Conservation and innovation in a traditional dialect

Johnston (1997) suggests that, if defined in terms of phonology, Scots as a traditional dialect in Britain has a “rosy future”. Glaswegian is known to continue Scots L‑vocalization in words such as ball and all. L‑vocalization of a different type, similar to that found in Cockney, is one feature which has been observed to be diffusing rapidly across accents of English. This paper considers the evidence for these two distinct processes of L‑vocalization in Glaswegian, drawing on empirical evidence from two corpora of Glaswegian collected in the early 1980s and late 1990s. The results from the later corpus confirm the vigorous maintenance of the Scots l‑vocalization, but at the same time provide clear indications of the incorporation of innovative L‑vocalization. Our findings confirm that at the phonological level at least, the Urban Scots of Glaswegian youngsters is both conservative and innovative.