This work is a reissue of the three volumes of the Linguistic Atlas of Scotland, first published in 1975, 1977 and 1985 respectively. The volumes offer a thorough and comprehensive dialectological study of Lowland Scotland, Orkney and Shetland, Northern Ireland, Northumberland and Cumberland, providing a wealth of word-geographical material and phonological findings assembled over more than 20 years, alongside a detailed cartographic analysis of Scottish dialects by the Linguistic Survey of Scotland.

Volumes 1 and 2 offer a comprehensive selection of word-geographical material, offering the Scots equivalent of a selection of English words, presented on a county by county basis.

Volume 1 also includes an introduction which covers:



the concept of linguistic geography and historical development of linguistic reflection in Scotland in both the written and oral tradition
the new approach in Scottish phonetics and dialectology which began in the second half of the nineteenth century
the origins and approaches of the Linguistic Survey of Scotland
the role of the questionnaire in the creation the Linguistic Atlas
and a valuable and detailed introduction to the maps and lists of word-geographical material which make up these two volumes.

Maps within this collection show:



the physical structure of the Scots and Gaelic-speaking areas covered
The National grid and grid of Northern Ireland enabling the reader to locate each informant
population density of each region

Volume 3 presents the phonological investigation of Scots dialect speech, providing the first large-scale presentation of a phonological survey along functional lines, that is, by means of a technique of contrasts and oppositions of the stressed vowels of the recorded speech-sounds.