The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland: Lexical Section was published in two volumes in 1975 and 1977 and widely regarded as a monumental research achievement of national importance. Nearly half a century later, atlases and especially their negotiability and interactivity have become revolutionised by online resources and Internet potential. It is thus not before time that The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland: Lexical Section should be digitised.

To do just that, together with Ludwig Hans-Christian Breuer, and Hans-ChristianLudwig Breuer and Markus Pluschkovits, I have established a small team at the University of Vienna. The original data are being re-analysed in terms of lexical types or ‘lexemes’, and the results are to be digitally generated by new dot maps, with separate gestations for respondent age and gender. In the process, topological issues (such as those pertaining to the data) and topographical issues (such as those pertaining to geography and the physical terrain) are also being addressed. The approach of the project is to address the issue of variation in the lexicon – specifically the hyponymy (or synonymy) among onomasiological responses for the same concept or referent – and how the range of responses from a national elicitation in Scotland seeking ‘local’ words should be judged.

How do responses being offered as ‘local’ square with their geographical distribution on the one hand, and their status as ‘Scots’ or ‘English’, or as ‘dialect’ or ‘standard‘ on the other? How are ‘dialect’ or ‘standard‘ responses offered as ‘local’ responses from the same individual to be considered? Is the issue that of a straightforward dialect-standard binary opposition, or is there a third value between the two? Does that third value encompass a middle ground between dialect and standard, or include both? How is the absence of responses to be regarded?

For elucidation of such linguistic issues, the mathematical principle of the excluded middle is invoked. With such considerations it is possible and necessary to establish a theoretical framework for the digitalisation of a historical data collection. An online, dynamic, visual reinterpretation of the data-set of The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland will thus enable a fresh insight into the traditional folk and often rural culture and society of Scotland as expressed through the vocabulary of Scots in the mid-20th century.

Publications

John Kirk (2020). 'The Digital Lexical Atlas of Scotland Corpus: New Opportunities for Researching the Vocabulary of Scots'. In Language and Linguistics in a Complex World: Data, Interdisciplinarity, Transfer, and the Next Generation, ed. by Beatrix Busse, Nina Dumrukcic & Ruth Möhlig-Falke. Heidelberg University & University of Cologne. pp. 119-124.

John Kirk, Markus Pluschkovits, Hans Christian Breuer and Ludwig Maximilian Breuer (2024) ‘Introduction to the Digital Lexical Atlas of Scotland’. In Christine Elsweiler (ed.). The languages of Scotland and Ulster in a global context, past and present. Selected papers from the 13th triennial Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, Munich 2021. Aberdeen: FRLSU, pp. 177–245. ISBN: 978-0-9566549-7-7.

John Kirk (at press, for publication 2026). ‘Variation in Bird Names in Scots’. In Evolving Englishes: Varieties through Space and Time. Eds. Sven Leuchert, Tobias Bernaisch & Sofia Rüdiger. Abingdon: Routledge.

John Kirk (under consideration 2026). ‘More Variation in Bird Names in Scots’. Journal of Linguistic Geography.

Conference Presentations

John Kirk & Markus Pluschkovits (2021). ‘The Digital Lexical Atlas of Scotland: An Introduction and some First Results’. Paper presented at Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, 13th International Conference, München. 28–30 October 2021

John Kirk & Markus Pluschkovits (2023a) ‘The Digitized Lexical Atlas of Scotland: The Scotsness of Scots, and Issues of Diminutivity’, paper presented at Austrian Association for University Teachers of English, Salzburg, 5 May.

John Kirk & Markus Pluschkovits (2023b) ‘Mapping the (Digital) Linguistic Atlas of Scotland’ paper presented at Digital Humanities 2023: Collaboration as Opportunity, Graz. 10-14 July.

John Kirk (2024a). 'The Traditional Folk Vocabulary of Scotland: How Scottish'. Invited Guest Seminar, University of Innsbruck, 7 May 2024.

John Kirk (2024b) ‘Ulster and the Digital Lexical Atlas of Scotland’, paper presented at Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, 14th International Conference, Belfast, 29–30 November.

John Kirk (2024c) ‘Contact and Language Change in the Digitalised Lexical Atlas of Scotland’, paper presented at Third Angus McIntosh Symposium,

Contact and Language Change, University of Edinburgh, 2–4 December.

John Kirk (2025) ‘The Scots-ness of Scots: Variation through Time and especially Space’, paper presented at International Association for World Englishes, 25th International conference, University of Gießen, 25–27 July 2025