EDINBURGH

EDINBURGH The capital of Scotland where local educated speech is more influenced by the norms of south-east England than elsewhere in Scotland. However, as part of the continuum of ScoE and SCOTS, vernacular speech is strong in working-class areas such as Leith and Gorgie and in the city's peripheral housing estates, showing variations due to dialect-mixing and nearby dialect boundaries.

Pronunciation

(1) Working-class Edinburgh speech shares features with GLASGOW and other Central Scots dialects: for example, only the /o/ vowel in such pairs as cloak/clock and road/rod; /eː/ in dae do, pair poor; /I/ in buit boot, guid good; /e/ in breath, death, meal; /i/ in dead, deaf, swear; initial /j/ in yae (adjective) one, yin (noun) one, yins (rhymes with rinse) once, yaise (verb) use, yis (noun) use. There are also the stigmatized glottalization of medial and final /t/ and the epenthetic vowels in ‘girrul’ for girl and ‘fillum’ for film. (2) Although most people have a falling final intonation for statements, some working-class speakers have a Glasgow-like fall followed by a low rise. (3) The combination wa is /wɔ/ not /wa/ as in Glasgow: want, warm, wash, water. (4) The following both occur: awaw and away away, twaw and tway two, whaur and whair where (but only whae, whase who, whose). (5) Make, take also appear as mak, tak. (6) Where Glasgow has an unstressed word-final /ʌ/ as in barra barrow, Edinburgh has /e/, as in barrie barrow, elbie elbow, fellie fellow, Glesgie/Gleskie Glasgow, lumbagie lumbago, awfie awful, carefie careful, moothfie mouthful, yisfie useful. (7) The voiceless velar fricative /x/ may survive more strongly in Edinburgh than Glasgow, as in richt right, strecht/strocht straight. (8) Some speakers have ‘terminal stress’, whereby a normally unstressed final syllable is fully stressed, as in Thát's áw-fíe, véry clé-vér, He had a sáir áir-rúm He had a sore/painful arm.

Grammar

(1) Some features said to originate in Glasgow also occur in Edinburgh, such as youse/yese (plural) you, and youse-yins (formerly you-yins: ‘you ones’) you people. (2) The interrogative tags eh? and Eh no? are common, as in Ye'll be wantin yer tea, eh?, Ye'll be wantin some tea, eh-no? (3) The common pause-filler is ken (y'know), as in Well, ken, ye dinny pay, ken, for ti just watch, ken Well, y'know, you don't pay, y'know, just to watch, y'know. (4) The apologetic or depreciatory tag like is widely used, as in Ah thocht ah heard ye greetin, like I thought I maybe heard you crying, Am ah gettin an invite, like? Am I getting an invitation maybe?

Vocabulary

Local usages include bairn a child (where Glasgow has wean), bunce to share, clipshear an earwig, dobbie/doobie an idiot, doddle a lump of toffee, guttie a catapult/slingshot, henner a gymnastic feat, hillan a mound, hillock, kip a pointed hill, lummie a lum or chimney on fire, mar oot to score out, poor-oot a scattering of coins at a wedding, swee a swing.

Literary dialect

Much of Scotland's vernacular literature is by Edinburgh authors, mostly in literary Scots or in Lallans, but unlike Glasgow or Aberdeen, Edinburgh does not have a strong tradition of localized dialect writing. Among the sparse localized writings since the late 19c are pieces by the short-story writer Fred Urquhart (b. 1912) and the poet and critic Alan Bold (b. 1943), and the mixture of LALLANS and everyday Edinburgh Scots in the poetry of Robert Garioch (1909–81). An example from Bold under the pseudonym Jake Flower is:
Ah havnae missed a day's work nigh on thirty year and ah've shifted some drink no danger. Ken? D'ye ken Bertie's Bar? D'ye no? Ye must ken Bertie's Bar, everybody kens Bertie's Bar. Ye cannae come fae Edinburgh if ye dinnae ken Bertie's Bar (‘Monologue’, in Scotia Review 5, 1973).

See, GUTTER SCOTS, MORNINGSIDE AND KELVINSIDE, SCOTTISH ENGLISH.