Text: Pronunciation in Lowland Scots Song

Pronunciation
in Lowland
Scots Song

By
Marjory
Kennedy-Fraser

It is more or less commonly taken for granted that singers who dwell in Lowland Scotland know how to sing Lowland Scots. This does not follow. English singers who have been trained exclusively in Italy say, often do not know how to sing English! But further, the young Scots singer of to-day has had no opportunity of hearing the sounds of the Classic Scots of our finest national lyrics.

The vowels and consonants of Classic Scots can be easily taught to singers acquainted with Italian, French, and German, the Scots pronunciation having more in common with these tongues than with English. The Italian "a," the French "u," and the German "ch," for instance, are all very much in evidence in Scots, and the trilled "r" is not, as in English, almost a negligible quantity.

And for examples of this Classic Scots we need not go further than to the lyrics of Burns, who may be said to have set for us a permanent standard among the shifting sands of our varying dialects much as Dante's work raised his native Tuscan to the rank of Classic Italian from among the varying Italian dialects which still locally persist as Milanese, Venetian, etc.

As a first lesson we shall run carefully through one song, and then try to give some general rules with lists of words which commonly occur, grouping them more or less according to these rules.

I may say that in this matter I speak from a direct oral tradition extending back to the eighteenth century to my great-grandmother, Mary More, who was a noted singer of the traditional songs in her time. (On the Kennedy side we were entirely Gaelic-speaking Perthshire Highlanders.) From her Lowland mother, Mary More, my grand-aunt, Isabella Kennedy, learnt the tradition, and she in turn passed it on to my father, who carried it round and round the world. And as, from my twelfth year with intervals of years for study, I was his accompanist, and sat at his feet as his disciple nearly every night of every week of every year for many years, I could not escape the tradition. And from this, graven on my brain as on a gramophone disc, I am now attempting to deduce some rules of pronunciation and to formulate a table that may be helpful to our future singers and may save them alike from hesitancy and from error.

Let us take, then, as an example on which to base certain generalizations, the beautiful old lyric, with hypnotic refrain, and verses added to by Burns:—

Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them where the heather grows,
Ca' them where the burnie rows,
My bonnie dearie.

The words we shall deal with in the refrain will be (1) Ca', (2) yowes, (3) to, (4) knowes and rows, (5) where, (6) heather, (7) grows, (8) my, (9) bonnie.

In the word (1) Ca' = call, we have an instance of the Scots manner (akin to the French) of dealing with "l" by simply dropping it. In the Scots words:—

we have numerous instances. In the cases of ol the sound becomes the ow of the English word now. In cases of the rich a in words with double l, the rich vowel sound remains, the ll simply drops out.

The next word (2) yowes is apt to give rise to controversy. It is spelt sometimes ewe sometimes yowe. But the spelling makes no difference. The assonances in the context are our guide. And thus it is sometimes pronounced like the English yew, sometimes, as here, to rhyme with the word knowe, which is sounded like the English now.[1]

"Will ye gang to the ewe-buchts, Marion," another beautiful old song, furnishes a case in point, the yew sound being there the more appropriate in its relation to the surrounding vowel colours. Also, some say, it was thus traditionally sung.

We would call attention to an important distinction between the convention of vowel spacing in singing ow or ou in English and in Lowland Scots. Whereas, in singing the English diphthong the principal vowel is prolonged as much as possible, the vanish vowel appearing only at the very end of the syllable thus:— AAAAAoo; in singing the same diphthong in Scots we allow a little more time to the second vowel, thus:— AAAAooo.[2]

The next word calling for remark is (3) to. This should be pronounced somewhat like the French tu, or as a prolonged i in English tip, never as tae. The latter is not appropriate in the beautiful singing Scots we are aiming at standardizing. And singers, in guarding against this, will find themselves rewarded in that giving attention to delicate discrimination of vowel sounds will tend to sharpen their ear-sense all round and will be found an invaluable means of ear-education.

We have already dealt with (4) knowes and rows as rhyming with yowes, and as belonging to a large class of words taking this sound from the elision of an l or ll.

