The Scottish Dialect

[brambles]

Ah dinnae ken what yer on about - I don't know what you're talking about
amno kiddin -I'm not kidding
ah didnae - I didn't
Am goin t' the shops - t' being shortened to 'to'
couldne - couldn't
wouldnae -wouldn't
Am fi Scotland -I'm from Scotland

As someone raised in Aberdeenshire by parents who were both teachers from Fife and Aberdeenshire, with grandparents who spoke Gaelic and broad Aberdeenshire Doric, my language has always been "proper" Scots English with an ability to lapse into broad Scots when required. When I went to university a lot of people I met had difficulty guessing where I was from and some assumed public schooling for some reason - I was just taught to make myself understood and respect language. My mum used to go straight from speaking very correctly to answering the phone in almost unintelligble Doric with my gran.

In Aberdeenshire your examples might be

I da ken fit yer oan aboot
Ahm nae jokin
Ah didnae
Ahm aff tae the shoappie
Couldnae
Widnae
Ahm fae Scotland

Oh, and "aye" is used throughout the whole of Britain - it's Middle English from Norse - think of "The ayes ( or nays ) have it" in voting in Parliament, accepted usage for many centuries.

 

[21st century pict]

Some Scottish words still in common use today both here and the US have Gaelic oragins.
I don't have a Gaelic dictionary on me so please forgive my spelling.
Smashing , as in that is good has it's roots in Gaelic =Is ma shin.
Bat, as in baseball bat , bat is Gaelic for stick

 

[Paul_B]

I moved to nw england at 3 but my partner is still convinced i have a bit of west country accent in me from somerset. I also have some west and east lancs plus i picked up some scouse at times.
Despite all this my accent or way of speaking changes according to the situation. At work i use a clearer/less regional accent. To the guys at work i can slip into a stronger northern type of accent. For some reason at home i pick up some west country sounds. I really dont understand that last one.
My conclusion is if youve lived any time in different places you will always pick something up that will slip out. I have no doubt experts in uk accents/dialects can give your life story locations from a simple conversation. I love that idea.
Another point i remember watching programmes on regional differences such as the variation across west country. Another was about accents/dialects in nw england. It explained how the stronger scouse accents come from outside liverpool. Or how accents are heavily changed by the types of people who made a town or city. Irish and others in liverpool or those moving to cotton towns in industrial ages. Our accents and dialects tell a story for sure.

 

[northumbrian]

I'd use "dinnar" which is close to "dinnae" and lots of other terms for things, and from living not a long way from Newcastle "wye aye" gets used along with other things that I can't put my finger on .

This might help you understand it a little bit mate ! - http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/aand heres a little bit more - http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/lexis/

 

[HillBill]

i was a yorkshire man once... then i joined the legion.... now i speak clearly for the most part.... you ever see a foreigner ( no not a lancashire man ) try understand a yorkshire accent... the looks on thier faces..... comical isnt the word... so i had to dot my i's and cross my t's. 5 years of speaking proper english was the end of me i tell ya.

 

[Dreadhead]

I'm from Aberdeen so lapse in and out if doric such ask 'fit d'ye cry it?' But living in Perth for a few years then down in England I had to drop a lot of it just to be understood. When I'm back up in Aberdeen though it just comes straight back out!

 

[Clouston98]

This might help you understand it a little bit mate ! - http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/aand heres a little bit more - http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/geordie/lexis/

Thanks for that! It would seem I am pitmatic .

 

[mousey]

I remember a guy at school, he was Welsh by birth but moved around alot with his folks work, he could speak fluently French, Spanish, German, Dutch and of course English. After a couple of beers he'd turn round and be talking a different language to you, I have to remind him to speak in english.

 

[THOaken]

As someone raised in Aberdeenshire by parents who were both teachers from Fife and Aberdeenshire, with grandparents who spoke Gaelic and broad Aberdeenshire Doric, my language has always been "proper" Scots English with an ability to lapse into broad Scots when required. When I went to university a lot of people I met had difficulty guessing where I was from and some assumed public schooling for some reason - I was just taught to make myself understood and respect language. My mum used to go straight from speaking very correctly to answering the phone in almost unintelligble Doric with my gran.

