Scots GrA History o Modern Scots Orthography
We'r takkin "Modern Scots" tae mean aathing efter "Middle Scots" that uizually comes doun tae us as the coortly writins o the makars, tho the ar a period whaur we hae baith thae kin o writins gaun on, as we can see wi, for example, Gavin Douglas's "Aeneid" hivin been written in the coortly tradition at aboot the same time as "The Wife o Auchtermuchty" wis written in a naitral Scots faur nearer modern Scots. But for practical purposes we can start wi Robert Fergusson an Robert Burns.
Fergusson an Burns
Anent Fergusson an Burns's orthographies, thae chiels wisna ower fashed aboot lattin fowk see the richt Scots soondins o wirds. We could leuk at this passage fae the Tam O'Shanter, that, gey typical o Burns, nae Scots spaeker wad want tae read oot the wey it's written:
Coffins stood round like open presses,That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantraip sleight
Each in its cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table
A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief new-cutted frae the rape-
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted;
Five scymitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft-
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair of horrible and awfu',
Which even to name wad be unlawfu'.
It micht be that in Burns's day naebody readin Scots wad thocht tae soond "round" the English wey, an likewice "dead", "sleight", "light" &c. Nouadays, tho, atween the educational system an the inpoorin o English an Irish wirkers tae Glesca in the aerly 20th century, it's gittin uizual tae hear amateur reciters an actors ca'in a trade baith makkin a bourach o Scots pronunciation whan it's written wi narrae a thocht for hou Scots is soondit bi folk that's bred up spaekin't.
For this raeson, the kin o orthography uized bi Burns an Fergusson, whaur Scots soonds wis scomfished ablo English spellins, isna a guid idea, an micht aa itssel be a muckle erosive influence on the Scots langage in oor praisent situation.
Victorians an Edwardians
Efter Burns alang cam a guid mony poetasters writin in his style, even takkin forrit the "Staunart Habbie" an "Helicon" an ither kin o verses that Burns likit best. As for prose, Scots wis relegated tae the spaek o Scottish characters in novels the likes o wis written bi Sir Walter Scott an Sir James Barrie. It wisna till Victorian times that Scots startit tae be written in prose nairative, wi the likes o Robert Louis Stevenson's "Thrawn Janet", whaur Stevenson wis somewey obleeged tae open the story in English afore bringin in a Scots nairator, sae that technically it's a Scots character's dialeck ithin a English story, but in practice we see Stevenson's plisky an can sned aff the English bit at the start. But the war some ootstandin examples o pure Scots nairative, ane o the best bein P. Hay Hunter's novel "James Inwick", the eponymous hero bein a plooman that on takkin up as a elder o the Kirk finnds hissel in ower his heid in the politics o antidisestaiblishmentarianism.
Hunter can be seen tae a turn a preceese an meticulous haun tae his orthography. Guid as his Scots is aa ootthrou, tho, he wis that meticulous aboot the orthography he gaed as faur as pittin in a apostrophe whaurever a letter wisna in the English cognate (eg "he'rt" for "hert" an aa that), tho for a wonder, he didna pit a apostrophe efter the "-in" endins o verbs. It's likely that this makkin Scots leuk a kin o English wis something that wis nott in thae days tae git things past publishers: this wad explain the wey Stevenson haed tae lat on that "Thrawn Janet" wis a English story wi a muckle daud o Scots nairitive. Here a sample o Hunter's writin fae "James Inwick", tho tak tent that "onythin" an "after" is variants that in maist dialecks wad be "onything" an "efter":
I no' mind o' the wife bein sae upliftit wi onythin, aa the time we've been thegither, as wi me bein made an elder. I was made muckle o, thae days, I can tell ye; there was naethin ower guid for Jims; it minded me o' the time whan I was coortin her, four-an'-thretty year syne. An' whan it cam roun' to the Saiturday nicht afore the day I was to be ordained, what I büde to gae through in the way o' reddin up!--she was that fiky, ye micht ha' thocht I was some young quean bein buskit for her waddin. First she set tae an' stairched an' airned my sark an' collar, an syne she got my guid-anes oot o' the kist, an' darned a wee hole in the coat aneath the oxter, an' hung them a' afore the fire to tak oot the lirks. An' after supper-time, in comes Ecky Blair, the herd at Toombucht, wi' his shears--she had trysted Ecky withoot ever lettin on to me--to gie me a clip; for she said it wad never dae for me to be stan'in up in the transe afore a' the folk, an' ma heid like a heather cowe. An' on the Sabbath mornin she gart me shave mysel till my chafts were like a year-auld bairn's, an' creish my pow wi' the claggiest pomatum she could come by; an' syne she tied on me a bonny new craig-cloth she had coft doun by, as white as the driven snaw.
Analysin the text o the hale novel in a database, the maist surprisin thing o aa is hou consistent Hunter's spellins is. Consistency o spellin is juist aboot unheard o in Scots, baith in Middle Scots, traditional Modern Scots an late twentieth century Modern Scots writins. Hunter couldna a haen ony computer tae help him oot, sae this beuk lats us see that a body can be trained up tae write consistent Scots wi a traditional orthography.