The next word (5) where, although spelt generally as in English was always sung in this song by my father as whaar,[3] the a not being quite so dark as might be indicated by the spelling whaur. It will be found, I think, that with the vowel sounds that precede and follow it in these lovely lines "Ca' the yowes to the knowes, Ca' them where the heather grows," the rich ah sound in whaar gives a more satisfactory sound-colour scheme than would the thinner sound of the English where. In the one case we almost echo the rich sound of a in "Ca'" and in the other we stress the coming vowel sound in "heather" by anticipating it.

Another example of this balance of vowel colour will be found in Hector Macneill's "Whaar hae ye been a' the day, my boy[4] Tammie?" The "whaar" and the "a'" here answer or balance one another as do also the "hae" and "day," the ee vowel of "ye been" giving zest to these again by its shrill contrast.

But let us return to the song we are considering. The word (6) heather belongs to a class of two-syllabled words that in old Scots song generally conform to a given rhythmical pattern. Needless to say that in strophic song the melody, repeated for each verse, undergoes certain modifications, adaptations to the slightly varying rhythms of the fresh lines. One very important matter in such adaptations is the choice of the characteristic Scots short-long – — or long-short — –. Such words as heather in this song and tassels in the line "But I dinna see the broom wi' its tassels on the lea" in "Why left I my hame," take the short-long – —, a trick that gives a parlante (natural-speaking) effect to the diction while not throwing out the swing and balance of the rhythm, since the second syllable, without unduly calling attention to itself, can quite easily fill in the longer but unaccented space until the following syllable and its note are due.

In dealing with this frequently interchangeable short-long and long-short rhythm in Scots song, a good deal of experience and judgment is called for, as our published versions give as a rule only one verse with the melody, and even that not carefully fitted to the words.

For the sake of helping the student in this matter let us leave for a moment "Ca' the yowes" and look at Burns' "My Tocher's the jewel," which is bristling with this rhythmic mannerism. The words:—

mickle	apple	laddie	cunnin'
little	nourish	siller	timmer
tocher	hinney	canna'	rotten
jewel	cherish	proffer	credit

all take the short-long – —. Whilst other words such as:— brawlie, bargain, crafty, knotless, take the long-short — –. This song, by the way, like "Ca' the yowes," was one of the already existing old songs that Burns touched up. Burns, with the true insight and economy of genius, used up the fragmentary traditional stuff that lay around him and, setting it in order and sifting it, fused it into a concentrated artistic whole. We must realize therefore that Scottish song, while to a large extent traditional, has nevertheless been constantly undergoing this process of being worked over by song-makers alike on the literary and on the musical side. Burns took over much that was strong and beautiful and (as Kenneth Macleod is doing in Hebridean Song to-day) wrought it up afresh. Edmund Gosse indeed went so far as to assert that not one line of "My love is like a red, red rose" was original on Burns' part, but that with his genius he selected and put together, as a convincing beautiful whole, fragmentary floating lines of old Scots tradition. This being so, we may expect in our classics to find lines that belong to different epochs, and we must accordingly adapt our pronunciation to the best ear-effect to be got out of the present versions. Burns himself sometimes wrote in Scots,[5] sometimes in English, and we must judge of the required pronunciation accordingly. "Scots wha hae," for instance, is written entirely in English with the exception of the words wha, hae, wham, aften, die (dee). Apropos of the way to sing now, hour, power in this song, let us turn again to "Ca' the yowes" and deal with the word (7) grows. This, as is evident from the rhymes, is to sound like English grouse (but with the z-like s). It belongs to a class of words that change the sound o into ow as:— four = fower, o'er = ower, etc.

Now there are words that fall into another classification and change ow as in now into oo, as for instance:—

And these, as a rule, are to be thus sounded even if spelt in the song after the English fashion.

