GLASGOW

GLASGOW The largest city in Scotland and third largest in the UK. Like that of other Scottish regions, Glasgow speech is a continuum from the local accent of SCOTTISH ENGLISH to the working-class VERNACULAR. In origin a dialect of West Central SCOTS, the Glasgow vernacular has been modified by the mixing of population since the early 19c, resulting in particular in the introduction of several features from Ireland. Like other urban Scots dialects, it has suffered some erosion of traditional vocabulary. Partly as a result of this, working-class speech, known variously as Glasgow English, Glasgow Scots, Glaswegian, Glesca, Glasgow, Gutter Glasgow, has since the 19c been the archetypal stigmatized Scots speech, commonly described as ‘debased’, ‘hopelessly corrupt’, or ‘the language of the gutter’. In addition to the more or less localized features below, Glaswegian shares stigmatized features of working-class Scots generally, such as glottal-stop realizations of non-initial voiceless stops, use of past participles of verbs for past tenses and conversely, and multiple NEGATION: see GUTTER SCOTS. For features shared with other Central Scots dialects, see EDINBURGH.

Pronunciation

The first three items are well-known SHIBBOLETHS. (1) Some speakers merge /er/ air with /ɛr/ err, as in Merry Mary, ferr fair. (2) Some speakers realize voiced th as /r/, as in ra for the (ra polis the police, ramorra tomorrow), brurra brother, murra mother. (3) In such words as want, water, wash the vowel is /a/, so that patter and water rhyme. (4) The words away, two, who, whose, where have an ‘aw’ sound: awaw, twaw, whaw, whause, whaur. (5) The /u/ of blue, room has a front, lowered realization, sometimes unrounded. (6) Unstressed final /ʌ/ appears in such words as barra barrow, fella fellow, Glesca Glasgow, morra morrow, awfa awful, yisfa useful.(7) As in Edinburgh, the enclitic negative is -nae, -ny, as in cannae can't, dinnae don't, whereas other dialects have -na. (8) /d/ is lost after /I/ and /n/: caul cold, staun stand, roon round, grun ground, win wind. (9) The form wan one, and the adding of a /t/ to once and twice may be from Ireland. (10) Except in shibboleths like It's a braw bricht munelicht nicht traditional Scots forms in /x/ are rare, although the usual ScoE velar fricative prevails in such words as clarsach, loch, pibroch.(11) Intonation is characterized by a predominant pattern of a markedly lowered pitch on the final prominence of the tone group, followed by a low rise, and in this position the final stressed vowel may be prolonged:ahm thaht depehhhhndint
hingoanti ma vowwwwulz
hingoanti ma maaaammi
( Tom Leonard , ‘Tea Time’, Intimate Voices, Newcastle: Galloping Dog Press, 1984)

Grammar

Well-known Glaswegianisms, some of which are spreading or have spread to Edinburgh, are: (1) See as a topic-defining word, as in See me, see ma man, see kippers, we hate them. (2) Of ULSTER origin, plural-marked forms of the second-person plural pronoun: youse, yese, yiz you, also youse-yins you ones. (3) A stressed form Ah'm ur I am, Ah'm ur gaun I am going, Naw, Ah'm urnae No, I am not. (4) Certain reinforcing sentence tags: Ye're drunk, so ye ur; Ah'm right fed up, so Ah am/so Ah'm ur; Ah felt terrible, so Ah did; Ah didnae touch nuthin, neither Ah did. (5) Other tags: annat, as in Aw thae (all those) punters wi the wings an haloes annat (and that); terminal but, as in Ah dinnae waant it but.

Vocabulary

(1) Localisms include: traditional dunny a basement, ginger a soft drink of any kind, sherrickin a public dressing down, stank a grating over a drain, wallie close the tiled entrance hall of a better-class tenement; more recent slang usages bam, bampot, bamstick idiot, boggin,bowfin smelly, heidbanger/heidcase a lunatic, malky a weapon. (2) Glasgow Scots is also receptive to slang expressions of wider currency like chib a weapon, nooky sexual intercourse, stocious drunk.

Written dialect

From the 1960s writings in and about Glaswegian have included, as well as caricature by stage comics and by authors of joke and cartoon collections, much poetry, drama, and prose fiction that treats the variety seriously and with concern or indignation at its status. Part of this writing, in poetry or prose, consists of representations of local speech, some of this in an ostentatiously untraditional ‘phonetic’ and quasi-illiterate orthography, intended to emphasize the demotic character of the speech. An exaggerated variant of this orthography has been favoured by or for the comedians Stanley Baxter and Billy Connolly. Both variants sometimes run words together to achieve an exotic or comically grotesque effect. In Scottish writing, this style, which apparently originated c.1960, is all but unique to Glasgow:
Another interesting word heard in the discotheque is jiwanni. To a young lady a gentleman will make the request—Jiwanni dance? Should she find that he is over-anxious to ply her with refreshments she will regard him with suspicion and inquire —Jiwanniget mebevvid? (

Stanley Baxter

, Parliamo Glasgow, 1982).[Jiwanni Do you want to get, mebevvid me bevvied (me drunk: from bevvy, a clipping of beverage)]ach sun
jiss keepyir chin up
dizny day gonabootlika hawf shut knife
inaw jiss cozzy a burd.
( Tom Leonard , from ‘The Miracle of the Burd and the Fishes’, Poems, 1973,Dublin: O'Brien)

[Ah, son. / Just keep your chin up. / Doesn't do going aboot like a half-shut knife. / And all just because of a bird (girl)]

See DIALECT IN SCOTLAND, MORNINGSIDE AND KELVINSIDE.