# "Scottish and Northern English" Why Is It Broken Down Like This?



## Unoverwordinesslogged

When googling: "gimmer" amongst others, one gets the following"

gimmer
ˈɡɪmə/
_noun_
Scottish Northern English
noun: *gimmer*; plural noun: *gimmers*

a ewe between its first and second shearing.


1. why is it always "Northern English" rather than say 'Western English', 'Central English'

2. what is "Northern English"?

3. what is the difference between Scottish, Scots and Scottish English?

4. why is the use(?) or roots(?) of words in Scotland never broken down into Highland Scottish and Lowland Scottish or something alikened to "Northern English"?

5. why is the use(?) or roots(?) of words in England never broken down into Southern English or something alikened to "Northern English"?

6. "gimmer" is said to be "Northern English" because it is (guessing) used only in northern England - is "gimmer" really used ALL OVER Scotland - how comes we never end up with something like _'Lowland Scottish' and English'_?


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## berndf

Unoverwordinesslogged said:


> 2. what is "Northern English"?


One of the chief dialect groups within England, others being _Midlands _(often sub-divided into _East _and _West Midlands_), _Southern, East Anglian _and _West Country_.


Unoverwordinesslogged said:


> 3. what is the difference between Scottish, Scots and Scottish English?


_Scots _is a separate standardized language based on Middle English with its own literary tradition; _Scottish (English)_ is a collective term for the dialects of English spoken in Scotland.


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## entangledbank

And historically, Scottish and Northern English are the same dialect; they only diverged from about 1300.


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## berndf

entangledbank said:


> And historically, Scottish and Northern English are the same dialect; they only diverged from about 1300.


I don't think this is totally right. Scottish English belongs into one dialect continuum together with Northumbrian which has always been different from other Northern dialects.

This was so already in Old English times. Northumbria notably never belonged to the Danelaw and therefore lacked the strong ON influence that was typical for Northern, Eastern Midlands and East Anglian dialalects.


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## Nino83

Unoverwordinesslogged said:


> 3. what is the difference between Scottish, Scots and Scottish English?



Scots is a different language which derives from Old Northumbrian English.
Scottish English is English language spoken with a Scottish accent.

For example, the word _stone_ is:
_stane_ pronounced [sten] in Scots
_stone_ pronounced [ston] in Scottish English
_stone_ pronouced [stoʊ̯n] in Standard English


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Scots is a different language which derives from Old Northumbrian English.
> Scottish English is English language spoken with a Scottish accent.
> 
> For example, the word _stone_ is:
> _stane_ pronounced [sten] in Scots
> _stone_ pronounced [ston] in Scottish English
> _stone_ pronouced [stoʊ̯n] in Standard English


It is more than just a few twists in vowel realization.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> It is more than just a few twists in vowel realization.



Yes, true, it is a different language with some different grammar and vocabulary too (I made a little example with a single word common to both languages).


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## Ihsiin

This may be of interest:

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/scots-scottish-english-and-scottish-gaelic.2690067/


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## Walshie79

Generalizing "Northern English" like that is very inaccurate; it implies that the word is used all over the northern half or England. You'll find a lot of "Scottish" words are well known in Northumberland, but not in Lancashire. "Gan(g)" for "go" for instance. The Scottish "hoose, oot" is found in the Northeast as well, but not further south. I think it stops around the Tees.

Northumbria was "north of the Humber". So it included places like York and Newcastle, but not Sheffield or Manchester. That was Mercia, but it's still "Northern England" to most people in the UK. Cumbria was different again, they spoke a form of Welsh there until about 1200. 

There are also words which you find in Northern England, but not Scotland. One word I always think of as characteristic of the northernmost parts of England is "fell" for a mountain (from Old Norse fjall); it's everywhere in Cumbria, Northumberland, Durham and North Yorks but disappears once you cross the border.


