Apologetic apostrophe
Encyclopedia
The apologetic or parochial apostrophe is the distinctive use of apostrophe
s in Modern Scots
orthography
. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant
exists in the Standard English
cognate
, as in a' (all), gi'e (give) and wi' (with).
The practice, unknown in Older Scots
, was introduced in the 18th century by writers such as Allan Ramsay
, Robert Fergusson
and Robert Burns
as part of a process of Anglicisation
. It produced an easily understood spurious Scots that was very popular with English readers and on the English stage. It was also sometimes forced on reluctant authors by publishers desirous of a wider circulation for their books. The custom unfortunately gave the effect of Scots being a divergent or inferior form of English
rather than a separate language system. The 18th century practice was also adopted by later writers such as Sir Walter Scott, John Galt and Robert Louis Stevenson
.
The use of the apologetic apostrophe became less widespread after the appearance of the 'Style Sheet' in 1947 and is now considered unacceptable. Though the feature is now increasingly absent from Scots literature, it remains common in informal writing, and in transcription of Scots by English-speakers.
had undergone a process of L-vocalisation, where /l/ was preceded by the vowel
s /a/ and /u̞/ in closed syllable
s, which was completed by the end of the 14th century. The cluster /al/ vocalised to /aː/ and /u̞l/ to /uː/ hence spellings such as a’ (all), ba’ (ball), ca’ (call), sa’t (salt) and ha’d (hold), and fu’ and pu’ with the doublets
full [fʌl] and pull [pʌl]. The standard literary apostrophe-less spellings for /aː/ (also /ɑː, ɔː/) were and with generally occurring word initially or medially, and occurring word final. Thus aw (all), baw (ball), caw (call), saut (salt) and haud (hold). The standard literary spelling of /uː/ was , generally preferred in the Scottish national Dictionary, although the use of , borrowed from Standard English, became popular by the 19th century. Thus fou and pou but the form fu functioning as the cognate of the suffix 'ful'. L also vocalised after /o̞/ in closed syllables resulting in a diphthong
which became /ʌu/ in Modern Scots, for example knowe (knoll), fowk (folk), gowf (golf) and gowd (gold).
al endings and , cognate with Standard English , changed to /n/ in Early Scots. The modern realisations generally being /ɪn/ and /ən/ hence the spelling in’.
had been reduced
to /m/ in Early Scots hence spelling such as num’er (number), cham’er (chamber) and tim’er (timber), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being nummer, chaumer and timmer.
The cluster is reduced to /n/ in some Scots dialects hence spellings such as caun’le (candle), haun’ (hand) and staun’ (stand) though the is generally written in the literary standard, thus caundle, haund and staund.
The cluster is also reduced to /l/ in some Scots dialects, hence spellings such as aul’ (old), caul’ (cold) and faul’ (fold) though the is generally written in the literary standard, thus auld, cauld and fauld.
period /f/ and /v/ deletion had occurred intervocalically and between a nasal/liquid consonant and a vowel. Hence spellings such as de’il (devil), gi’e (give), ha’e (have), lo’e (love), o’ (of), o’er (over) and sil’er (silver), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being deil, gie, hae, lue, o, ower and siller.
By the Middle Scots period word final /θ/ had been lost in a number of words. Hence spellings such as fro’ (froth), quo’ (quoth), wi’ (with) and mou’, the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being fro, quo, wi and mou, the latter having the doublet mooth.
form. In contracted forms, an apostrophe is generally used in place of the elided
graphemes, for example, e’en and even, e’er and iver (ever), eneu’ and eneuch (enough), lea’ and leave, ne’er and niver (never), ne’er’s day and new year's day, nor’land and northland.
In the construction of the past tense
or past participle
, Scots often appends the apostrophe to verbs ending with "ee" to prevent three "e"s from occurring in a single word:
dee (die) > dee’d, gree (agree) > gree’d etc.
And, as in English, Scots uses the apostrophe to indicate contractions of multiple words, for example, A’m (I'm), wi’t (with it), ye’re (you're), o’t (of it).