But in "Scots wha hae," which, as aforesaid, is nearly all English and is in a grandiose mood, we should not Scotisize the "Now's the day and now's the hour. See approach proud Edward's power" into "Noo's the day and noo's the oor," etc. The caressing oo sounds would be here inappropriate.[7] This caressing oo sound is one much used alike in Gaelic and in Lowland song, especially in near contrast with the more passionate ee. But the use of this sound-colour scheme is not peculiar to Scots song. We have a beautiful instance of it in Heine's "Du bist wie eine Blume." What we want to emphasize here in that while oo is not appropriate to the martial ardour of Bruce's Address to the Scots at Bannockburn, in the tender "John Anderson my Jo," on the other hand, it plays an important part. "Your bonnie brow" would be broo, and "Now we maun toddle down, John" would give us noo for now and doon for down.

While on this point, we might digress to the two versions (modern attempts to reconstruct an old one lost) of "The Flowers o' the Forest." In Jean Elliot's, which is frankly Scots all through, I would advocate the pronunciation flooers, but in Mrs. Cockburn's, which is largely English, the singer might use either flooers or flowers, as might best please himself. Also in Mrs. Cockburn's version I would sing the final g in blooming, perfuming, etc., whilst in Jean Elliot's I would cut off the g and sing moanin', liltin', gloamin', milkin.'

And coming back now to "Ca' the yowes" we would drop the g in evenin', fauldin', soundin', in the verses, and the latter word should be assonant with Cluden. In the last verse, stown = stolen, is assonant with Thou — "Thou hast stown my very heart." The Scots pronunciation of that last word hert (not hart) would seem to be related to the Saxon herz, as would also the old Scots hairst = harvest to the Saxon herbst. The word part, used here to rhyme with hert, takes somewhat of the same vowel colour (as would also yērd = yard, ērt = art, Mērtmas = Martinmas, mērrit = married, etc.). The closing lines:—

"I can dee, but canna part
Frae my bonnie dearie."

yield us dee, my, and bonnie. Die is invariably sung dee; my must never be given the lazy colloquial sound of ma; bonnie is classed as a rule with the short-long rhythm. But, in cases like the "Birks o' Aberfeldy," where the strong melodic rhythm of the air overrules this generalization, we sing Bon-nie lassie, etc.

Without reference to any particular song, we now add a few further generalizations. Words even if spelt in the text with gh have a ch sound:—

† The ch as in Gaelic och or German ich.
* With the vowel sound like that in lick, nick, sick, friction, brick.

In some words, as tough, enough, a soft y is introduced before the vowel, thus:— tyuch, enyuch. The like happens in the word duck, which is pronounced like the English word duke.

The consonants ng in anger, langer, must, as a rule, be given as in the English word singer, not as in finger.

Past participles sounded as two syllables thus:—

‡ See "Last May a braw wooer."

And other words of one syllable sounded as two:—

This in conformity with the Gaelic pronunciation which vocalizes between two consonants thus:— falav = falbh.

Words in English with close ó sound given with aw or ò:—

The same with a clearer ah (the Italian a):—

The same with oo:—

The same with ae:—

* "Sae true his heart, / Sae smooth his speech." (See "There's nae luck aboot the hoose.")

Above we have given nae as the pronunciation of no. But there is more than one no. Nae as in "There's nae luck aboot the hoose" is our equivalent for not any; the negative, a refusal, as when Mistress Jean refuses the Laird o' Cockpen's offer of marriage, is Na. And again, the Scots equivalent of the English not is no, as in "Will ye no come back again," and "This is no my ain hoose." Aye for yes is pronounced like I, 1st person singular. Ay, for ever, is ae.

Aye, for always, continually, has no easily understood equivalent, it does not dwell so long on the first, main vowel, and this is not so pure as in ay = yes.

The equivalent of one is ae, and ane. See "Ae fond kiss." The equivalent of once = aince.

And these must never in poetry be pronounced with the colloquial yae, yin, yince sounds, but always ae, ain, aince. Again ain = own, and ane = one, are almost alike in sound except that in ain the vowel sound is prolonged and in ane the consonant enters a little sooner and is proportionately prolonged.

While discussing numbers, twa = two sounds both the t and the w.

Words occurring frequently with ee sound are:—

"Ye lee, ye lee, sae lood's ye lee"—old ballad.

