Accent

[williamjm]

A couple of days ago I was talking with one of my colleagues, who started working here at the beginning of the month. I made some comment about going up to Scotland for a week next month and he looked slightly surprised and said 'Oh, you're Scottish are you?'. I was slightly surprised he hadn't noticed this before since I've talked to him quite a few times and I had thought that although I don't have the strongest Scottish accent it should have been reasonably noticeable. Admittedly, my new colleague is originally from India and therefore may not be an expert on identifying British accents but before starting work here he was in Glasgow for 5 years so should have heard a few Scottish accents before - although he did comment that I didn't sound much like a Glaswegian which I think is probably fairly accurate. I mentioned this to my Mum and she said she didn't think I had much of an accent, on the other hand there have been quite a few occasions when people who didn't know me had identified me as Scottish just from my accent, for example I remember peadarog telling me 'you must be one of the Scottish contingent' when I first met him. I find it difficult to really assess my own accent, I know how I hear myself won't be the same as other people will hear me and I've never been very good at identifying accents anyway.

So, if you've met me what is your opinion? Do I have an obvious Scottish accent or not?

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

No.

Then again I'm French, what do I know of English accents :p

[werthead.livejournal.com]

British accents, I think you mean? ;-)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

the language's called English, last time I checked.

[werthead.livejournal.com]

Technically correct, as it is English-with-a-Scottish-accent, but it's one of those cultural things. Telling a Scottish person they have or are anything to do with England can be a dubious proposition, depending on circumstances.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

If you prefer : "what do I know of accents in the English language". It would be the same if we were talking about Australian accent or French accent in the English language. Language's called English, so it's an English accent.

[nuttyxander.livejournal.com]

Dangerous line though. Then as soon as anyone uses a scots word it's a scots accent. Maybe that's it, this is the issues of the different between a Scottish Accent and scots accent.

Aye, right?

[the-corbie.livejournal.com]

I would tend to say that accents are named for the region of origin, not the language - so, a Texan accent, a Scottish accent, a French accent, etc. It might be different in French though, and I can see the potential for confusion - is French-accented English like French-accented German?, and so on.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

yeap. It's very context dependant.

[nuttyxander.livejournal.com]

You have an obviously Scottish accent, to a fellow Scot.

However, you don't have a Hollywood or TV scots accent, and even folk who live up north a while probably don't realise the full gamut of Scottish accents. I have the same problem but admittedly I sound pretty English thanks to Edinburgh, parents schooling and not having a strong accent overall. At the end of the day, if it's an accent that relates to growing up in Scotland, then it's a scots accent, no matter what folk say.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

However, you don't have a Hollywood or TV scots accent

Maybe it's Sean Connery's fault ;) Lots of foreigner who only know Scotland from cinema probably expect Scots to sound like him, but I can't say I've ever met a Scot with the same accent as him

I have the same problem but admittedly I sound pretty English thanks to Edinburgh, parents schooling and not having a strong accent overall.

Yes, I don't think you have a very strong accent either but it is obviously Scottish to me, but I'm not surprised if other people might mistake you for being English.

[furriebarry.livejournal.com]

That is because Sean Connery has a Persian accent.

[zakalwe7.livejournal.com]

Sean connery isn't Dutch

*puzzled*

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Yes but people keep accusing me of being Irish or American.

The gf was very amused by how much more Scottish I sound in Scotland.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

Irish I can just about believe if it was a foreigner who didn't know much about British accents but I don't understand you being mistaken for an American at all.

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

No way! I can't believe you're even asking the question. You are such a Scot that the only job you'll ever get in Star Trek is down in the engine room.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

So you're saying my accent's as Scottish as James Doohan's? ;)

I can probably live with being confined to the engine room, although I might prefer to be the science officer.

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

In that case, there's nothing for it, but a complete accent transplant...

[fenryng.livejournal.com]

Cannot comment, for lack of memory on how you sound.

However, I have often wondered the same as you, but in my case, it is a matter of, do I sound like a northern New England yankee?

I presume that I SOUND american, whatever that is, but compared to other americans, I mean.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

You do definitely sound American but I don't know enough about American regional accents to place where your accent is from - I can tell you're probably not from Texas or Alabama but I probably couldn't identify a New England accent.

[werthead.livejournal.com]

I'd say yes, you do have a Scottish accent but it's not very obvious. Not as obvious as say, Kit's for example.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

I probably could have ended up with the same accent as Kit since I was born in the same city as him, but my parents moved away from Dundee when I was one year old so I escaped having a Dundonian accent.

[zakalwe7.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a Dundonian accent or if it is, it's pretty generic middle-class east-coast Scots. For some reason though people quite often think I'm Irish. Weird

I haven't really noticed whether you have or don't have a Scottish accent Billy J. Not particularly noticeable, but then we tend to filter out accents that seem 'normal' to us

[the-corbie.livejournal.com]

Any escape from associations with Dundee is a good thing.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought.

[xraytheenforcer.livejournal.com]

You do not have an obvious Scottish accent, not like Kit or my friend Brian (who is from Ayrshire). I'm not sure what I thought when I met you, actually. I blame jet-lag. But the next time I meet you, I'm definitely going to listen for one and then give a report. ;-)

[isis-newton.livejournal.com]

You do sound 'a little bit Scottish' to me. It is definitely there, but not in your face obvious. Now, don't ask me to differentiate accents from different parts of Scotland though, I could never do that.

[eefster.livejournal.com]

See, I would say it is obvious (to me, obviously). Not thick, but obvious. Of course, if you then asked me to try to narrow down by region, I'd totally fail.

[the-corbie.livejournal.com]

Your accent is, as the others have said, not stereotypically Scottish. It's the kind of educated, middle-class Scots accent that is regarded as suspiciously 'English' even by working-class Scots.

I think it also lacks some of the stronger 'flags' of Scottishness, due to your way of speaking: few glottal stops, not much vernacular, little rolling of R sounds. It's more David Steel than Billy Connolly.

[kama-police.livejournal.com]

em, i can't say i noticed. but i wasn't so expert at scottish accents last time i saw you ;)

[ildrinn.livejournal.com]

Obviously Scottish, I thought. It's actually quite funny to notice the variety of Scots accents that can come from the same city, though. I know a couple of brothers from Falkirk; one has been living in England for several years and has the strongest (almost unintelligible) Scottish accent I've ever heard outside Rab C Nesbitt; the other (who always lived in Scotland) is much easier on the ear. No idea what that's all about. *confused*

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

I think both my brothers have more obvious Scottish accents than I do, but there's quite a big age gap between us and they didn't grow up in the same place I did so it's probably fairly natural for there to be some difference in accent.