In Aberdeenshire your examples might be

I da ken fit yer oan aboot
Ahm nae jokin
Ah didnae
Ahm aff tae the shoappie
Couldnae
Widnae
Ahm fae Scotland

Oh, and "aye" is used throughout the whole of Britain - it's Middle English from Norse - think of "The ayes ( or nays ) have it" in voting in Parliament, accepted usage for many centuries.

Ah, good... Well most of them correspond to what I say, though of course I never lived up there. I say all of them apart from "aff", "fit", and "shoappie". Taking that first one as an example, it varies slightly. I say "Ah dinnae ken what yer on about/aboot". It seems less extreme than your speech.

It's strange because I don't have a really thick Scottish accent, as is evident in those two vlogs I made (see my latest threads), but I do speak in a similar way sometimes, although I discard most of the dialect when I'm trying to be understood...

Anyone from the Lothians on BCUK that'd like to join the conversation?

 

[Goatboy]

Definitely speak in different tongues. At home we weren't acknowledged unless we spoke pretty much with an RP voice and would get clouted if we persisted. To the point where I've been mistaken for being English by other Scots. But at the same time we were encouraged to know Doric words and phrases. We did talk differently to others. playground voice as my Brother said. Also if talking to older country folk we would slip into a more country/Doric phraseology. Have always liked accents and sometimes find myself slipping in to one I like when talking to someone with a good accent.

Love the Highlands and Islands accent and used to have a female friend from Lewis who I could happily just shut my eyes and listen to her speak or sing.

Some folk thought it was wrong of my folks to discourage an accent but it's helped in my professional life and does come across well in job interviews.

I think it's fascinating how you can go just over the hill to another village and the accent can be totally different. Also the Doric has made it easier to understand the Teutonic languages. There's a lot of similarity there. And in places like Fife, Flemish was as commonly spoken as English up until the 18th century due to trade in the ports which along with fishing and coal industries has given a distinctive sound.

Seemingly a lot of accents changed with the industrial revolution, the likes the Liverpool accent seemingly changed totally due to the smog and pollution bunging up the sinuses changing forever the way they talked and the noise of the mills changed the Dundonian accent making it harsher in order to be heard over the din.

I've heard it said that Invernesian is one of the best examples of how English should be spoken.

Great subject and you may find your accent gets a bit thicker for a while while living down south, think it's a kind of identity defensive thing.

Good thread, like it.

GB.

 

[John Fenna]

I picked up a few phrases and words from my Mother who was Berwick born and bred with rellies all over SE Scotland ... mind you she spoke "proper" English unless we kids got her angry!

 

[Toddy]

Goatboy, That's it exactly

My 'telephone' voice, my professional voice, is very clear English with a slight Scottish accent. My at home voice is polite Lanarkshire but that becomes very much richer in older words and phrases when speaking to neighbours and my elderly relations. It's not Billy Connolly or Rab C. Nesbit, but I do hear the Rev.I.M.Jollie coming through sometimes

The first year I went to Wales to the Moot and set up camp, before long other Scots had found the Saltire and drifted in to camp nearby-ish. We had folks there from Aberdeenshire, from Ayrshire, Fife, Lanarkshire, the Borders, the Western Isles, Argyllshire, the Lothians, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and we all got stronger in our accents for a bit. It was very good

atb,
Mary

 

[Goatboy]

Mary, the one time we met I thought you had what I'd call a coothy accent. Polite but with a nice softness and turn of phrase. And on some other threads we've have fun slipping into vernacular and having a play with the words. The west Coast Mafia thread comes to mind - http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44292&page=1 I think your right in that we've "borrowed" so many words from elsewhere that we can play and find just the right word to mean exactly that "thing" And sometimes no other word will do. It's reflected in a lot of my reading material where the authors play beautifully with words and seem to be having a good time doing so.