Tak tent o Hunter's spellin o "büde": diacritics for this kin o wird wis popular in Victorian times (Stevenson aye uizes them), but Hunter taks it forrit an writes the likes o "päcify", an uizes a speecial diacritic for the "u" in wirds like "full", "bull" an "pull". Sic diacritics leuks guid at first, but it haes tae be sayed that apairt fae the "ü", they dae naething ither than mind folk no tae soond things the English wey. Lorimer's diacritic system in the New Testament is aathegither different, an yet this is aa it achieves an aa. A richt diacritic system wad be a integral pairt o the langage, no juist for mindin folk no tae soond the orra wird like in English: the trouble here isna sae muckle that some folk isna shuir hou tae pronounce Scots, as the fack that English spellins is bein uized in Scots in the first place.
The Scottish National Dictionar
This is the definitive wark on Scots dialecks, tho no on Scots as a langage, it haein little tae say anent wirds in the common Scots/English vocabular. An aiblins wi the wey it's a dialeck dictionar, it's the opposite o definitive whan it comes tae orthography. A body can mak oot some orthographic principles nous an thans, like hou it pynts oot that the wird "fuit" likely disna exist. That's a important pynt an it's guid tae see it set oot in the SND. Follaein on fae this, mair raecent derivative warks like the Scots Schuil Dictionar disna mention the spellin "fuit", but the lesson disna seem tae a been weel-lairned, for that it gaes on tae offer the spellin "wuid", whaur this should be in the same cless o wirds as "fit", as fornenst wirds like "guid", "buid", "shuin" an "abuin". It dis offer "wud" an "wid" as alternative spellins, but "wuid" shouldna be thare at aa: hou's folk tae ken no tae uize it?
The'r ither daft norries anent spellin in the SSD, an naither the SND or the SSD can be taen as definitive spellin guides: they baith sets furth spellins that's aathegither wrang.
The Lallans Movement
The Lallans movement cam up (ower a nip or twa in a pub ae nicht, it happens) wi the Scots Style Sheet, that efterhaun wis raxed a bittie tae gie us the Recommendations for Writers in Scots (RWS). The ae thing this did for us wis tae set oot for ance an aa that apostrophes staunin for what wis like letters hippit fae English cognates wisna nott. It's a mensfu-like wee sheet as faur as the readin o'd gaes, an that's nae wonder, for on the tae haun it disna condescend ower faur on onything, an on the tither it's no what it says that's wrang wi'd, it's mair what it disna say.
The RWS gaes intae hou tae spell wirds that's parteeclar tae Scots, but says little anent the muckle feck o wirds in Scots: thame that Scots haes in common wi English. This means that for a writer writin the wee pirlicues o Scots ye see in Lallans magazine, the RWS'll dae fine. But for richt wark in the langage: pruifreadin, writin novels, an lairnin bairns tae spell, the RWS is o smaa wirth, as ye can see whan Dauvit Purves, a langstaunin supporter o the RWS, says in Lallans 57 that "snawbaa" isna a mensefu spellin, an yet hissel writes "heiliegoleirie". While "snawbaa" or "snawbaw" could baith be teached as pairt o a system, an aither the twa wad be fine wi maist Scots spaekers, we shouldna expeck teachers tae try an lairn bairns the likes o "heiliegoleirie" whan "heeligoleery" gies fower less chances o niffered letters in the writin o'd. We canna chainge the fack that "heeligoleery" is a muckle wird, but we can cut doun on orthographic complexity aa throu the langage bi uizin spellins that's no ony haurder than the langage demands.
This kin o mislearit complexity can be seen in the mair raecent Report o the Scots Spellin Committee, whaur insteed o the Report bein blinndit wi ower mony apostrophes like in the langsyne, it's blinndit wi a skyrin o "ei" an "ie"s bein written in mony a place a simple "ee" or "i" wad dae better.
Tae a lot o folk in the Lallans movement, the difficulties in a spellin like "heiliegoleirie" seems a smaa maiter, but maist sic folk uizes Scots for wee scrieves an scrubbles an can stop tae howk ower the syllables insteed o writin the wirds fluent. A masel, tho, writes hale novels in Scots, an pruifreads hale librars o beuks in Scots for ma wabsteed, an A can say that naither the SND nor the RWS nor the Report o the Spellin Committee is practical for siclike wark, nor div A think they could (forby the possibility o a improved Report) be uized as the foonds o a spellin system the likes o could be lairned bairns.
The Future
Maugre o the fack that maist modern writers is keen on the idea o Scots as a separate langage fae English, they gae on uizin English-spelt wirds in the mids o Scots writin even whaur it brings in inconsistences tae the spellin tae the pynt whaur no juist is it irraiglar, the mixtur-maxter o English an Scots spellins maks it far mair irraiglar than English orthography is.
It's no aa that hard tae sort oot a guid Scots spellin system: the ae prerequisite is that a body haes tae lat lowss o the norrie that Scots haes tae uize English spellins whaurever possible. Altho the Scots langage movements o the 20th century haes scomfished the uise o dialeck-style apostrophes, this is a smaa thing bi the fack that Scots orthography is still fou tae the heid o English spellins.