Every r is a tap
[ɹr] → ɾComment: Tongue tip flicks the ridge once. Do not let it curl or hold.
Scots never lost r and never turned it into the English approximant. It is the Spanish single r.
| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| red | |||
| very | |||
| car |
Scottish
Rhotic with a tapped r, and almost no vowel length: the long/short pairs of southern English collapse to single vowels, so 'cot' and 'caught', 'pull' and 'pool' are the same. What length there is follows Aitken's law — a vowel is long before r, v, z and ð and at the end of a word, short everywhere else.
Où: Scotland — the standard variety, not Glaswegian dialect
Essayez un mot
Tout ce que le moteur d’orthographe sait transcrire, l’accent sait le déplacer. Ralentissez pour entendre la forme.
Référence
Scottish
Les règles déclenchées
Mélodie et rythme
Falling intonation where England rises — a Scottish question can end on a fall. Syllables are more evenly timed than in the south.
Ce qui bouge, règle par règle
Dans l’ordre où la bouche les applique. Chaque avant/après est écoutable — cliquez sur l’API. Le motif est la règle telle que le moteur l’exécute, pour les curieux.
Consonnes
Voyelles
The long vowels lose their length
ɑː → aScottish English has essentially no phonemic vowel length. The 'bath–trap split' never happened here.
| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| car | |||
| bath | |||
| father |
…and so does THOUGHT
ɔː → ɔ| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| caught | now identical to 'cot' | ||
| law |
FLEECE and GOOSE shorten and GOOSE fronts
iː → i| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| see | |||
| tea |
GOOSE is fronted and central
uː → ɵComment: Start from 'oo', then pull the tongue forward while keeping the lips rounded — halfway to French u.
The most Scottish vowel. 'Book' and 'boot', 'pull' and 'pool' are one sound, and it sits in the middle of the mouth rather than the back.
| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| boot | |||
| food |
GOAT and FACE are pure vowels, not diphthongs
əʊ → oːComment: Hold one vowel. The mouth does not move during it.
Scots kept the monophthongs that England turned into glides in the 1600s.
| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| go | |||
| home |
FACE is a pure vowel too
eɪ → eː| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| face | |||
| day |
MOUTH starts from a central vowel
aʊ → ʌuComment: Begin from the vowel of 'cut', then glide to 'oo'.
Which is why 'about' comes out as something an English ear hears as 'aboot' — it is not, but the start of the diphthong is higher.
| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| house | |||
| now |
PRICE starts higher too
aɪ → ʌi| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| my | |||
| time |
NURSE keeps a real vowel before the r
ɜː → ʌMany Scots keep 'fir', 'fur' and 'fern' as three different vowels. This rule gives the commonest of the three.
| Mot | Référence | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| bird | |||
| word |
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