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## Hulalessar

If we call the varieties of Germanic which developed from Old English “Anglic” there are two varieties of Anglic spoken in Scotland and England: Scots and English. There is a sub-variety of English spoken in Scotland called Scottish English. It is essentially standard English with a Scottish flavour. Scots on the other hand is a separate development. We therefore get:

Old English > English > Scottish English

Old English > Scots

Linguistically Scotland can be divided into two zones. One (“the Highlands”) is the area north and west of the Highland Line consisting of the Highands and the Western Isles, but excluding Caithness and the Northern Isles. The other (“the Lowlands”) is the area east and south of the Highland Line together with Caithness and the Northern Isles. Ignoring recent immigration, Scottish English and Gaelic are spoken in the Highlands and Scottish English and Scots are spoken in the Lowlands.

Scots is by no means homogeneous. Opinions differ as to the number of varieties. If we ignore Standard English, there is a dialect continuum between Scots and English and the varieties of Anglic spoken in the border zone have more isoglosses than any comparable area in the Anglosphere. Inevitably what is spoken north of the border is going to be called Scots and what is spoken south of it English, but liguistically there is no sharp distinction. (I come from the extreme south of England and many years ago when I first heard Geordie I thought the speaker was Scottish.)

Whether there is such a thing as “Standard Scots” is debatable. Up to a point writers tend to do their own thing. What is significant is that Scots plays no part in official business even if some of its terminology relating to areas where Scotland has different systems and customs have been carried over from a time when Scotland was not in union with England. It is also possible to be misled as to the degree of mutual intelligibility between Scots and Standard English because at times authors such as Sir Walter Scott, who wanted their books to sell in England, wrote Scots in a way that made it more intelligible. Of particular note is the “apologetic apostrophe” which is an apostrophe placed where a consonant is to be found in Standard English even in cases where there never was a consonant in Scots.

There is also a continuum between Scots and Scottish English which has arisen from the two varieties meeting each other. It is probably the case that many Scots speakers, whilst feeling Scots to be distinct from (Standard) English, consider it to be a variety of English rather than a variety of Anglic. There is though no form of spoken Scottish English which completely matches spoken Standard English. Even the most genteel form of Scottish English allows Scotticisms in situations where genteel varities of regional English would hesitate to admit the vernacular.

As for the names, you cannot get away from the fact that Scots has been called Scottish. Why it is thought that “Scottish” might be confused with “Gaelic” whilst “Scots” will not is a bit of a mystery. It is the sort of change which serves little purpose and only causes confusion where none previously existed. People are left wondering if “Scottish” and “Scots” mean two different things.

Where the North begins if you live in the South of England or where the South begins if you live in the North of England is a much debated question. It is complicated by the further question (important to those who live in the middle) of whether there is anything between the North and the South. Linguistically, however, there is no great difficulty in distinguishing two main divisions of Anglic as spoken in England. As to be expected, there is an intermediate zone between the two and its runs either side of a line running from the Severn Estuary to The Wash. Just as Scots is not homogeneous so neither is Northern English. However a feature does not have to be found in the whole of the area north of the dividing line for it to be a feature of Northern English. If “bairn” is found in Northumberland but not in Nottinghamshire it is still “Northern English”. Lexicographers cannot reasonably be expected to be ultra specific.


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## berndf

Hulalessar said:


> Old English > English > Scottish English
> 
> Old English > Scots


I'd say the latest common ancestor is Middle and not Old English. All the characteristic shifts from Old to Middle English are reflected in Scots.



Hulalessar said:


> I come from the extreme south of England and many years ago when I first heard Geordie I thought the speaker was Scottish.


Scots is historically part of the Northumbrian dialect continuum.


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## Nino83

berndf said:


> I'd say the latest common ancestor is Middle and not Old English. All the characteristic shifts from Old to Middle English are reflected in Scots.



Scots lacks the stane > stone change, for example


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Scots lacks the stane > stone change, for example


That is dialectal variation within OE and not a ME characteristic. Also, it isn't a systematic shift but only a tendency. You find /a/>/o/ e.g. in ModE _stone _and_ long _but not in _land_ and in _band/bond _even both forms exist with differentiated meaning.