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
s in Modern Scots
Modern Scots
Modern Scots describes the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster from 1700.Throughout its history, Modern Scots has been undergoing a process of language attrition, whereby successive generations of speakers have adopted more and more features from...
orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
exists in the Standard English
Standard English
Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...
cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
, as in a
The practice, unknown in Older Scots
Older Scots
Older Scots refers to the following periods in the History of the Scots language* Pre-literary Scots to 1375* Early Scots to 1450* Middle Scots to 1700...
, was introduced in the 18th century by writers such as Allan Ramsay
Allan Ramsay (poet)
Allan Ramsay was a Scottish poet , playwright, publisher, librarian and wig-maker.-Life and career:...
, Robert Fergusson
Robert Fergusson
Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson followed an essentially bohemian life course in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish enlightenment...
and Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
as part of a process of Anglicisation
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
. It produced an easily understood spurious Scots that was very popular with English readers and on the English stage. It was also sometimes forced on reluctant authors by publishers desirous of a wider circulation for their books. The custom unfortunately gave the effect of Scots being a divergent or inferior form of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
rather than a separate language system. The 18th century practice was also adopted by later writers such as Sir Walter Scott, John Galt and Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
.
The use of the apologetic apostrophe became less widespread after the appearance of the 'Style Sheet' in 1947 and is now considered unacceptable. Though the feature is now increasingly absent from Scots literature, it remains common in informal writing, and in transcription of Scots by English-speakers.
L-vocalisation
Early ScotsEarly Scots
Early Scots describes the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English...
had undergone a process of L-vocalisation, where /l/ was preceded by the vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s /a/ and /u̞/ in closed syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s, which was completed by the end of the 14th century. The cluster /al/ vocalised to /aː/ and /u̞l/ to /uː/ hence spellings such as a’ (all), ba’ (ball), ca’ (call), sa’t (salt) and ha’d (hold), and fu’ and pu’ with the doublets
Doublet (linguistics)
In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the variants have entered the language through different routes...
full [fʌl] and pull [pʌl]. The standard literary apostrophe-less spellings for /aː/ (also /ɑː, ɔː/) were
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
which became /ʌu/ in Modern Scots, for example knowe (knoll), fowk (folk), gowf (golf) and gowd (gold).
Inflectional endings
The consonant clusters in the inflectionInflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al endings
Consonant clusters
The clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
Cluster reduction
In phonology and historical linguistics, cluster reduction is the simplification of consonant clusters in certain environments or over time.In some dialects of English such as AAVE certain historical consonant clusters reduce to single consonants at the ends of words: friend rhymes with Ben, and...
to /m/ in Early Scots hence spelling such as num’er (number), cham’er (chamber) and tim’er (timber), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being nummer, chaumer and timmer.
The cluster
The cluster
Loss of consonants
By the Middle ScotsMiddle Scots
Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 13th century its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English...
period /f/ and /v/ deletion had occurred intervocalically and between a nasal/liquid consonant and a vowel. Hence spellings such as de’il (devil), gi’e (give), ha’e (have), lo’e (love), o’ (of), o’er (over) and sil’er (silver), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being deil, gie, hae, lue, o, ower and siller.
By the Middle Scots period word final /θ/ had been lost in a number of words. Hence spellings such as fro’ (froth), quo’ (quoth), wi’ (with) and mou’, the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being fro, quo, wi and mou, the latter having the doublet mooth.
Change of vowel
In some Scots words the realisation differs from that of the Standard English cognate. Hence spellings such as bak’ (bake), mak’ (make) and tak’ (take), the standard literary apostrophe-less spellings being bak, mak and tak.Legitimate use of the apostrophe in Scots
Many words in Scots have both a full form and a contractedContraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
form. In contracted forms, an apostrophe is generally used in place of the elided
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
graphemes, for example, e’en and even, e’er and iver (ever), eneu’ and eneuch (enough), lea’ and leave, ne’er and niver (never), ne’er’s day and new year's day, nor’land and northland.
In the construction of the past tense
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
or past participle
Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
, Scots often appends the apostrophe to verbs ending with "ee" to prevent three "e"s from occurring in a single word:
dee (die) > dee’d, gree (agree) > gree’d etc.
And, as in English, Scots uses the apostrophe to indicate contractions of multiple words, for example, A’m (I'm), wi’t (with it), ye’re (you're), o’t (of it).