The Relationship between Vowel and Consonant Duration in Orkney and Shetland Dialects

Abstract

Abstract In Shetland dialect, the northernmost branch of Lowland Scots, stressed monosyllables, when closed by a consonant, generally contain either a durationally short vowel followed by a durationally long consonant, or a long vowel followed by a short consonant. This feature, first described in the 1950s, can most likely be ascribed to the Scandinavian substratum of the dialect. Although several experimental investigations into the duration of Scottish vowels have been carried out recently, most of them in the light of the Scottish vowel length rule, none of them so far have looked at Shetland dialect or the relationship between the duration of the vowel and the final consonant. In the present study we will examine vowel and final consonant duration in monosyllabic words in both Shetland and Orkney dialects, as well as in Standard Scottish English and Standard Norwegian, in order to establish whether in Shetland dialect, durationally short consonants follow durationally long vowels and vice versa and if so, if this is indeed a feature peculiar to Shetland.