Post a cultural anecdote or reminiscence for Sparkling

[danny la rouge]

someone will tell me off for mixing up accents and dialects which are technically different things I think)

They are indeed. And you fall slightly into that trap in your explanation of the Inverness accent. I think you’re generally right, though. The reason Inverness doesn’t have much of a Scots vocabulary, syntax and grammar (dialect) is its fairly recent loss of Gaelic as the common first language of the area. So what is left is people pronouncing English in the accent of an Inverness Gaelic speaker. (Inverness Gaelic not having been the same as, say, Stornaway Gaelic).

Similarly, the Perthshire Gaelic of my locality died out in the early 20th Century. Perthshire Gaelic is “Church Gaelic”, being the Gaelic spoken by the first Protestant translators of the Bible into Gaelic. But my area learned “English” during the time of agricultural “improvements” in the carse lands of Stirling, so the rural Stirling Scots rather than Standard English.

 

[quimcunx]

I think my teuchter approved excellent accent is a product of a few different things. 1. My mum's parents were from Aberdeenshire and none of her friends or boyfriends here could understand her dad and my dad is from Dundee and his accent/dialect can be hard for others to understand. Mum was keen for us to be understood. 2. I was brought up in a village, not in Dundee. My accent has never been Dundonian except when I was deliberately doing Dundonian. I always thought I was a teuchter until told otherwise by teuchter. 3. It's been tempered by being in London so long. I stopped using certain words and I suppose my accent may have changed a bit too. However I'm 87% confident if I put my sister on the phone instead of me people would be happy to believe she was me.

I feel like I'm not that great at recognising Scottish accents these days (maybe never was) partly because I think there are strong distinct city accents and what I would consider a strong teuchter/country accent (from farmer types) but the other accents are a bit more general Scottish.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Teuchter I'd be interested to know what you sound like if you wanted to contribute to the accent thread, although understandable if you don't!

 

[steeplejack]

I have a soft Ayrshire accent which derives from my parents, this is often mistaken by London folk for Northern Irish. At school I was taught to speak like Malcolm Rifkind and local accents vigorously- if not by neans of corporal punishment- discouraged.

“Educated west coast Scotland”

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

When I lived in London I still had a really strong Invernessian accent, so much piss was taken. "NURSHEEEN" I remember in particular they found really funny. Was often told I was "so Scottish". But the more middle class(I guess?) Invernessian accent is a lot softer. And I think it is softening in general around that area these days.

 

[danny la rouge]

Parental influence is interesting too, quimcunx My parents were from Blantyre and Galashiels->East Kilbride. So my accent may have been influenced by that, possibly giving me a “generalised Scottish” influence.

My own kids, brought up in Dunblane, were influenced by my partner’s accent. She is from the Stoke-on-Trent area. Also my elder daughter’s two best friends were from English families (both Manchester) and they both kept what sounded to me like very English accents (although one has moved to London where they think she’s basically Rab C Nesbit).

I know my own accent and even vocabulary has been influenced by Mrs La Rouge.

(I find all this stuff fascinating, btw).

 

[danny la rouge]

When I lived in London I still had a really strong Invernessian accent, so much piss was taken. "NURSHEEEN" I remember in particular they found really funny. Was often told I was "so Scottish". But the more middle class(I guess?) Invernessian accent is a lot softer. And I think it is softening in general around that area these days.

I’ve heard tell that Doric is migrating West into Inverness.

 

[two sheds]

My dad's family came from remote little place outside Aberdeen, visited when my sis took me up there and we were visiting my aunt in Stonehaven. We went to the Cairngorms a few times - stunning views and lovely little places to eat dotted round.

 

[danny la rouge]

My dad's family came from remote little place outside Aberdeen, visited when my sis took me up there and we were visiting my aunt in Stonehaven. We went to the Cairngorms a few times - stunning views and lovely little places to eat dotted round.

Stonehaven claims to be the birthplace of the deep fried Mars bar.

 

[two sheds]

Stonehaven claims to be the birthplace of the deep fried Mars bar.

Yes I saw a sign to the place and sorry I was lying I meant she was from Johnshaven just down the road, we went to Stonehaven a few times.

We also went to the Grassic Gibbon Centre which confused me until I was told:

Home - Grassic Gibbon

www.grassicgibbon.com

I was told he was a relly. BBC did a radio adaptation of Sunset Song a while ago.

 

[Sue]

Parental influence is interesting too, quimcunx My parents were from Blantyre and Galashiels->East Kilbride. So my accent may have been influenced by that, possibly giving me a “generalised Scottish” influence.

My own kids, brought up in Dunblane, were influenced by my partner’s accent. She is from the Stoke-on-Trent area. Also my elder daughter’s two best friends were from English families (both Manchester) and they both kept what sounded to me like very English accents (although one has moved to London where they think she’s basically Rab C Nesbit).

I know my own accent and even vocabulary has been influenced by Mrs La Rouge.

(I find all this stuff fascinating, btw).

My parents were from Edinburgh (and their parents were Scottish/Irish/Italian) and I grew up in the SW, studied in Edinburgh then moved to London.

