Language Variety – Scottish English • The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). It is defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools". Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with Scots at the other. • Many Scots speakers separate Scots and Scottish English as different registers depending on social circumstances. Generally there is a shift to Scottish English in formal situations or with individuals of a higher social status.

• The speech of the middle classes in Scotland tends to conform to the grammatical norms of the written standard, particularly in situations that are regarded as formal. • Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the Lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by a Gaelic substratum. Similarly, the English spoken in the North-East of Scotland tends to follow the phonology and grammar of Doric (Ancient Greek dialect).

Phonological aspects characteristic of Scottish English Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning /r/ is typically pronounced in the syllable coda. The phoneme /r/ may be a postalveolar approximant [ɹ], as in Received Pronunciation or General American, but speakers have also traditionally used for the same phoneme a somewhat more common alveolar tap[ɾ] or, now very rare, the alveolar trill [r].

• Although other dialects have merged non-intervocalic /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ʌ/ before /r/ (fern–fir–fur), Scottish English makes a distinction between the same vowels. • Many varieties contrast /o/ and /ɔ/ before /r/ so that hoarse and horse are pronounced differently. • /or/ and /ur/ are contrasted so that shore and sure are pronounced differently, as are pour and poor. • /r/ before /l/ is strong. An epenthetic vowel may occur between /r/ and /l/ so that girl and world are two-syllable words for some speakers. The same may occur between /r/ and /m/, between /r/ and /n/, and between /l/ and /m/.

•The phoneme /x/ is common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and Scots borrowings, so much so that it is often taught to incomers, particularly for "ch" in loch. Some Scottish speakers use it in words of Greek origin as well, such as technical, patriarch, etc. • /ɫ/ is usually velarised (dark l) except in borrowings like "glen" (from Scottish Gaelic "gleann"), which had an unvelarised l in their original form. In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until recently (i.e. Dumfries and Galloway) and in areas where it is still spoken (West Highlands), velarisation of /l/ may be absent in many words in which it is present in other areas, but remains in borrowings that had velarised /l/ in Gaelic, such as "loch" (Gaelic "loch") and "clan" (Gaelic "clann").

•/p/, /t/ and /k/ are not aspirated in more traditional varieties, but are weakly aspirated currently. • The ending -ed may be realised with /t/ where other accents use /d/ (after unstressed vowels): ended[ɛndɪt], carried [karɪt] • Vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic, although a distinctive part of Scottish English is the Scots vowel length rule. Certain vowels (such as /i/, /u/, and /æ/) are generally long but are shortened before nasals and voiced plosives. However, this does not occur across morpheme boundaries so that crude contrasts crewed, need - kneed and side - sighed.

• Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish varieties, as they are in some other varieties. • In most Scottish varieties, there is no /æ/-/ɑ:/ distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel. • In colloquial speech, the glottal stop may be an allophone of /t/ after a vowel, as in butter [‘bʌʔər]. These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix -ing and debuccalise (moving the place of articulation to the glottis) /θ/ to [h] in certain contexts.

• Scottish English has no /ʊ/, instead transferring Scots /u/ • Scottish English has no /ʊ/, instead transferring Scots /u/. Phonetically, this vowel may be pronounced [ʉ] or even [ʏ]. Thus pull and pool are homophones. • There is a distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in word pairs such as witch and which. • /ɪ/ may be more open [ë̞] for certain speakers in some Scottish regions, so that it sounds more like [ɛ] (although /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ do not merge). Other speakers may pronounce it as [ɪ], just as in many other accents, or with a schwa-like ([ə]) quality. Others may pronounce it almost as [ʌ] in certain environments, particularly after /w/ and /hw/.