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## Nino83

Thank you for the info, Bernd


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## Copperknickers

Unoverwordinesslogged said:


> 1. why is it always "Northern English" rather than say 'Western English', 'Central English'



Northern English is the variety of English spoken in the Northern half of England. There is no exact border for whether the 'North' begins, but basically everywhere North of Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent can be considered 'Northern' for most purposes. The varieties (note the plural, there are many different varieties) spoken in the North of England have some common differences from other varieties of England: most notably nearly all Northerners pronounce the letter U the same as in other European languages and not in the common American and Southern English way (a short 'oo', rather than 'uh'). There are various other vocabulary and phonetic differences shared by all or most Northern English varieties so it's a useful umbrella term.

The reason for this is a combination of distance and history. Like the West Country, the North has a history of not being under the central control of London to the same extent as the South (at one point it was ruled by Danish Vikings and so has influence from Norse). So the main distinction in English within England is between Northern and Southern English. 'Western English' would be either Welsh English or West Country English, which were formerly Celtic regions which had their own Celtic languages and so it's not useful to use an umbrella term to describe the English varieties there. Central English does exist, in the form of Midlands English (which is intermediary between Northern and Southern).



> 3. what is the difference between Scottish, Scots and Scottish English?



Scottish English is the variety of English taught in Scottish schools. It is a standardised variety of English and so like all other standard varieties of English it derives largely from the English of the area around London. It can be spoken in any accent, but is usually spoken in a variety of 'softened' local Scottish accents. Some people (especially middle class Scots) speak it natively, others (especially working class people) learn it in school and only speak it with strangers and in formal situations. It differs from Standard British English only very slightly.

Scots is a language closely related to English that was historically the majority language of Scotland. Now, it doesn't exist as an independent language outside of literature, and mainly functions as a kind of repository for grammatical constructions and vocabulary that can be used by those who know them as much or as little as wished. So every Scottish person will know a few Scots words and grammatical constructions, but working class people and people from regions such as Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire will know a lot more. This is not to say that Scots has always been a language of working class people only, it actually used to have a high class literary vocabulary that ordinary people wouldn't have known, but this has almost totally disappeared now because anyone who would have known this vocabulary long ago switched exclusively to (Scottish) English.

Scottish Gaelic (formerly called 'Scottis') is a totally separate language that used to be spoken in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It has almost zero intelligibility with Scots or English, although Scots does use some Gaelic-derived words, one or two of which have been taken into Scottish English, for example 'loch'.

It's best if you imagine a continuum:

Full Scots -> Writers only
|
Mixed Scots and English -> many working class and regional people
|
| -> (most Scottish people fall in between in speech, i.e. they use a small amount of Scots, but mostly English)
|
Standard Scottish English -> middle class people in speech, most Scottish people in writing
|
Standard British English -> upper class people


The nature of the Scots vocabulary and grammatical constructions in the repository depends on the region.



> 4. why is the use(?) or roots(?) of words in Scotland never broken down into Highland Scottish and Lowland Scottish or something alikened to "Northern English"?



Like with English, there are numerous varieties of Scots, and if you look in a Scots dictionary they will provide information on the geographic origin of vocabulary.


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## se16teddy

Walshie79 said:


> One word I always think of as characteristic of the northernmost parts of England is "fell" for a mountain (from Old Norse fjall); it's everywhere in Cumbria, Northumberland, Durham and North Yorks but disappears once you cross the border.


But the Campsie Fells are in Scotland (north of Glasgow). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campsie_Fells  I suppose you can argue that they don't count because the area was Celtic-speaking until relatively recently.


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## Scholiast

Greetings


se16teddy said:


> But the Campsie Fells are in Scotland (north of Glasgow)


As is the Lake of Menteith. I'm not sure what this proves - if anything.
Σ


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## se16teddy

It proves that the word_ fell_ does not "disappear once you cross the border" as Walshie suggested it does.


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