Phonological History of Scots - Consonants

Consonants

Instance of /b/ between /m/ and /l/ were lost or did not develop:

OE æmerge → Modern Scots emmers and English embers

OE þýmel → Modern Scots thimmle and English thimble

OE timber → Modern Scots timmer and English timber

Certain clusters were reduced:

A word-final /kt/ reduced to /k/ except in some inflected forms (e.g. Modern Scots act, expect, strict).

/pt/ reduced to /p/ in final position (e.g. Modern Scots attempt, corrupt). Note that the English words like empty that come from OE words that did not have a /pt/ cluster also don’t have clusters in Scots (in this case, OE æmetig became Scots empy).

/nd/ often reduced to /n/ (e.g. OE fréond, 'friend', became Modern Scots freend).

Final /ld/ often reduced to /l/ (e.g. Modern Scots auld 'old').

OE /kn/ and /ɡn/ clusters appeared word-initially, though this feature is now highly recessive (e.g. knaw, 'know'; gnegum, 'tricky nature').

While OE /sk/ became /ʃ/ in Modern English, Scots has retained the original pronunciation (e.g. OE scylfe, 'shelf', became skelf). Old English /s/ became /ʃ/ when adjacent to a front vowel (e.g. shinners from OE sinder, 'cinder').

OE /f/ was often dropped in certain contexts:

OE delfan → Modern Scots del and English delve

OE déoful → Modern Scots dou and English dove

OE gefan → Modern Scots gie and English give)

In contexts where OE /k/ and /ɡ/ palatalized to /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, respectively, in Modern English (that is, after a front vowel), Scots has retained the original velar pronunciation:

OE birce → Scots birk and English birch

OE bréc → Scots breeks and English britches

OE þæc → Scots thack and English thatch

OE giccan → Scots yeuk and English itch

OE hrycg → Scots rigg and English ridge

Word final OE /θ/ (represented by ⟨ð þ⟩) was deleted in a few words (e.g. OE múð, 'mouth', became mou in Scots).

OE /x/ was lost in English, but remained so in Scots:

OE beorht → Modern Scots bricht and English bright

OE hlóh → Modern Scots lauch and English laugh

OE þóht → Modern Scots thocht and English thought

However, some words such as tho (though) and throu ('through') have dropped the /x/.

Old English /hw/ became /xw/ for a number of speakers, though /hw/ is widespread (e.g. OE hwæt, 'what', became whit).

Metathesis occurred in some words (e.g. OE græs, 'grass', became girse).

OE /ɡ/ became vocalised after /o/ resulting in the diphthong /ʌu/ in Modern Scots (e.g. boga, 'bow', became bowe).

Similarly, in the Early Scots period, /l/ was vocalized after:

/u/ (e.g. pullian, 'pull', became Modern Scots pou).

/o/ (e.g. bolster, 'bolster', became Modern Scots bowster), becoming /ou/ and then changing to /ʌu/ in Modern Scots.

/a/ (e.g. healdan, 'hold', became Modern Scots haud); becoming /ɑː/ and then changing to /ɑ/ or /ɔ/, depending on dialect.