 

[BlueTrain]

I used to know a number of Scots, some of whom had public school accents. The rest, however, had other accents and they weren't all the same. But I've never heard the term "Doric" before. Of course, we never talked about our speech. And English, of course, is a Teutonic language, partly, at least. I mentioned somewhere else that if a language is still being spoken the same as it was a hundred years ago, it's a dead language. I wonder if Latin is like that?Sometimes hearing an accent will surprise you. Once I made reservations at a hotel on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota, somewhere north of Duluth. The speaker had a distince Scottish accent. But when we arrived, the face was distinctly Indian, as in India, though I imagine he was Scottish born. Sometimes one can distinguish accents among speakers of other languages, though usually only class differences, one has to admit. I used to listen to a local radio station that was in Spanish ('cause I kinda like the music). They had people who called in, like radio stations did when I was little. The DJ had clear and sharp diction, while the caller usually had slurred speech. But the DJ was a "professional voice," in a manner of speaking. Another curiosity is a co-worker here who is Korean. She has excellent English, at least compared to me. The funny thing is that she knows current slang (which I don't so much) but doesn't know slang that I've used for my whole life and obviously she doesn't know "hillbilly" slang from back in the hollows where I'm from. I also find it interesting when people "roll" their r's, which seems common in Spanish and sometimes German, although we sometimes pronouce the "r" where none is present in a word.

 

[santaman2000]

...... I mentioned somewhere else that if a language is still being spoken the same as it was a hundred years ago, it's a dead language. I wonder if Latin is like that?.....

The short answer is yes. That's why Latin is used for so much legal, and most scientific or taxonomic purposes. Nobody speaks it as a primary language anymore and the meanings are highly unlikely to drift with time.

 

[brambles]

Going back to use of "aye" being UK wide, another example is the naval "aye sir" or aye aye sir" which IIRC are " yes sir" and "yes sir I will carry out" in response to instructions.

 

[ammo]

I always find ii interesting how people who are not separated by large distances, can speak so differently. Ie Liverpool and Wigan. I always thought the scouse accent evolved due to Welsh and Irish influences. Never heard of the smog/sinus theory.

My Dad spoke two languages and would always, and i mean always flip between the two, during the same sentence! totally unaware. If he was angry at me, he would sware so fast in different dialects, languages that id crack up, just makeing it him worse.I miss them moments.

 

[Goatboy]

aye (interj.)"assent," 1570s, of unknown origin, perhaps a variant of I, meaning "I assent;" or an alteration of Middle English yai "yes" (see yea), or from aye (adv.) "always, ever."
Though there are similar sounding words in various languages meaning the same thing.

I know some German folks who learned their English from Americans and so had American accents, there other languages were also accented heavily by their teachers of different nationalities.

Being from a backwater I didn't meet many folks from far off lands as a kid and the first Indian person I met for real was a Scouser and hearing a Liverpudlian accent coming from her mouth threw me a little at first. Wasn't like Spike Milligan or It Ain't Half Hot Mum. Though it reminds me that Nicola Pagett was really funny as the half Indian/half Welsh girl in Privates On Parade, brilliant accent play.

 

[BlueTrain]

I thought I was from a backwater (in West Virginia), yet I had a neighbor who was from Italy and I met several others who were Italian-born. They were all older than my father but younger than my grandparents, so I guess they all arrived at about the same time, mainly to work in the coal mines. There were also Lebanese in town and there are gravestones in the graveyard with Arabic writing. No one anywhere is really all that isolated, I think. Another funny case of mistaken origin that I saw was on a tape (not a DVD) of a Trooping of the Color in 1978 or 1979. It started out following a guards platoon around in Northern Ireland. It also showed a man who appeared to be of Indian origin who operated a little convenience store for the troops. The interviewer asked him why he had come all the way from India to run the shop but he said, "Actually, I came from Liverpool."

 

[andybysea]

Im English(from lancashire) lived in Scotland for 17yrs my wifes Scottish as are my kids, i can obviously hear my wifes accent from Strathaven(sort of south west Scotland and she goes into proper sland mode when on the phone to her mum!) but my kids have all been brought up in south east Scotland approx 11 miles north of Berwick and i cant pick up a Scottish accent in them come to think of it i cant place any particular accent at all from them.Although when my mother visits she says they have a broad Scots accent and that she can hardly understand them, some people here seem to have north east England accents and some have a north east England South east Scotland mix.