Common verbs are:—

ha'e = have, pronounced hay;
ha'en = had, pronounced hain;
ta'en = taken, pronounced tain;
mak = make, pronounced mahk;
shak = shake, pronounced shahk;
tak = take, pronounced tahk;
cam = came, pronounced kahm.

Whereas in English who, whom, whose, have only the h sound, whilst where, why, when, what, have all the wh sound; in Scots they all alike have conserved the wh, thus :— wha, wham, whawse.

Much of the Lowland Scots poetry is of the gently amorous kind, and the words lo'e and lo'es meet the singer at every turn. Lo'es = loves is pronounced exactly like the English verb to lose. The word glove, however, which rhymes with the English verb to love, is always pronounced in the old ballads as in English. Also love, as a noun, as "my true love, my lover," as in English. The woeful cry of "Waly, waly up the bank," my father always pronounced like wall-y, and the a in wakin' "Ay wakin' o'" was similarly treated.[8]

We have said that the Scots, like the French, drop the consonant l. The Scots, like the Italians, sometimes clear out a complexity of consonants and just double the easiest, as the Italians in aspetto = aspect, etc., and the Scots in

The Scots have many French affinities, and, indeed, they have incorporated many French words into their dialect as braw, from brave; douce, from doux; bien (pronounced been), from bien; etc. And there is a strong French influence in our local pronunciation of u and oo, thus:—

mune = moon
gude = good
fule = fool; but fu' = full and pu' = pull (with double l) keep the original, the Italian u.
sune = soon
shune = shoon = shoes
abune = aboon = above

There is also a tendency to give:—

* See "Johnie Cope."

Dare is pronounced dahr; but care always as in English; blind as blin', rhyming with din; but mind, kind, as in English; brother and mother as brither, mither; father as fayther; Jamie as Jimmie; Marion as Mayron.

Lass with a French a; lad with the richer Italian a.

In conclusion, make a minute study of consonant formation and function and cultivate a keen sense of vowel colour and significance, and lastly make of it a life-long study and joy.

[1] But vow always as in English — "She vowed she swore she wad be mine" — Roy's wife o' Aldivalloch.

[2] An analogous case will be found in the difference that exists between the proportion of time allowed to the o in io in Italian and in Gaelic. In Italian the second vowel (as in the pronouns io and mio) is distinctly heard, whilst in Gaelic the o of io (in piob for instance) can only be detected by the expert ear, so short is it. Please note this, those who sing Caristīona. The vowel i here usurps the time of the whole syllable, the following o being merely an introductory hanger-on to the coming n.

[3] i.e., like Italian a, not like Italian ò.

[4] Note that boy here is sung as two syllables bo'-ee.

[5] See his "Afton Water," containing only one English word pronounced in Scots fashion — among = amang.

[6] But never poond = pound, instead (if Scotisized), it becomes pund.

[7] The same holds good in Walter Scott's martial songs, such as "March, March, Ettrick and Teviotdale," where we should certainly not soften the ou in sounding and bounding, but give them their full English resonance, whilst in the old ballad, "The Bonnie Earl o' Moray," on the other hand, the beautiful "comes soondin (sounding) thro' the toon" owes its effect mainly to the onomatopæic hypnotic repetitions of oon and oo. In "March, March" note also that the word fight here must not be Scotisized into fecht, and this not entirely because it is a martial song, but because it is consistently originally conceived in English not in Scots. Other such songs are "Bonnie Dundee," "Pibroch o' Donuil Dubh," and "Kenmure's on and awa.'" As an instance of martial song conceived and to be sung in Scots we have the Jacobite "Wha wadna fecht for Charlie." Burns also has a number of beautiful love songs conceived in English, notably "Afton Water," "Ae fond kiss," "My Nannie's awa'," "Ye Banks and Braes," "My heart is sair," "My love is like a red, red rose," and this, in spite of the fact that Scots words appear in the titles. In the songs, however, he uses only a few classic Scots words as ilka, gang, fause, sae, for their beauty of sound.

[8] N.B.— In the Hebridean song, "The Island Herdmaid," the word waken must have the English pronunciation.