Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Abbreviations and conventions

References to counties in Scotland and England are to the pre-1974 counties.

The following conventions are used in discussing sounds and spellings:

< > brackets enclose graphemes (letters and combinations of letters, the latter often digraphs, i.e. combinations of two letters, such as <ch>) and spellings of words;

/ / brackets enclose phonemes (crudely, the sounds corresponding to graphemes, see below);

[ ] brackets enclose phonetic realisations (the fine details of pronunciation not usually relevant to spelling).

C stands for ‘any consonant’.

V stands for ‘any vowel’.

The symbols used are those specified by the International Phonetic Association (IPA). See Figures i-iii. In addition to those in the figures, the following symbols are used:

ʍa consonant, a voiceless labio-velar fricative, as at the beginning of where

wa consonant, a voiced labio-velar approximant, as at the beginning of wear

ʧa consonant, a voiceless affricate, as at the beginning of char

ʤa consonant, a voiced affricate, as at the beginning of jar

and the following diacritics:

n̩the consonant is syllabic, as /n/ in heaven

d̪the consonant is dental

d̥the normally voiced consonant is devoiced

e̝the vowel is raised

e̞the vowel is lowered

ε̈the vowel is centralised (i.e. backed in the case of a front vowel, fronted in the case of a back vowel)

i:the vowel is long

a̫the normally non-rounded vowel is partly rounded.

A vowel or /j/ written as a superscript after a vowel is an off-glide from that vowel, i.e. a sound that the vowel shades into towards the end of its duration.

A stressed syllable can be indicated thus: contents /’kɔntεnts/ n.pl., /kən’tεnts/ v. The stressed element of a diphthong can be indicated thus: [íu].

The following symbols are traditionally used with PreSc/ME spellings to indicate pronunciation:

ăthe vowel is short

āthe vowel is long (OE)

áthe vowel is long (ON)

ọthe vowel is raised

ęthe vowel is lowered.

Figure i: Consonants

Figure ii: Non-rounded vowels

Figure iii: Rounded vowels

Abbreviations