I've seen subtitled Swiss German video clips where I had absolutely no trouble understanding anything and was confused about why the people who published them felt the need to include standard German subtitles. But I've also seen other subtitled Swiss German video clips where the subtitles were really useful for me.

Isn’t that slightly different, in that Swiss German is itself multiple languages?

[Raphael]

Isn’t that slightly different, in that Swiss German is itself multiple languages?

I can't tell. I don't know enough about it to judge that.

[MacAnDàil]

Thanks for the congratulations everybody!
And thanks to hwhatting for the German corrections.

Andy Eagle's synthesis following his review of existing spellings: https://www.evertype.com/books/cts2-eagle.html. I also mentioned that of the blog I participated in: https://www.makforrit.scot/scots/stylesheet/.

From glancing at that blog it underscores how much Scots is a separate language from English even if we English-speakers may manage to understand it at times (e.g. I can often make some sense of written Scots but have trouble understanding spoken Scots).

That is a really interesting observation, because I feel precisely the opposite way. I struggle to make sense of written Scots with all its spelling differences, but spoken Scots sounds exactly like Scottish English with a handful of lexical replacements. Ironically, Glasgow English — which lexically is almost identical to other English varieties — can be considerably harder for me to understand than ostensibly ‘Scots’ speech. (And I have a Northern Irish colleague who’s even harder to understand.)

So I’m not quite sure how to resolve this puzzle. I can see three possibilities:

• Either what I’m calling ‘Scottish English’ is in fact Scots, spoken much more widely than I thought it was (a position I’ve seen before; but then why’s it intelligible to me?);
• or ‘Scots’ is merely a dialect of English with its own spelling conventions (but then why’s it so widely considered a separate language?);
• or Scots is defined by its lexical differences (‘muckle’, ‘scrieve’, ‘anent’), which indeed are not intelligible to me without prior exposure, but of which I’ve heard practically none in spontaneous speech (in which case true Scots must be on the verge of extinction, unless Glasgow is unrepresentative).

'muckle' is general Scots, 'screive' is formal scots, 'anent' is also legal Scottish English.

Commentators have claimed Glaswegian is not True Scots for over a century. Despite this, many Glaswegians identify as Scots speakers.

This discussion of Scots reminds me of my own experiences with Swiss German. I've seen subtitled Swiss German video clips where I had absolutely no trouble understanding anything and was confused about why the people who published them felt the need to include standard German subtitles. But I've also seen other subtitled Swiss German video clips where the subtitles were really useful for me.

Indeed, as I mention in the literature review, German-speaking Switzerland was one of the first places to be considered diglossic.

[Travis B.]

I have been listening to some of the examples at https://www.ayecan.com/understand_scots, and I can say that while in a lot of these examples I can gather what is meant by context, and very often it seems like I should understand what is being said because it sounds awfully English-like, at the same time I have limited understanding of many of the forms the speakers use.

Yes, I have to say that these are the best examples of Scots I’ve yet encountered. My intelligibility is definitely limited for at least some of them, and it’s very clear that it’s natural speech.

The key sense I get from many of these is that it feels like I should understand because it sounds so much like English but in reality I have significant gaps in understanding what is meant.

Phonetically that guy's Scots seems as far from Standard English as basilectal forms of my native English are ─ and I am most definitely a native English speaker.

I mean, judging from all you’ve said, I have on occasion wondered whether the current Anglic languages aren’t English, Scots and Travis-ese…

LOL. My basilectal English certainly is no further from Standard English than that one guy's Glaswegian!

This discussion of Scots reminds me of my own experiences with Swiss German. I've seen subtitled Swiss German video clips where I had absolutely no trouble understanding anything and was confused about why the people who published them felt the need to include standard German subtitles. But I've also seen other subtitled Swiss German video clips where the subtitles were really useful for me.

Isn’t that slightly different, in that Swiss German is itself multiple languages?

Yeah, doesn't 'Swiss German' include varieties ranging from ones effectively identical to Swabian to ones that preserve a surprising amount of OHG effectively intact?

[Travis B.]

Phonetically that guy's Scots seems as far from Standard English as basilectal forms of my native English are ─ and I am most definitely a native English speaker.

I mean, judging from all you’ve said, I have on occasion wondered whether the current Anglic languages aren’t English, Scots and Travis-ese…

LOL. My basilectal English certainly is no further from Standard English than that one guy's Glaswegian!

In all seriousness, though, I don't think my English is really that far from Standard English, and IIRC zompist said, from hearing a recording of me speaking, that I sound pretty close to the people he hears who are local to Chicago, particularly when one overlooks my nasal elision and weak realizations of /l/.

(As for people in Chicago, the biggest difference I can tell between people there and people here is people there tend to have stronger diphthongs for GA /æ/ than people here.)

[hwhatting]

This discussion of Scots reminds me of my own experiences with Swiss German. I've seen subtitled Swiss German video clips where I had absolutely no trouble understanding anything and was confused about why the people who published them felt the need to include standard German subtitles. But I've also seen other subtitled Swiss German video clips where the subtitles were really useful for me.

Isn’t that slightly different, in that Swiss German is itself multiple languages?

Yeah, doesn't 'Swiss German' include varieties ranging from ones effectively identical to Swabian to ones that preserve a surprising amount of OHG effectively intact?

Not Swabian, which as a dialect area doesn't border on Switzerland, but Alemannic dialects are spoken on both sides of the border.
As far as I've noticed, when they don't speak (Swiss) Standard German on radio and TV (i.e., in informal situations like game shows or talks shows, and also in advertising), they use some kind of Swiss German koine, which leaves out the more extreme features of the local dialects and therefore is also a bit easier to understand for Germans than the pure dialects. Mind you, some Germans even have difficulties undertanding Swiss-accent Standard German, leave alone real Swiss German.

[Raphael]

As far as I've noticed, when they don't speak (Swiss) Standard German on radio and TV (i.e., in informal situations like game shows or talks shows, and also in advertising), they use some kind of Swiss German koine, which leaves out the more extreme features of the local dialects and therefore is also a bit easier to understand for Germans than the pure dialects. Mind you, some Germans even have difficulties undertanding Swiss-accent Standard German, leave alone real Swiss German.

In more formal contexts, where what people talk about might be more formal matters, there can sometimes be the additional complication that all kinds of inventions of the modern world, in fields like politics or law or bureaucracy, seem to have gotten different names when they were introduced in Switzerland than when they were introduced in Germany.

[Travis B.]

Not Swabian, which as a dialect area doesn't border on Switzerland, but Alemannic dialects are spoken on both sides of the border.

My bad -- I had thought Swabian extended to the border.

Mind you, some Germans even have difficulties undertanding Swiss-accent Standard German, leave alone real Swiss German.

That reminds of my parents, who will watch foreign TV in Standard English with subtitles on. They claim it is because they sometimes mumble, but I have zero trouble understanding the same media without them.

[MacAnDàil]

Hello,

You may find my doctoral thesis, Étude comparative des pratiques des langues locales dans les diglossies de La Réunion et en Écosse, on any of these links:

You may also comment here or on the ResearchGate or Academia pages.

https://theses.fr/2025LARE0042

https://theses.hal.science/tel-05677033
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _en_Ecosse
https://www.academia.edu/171958012/%C3% ... C3%89cosse

For those who read English but not French, there is one article I wrote in English on my ResearchGate and Academia profiles and there are summaries in English on the others and on the thesis.

[rotting bones]

Looks interesting. I'll check it out.