I had to speak more slowly and clearly when I moved to London as people literally couldn't understand me () and I also cut back on the slang. My family tell me I sound 'practically English' these days. I don't think I do but who knows...

(I was always confused by slang as a kid as my parents' Edinburgh slang was a lot different to local slang. And then there were bits of Irish thrown in there too so I never really knew which was which.)

 

[Sue]

Yes I saw a sign to the place and sorry I was lying I meant she was from Johnshaven just down the road, we went to Stonehaven a few times.

We also went to the Grassic Gibbon Centre which confused me until I was told:

Home - Grassic Gibbon

www.grassicgibbon.com

I was told he was a relly. BBC did a radio adaptation of Sunset Song a while ago.

If you haven't read A Scots Quair (the trilogy of which Sunset Song is the first book), you really need to. I love it. And sparkling, that goes for you too.

 

[teuchter]

Because I’m not from the West Highlands. I’m from West Perthshire.

Ah yes. You said Highland Boundary Fault & I misread it as the proper one, the Great Glen Fault.

 

[danny la rouge]

Ah yes. You said Highland Boundary Fault & I misread it as the proper one, the Great Glen Fault.

I honestly don’t think of the top right hand shoulder of Scotland being “the Highlands”. I’m always amused when people from the Moray coast claim to be Highlanders.

 

[teuchter]

I feel like I'm not that great at recognising Scottish accents these days (maybe never was) partly because I think there are strong distinct city accents and what I would consider a strong teuchter/country accent (from farmer types) but the other accents are a bit more general Scottish.

I also feel like I have got worse at identifying different scottish accents. And generally I am quite interested in accents and pay attention to them.

I sort of wonder if they have become more indistinct over the decades since i was a kid & resident in scotland.

Proper west highland accents are more of a rarity and when I hear them it always makes me think of a friend of my grandparents; she was born, raised and lived in Skye with a brief time in Glasgow, and spoke Gaelic natively. Her accent was strong and when I'd visit her often the phone would ring and she'd answr it and have a conversation in Gaelic; then you could completely hear how so much of the intonation transferred across to her accent spekaing English.

I don't feel like I hear really strong Inverness accents so much now either.

It's certainly affected by class too (more than it used to be?) and I'd say middle class folk from all across Scotland can sound pretty similar.

 

[teuchter]

I honestly don’t think of the top right hand shoulder of Scotland being “the Highlands”. I’m always amused when people from the Moray coast claim to be Highlanders.

Here's wikipedia's map which I sort of agree with.

I dunno about Arran though.

Or Orkney.

 

[danny la rouge]

Here's wikipedia's map which I sort of agree with.

I dunno about Arran though.

Or Orkney.

View attachment 369386

I concur with that map. I’d include Arran but not Orkney (although geologically it is). I might not include Campbeltown culturally, though. It was planted with Lowlanders in C17th.

 

[teuchter]

Teuchter I'd be interested to know what you sound like if you wanted to contribute to the accent thread, although understandable if you don't!

I don't think you'll get me to do that.

Even if I was willing, I'd get self conscious about my accent as soon as I started talking and then it would not be a valid representation of how I normally speak.

I can and do turn the dial on my level of Inverness-shire-ishness depending on the situation.

 

[Spymaster]

Teuchter I'd be interested to know what you sound like if you wanted to contribute to the accent thread, although understandable if you don't!

Teuchter sounds like Jacob Rees-Mogg.

 

[danny la rouge]

Teuchter sounds like Jacob Rees-Mogg.

I really want that to be true!

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I sort of wonder if they have become more indistinct over the decades since i was a kid & resident in scotland.

My knowledge of Scotland is limited (I'm from south of the thames not just south of the border) but wouldn't be at all surprised.

30 years ago, it was often possible to place people from within a few miles in London they were from from their accent (assuming they didn't speak RP) and I've read somewhere that in Victorian times it was possible to place people within a few streets.

I'm not convinced it's possible now. Whole host of factors - people move around a lot more than used to be the case, at one time you largely heard RP on the radio / telly and local accents round home, but there's more regional accents on the telly and so on now, as well as influence from (for example) Jamaican versions of English as kids have gone to school in mixed areas.

I read something a little while ago that said the new towns round the edges of London (think they used Stevenage as an example) have something closer to the north London accent of the 1950s than north London now has (most new towns largely took people from just one or two London boroughs but since then there's been less movement) - don't know if new towns in Scotland may be similar.

My own kids, brought up in Dunblane, were influenced by my partner’s accent. She is from the Stoke-on-Trent area.

That sounds an interesting mix.

The Corby accent is (or was) an unusual mix of Glasgow and Northamptonshire...

 

[teuchter]

Teuchter sounds like Jacob Rees-Mogg.

As I said, I adjust for the audience.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Teuchter sounds like Jacob Rees-Mogg.

That's really quite an offensive thing to say, even to Teuchter.

 

[danny la rouge]

30 years ago, it was often possible to place people from within a few miles in London they were from from their accent (assuming they didn't speak RP) and I've read somewhere that in Victorian times it was possible to place people within a few streets.

My Dad used to say he could hear the accents changing as he walked to the dancing in a nearby town (around Blantyre). These days that part of Lanarkshire just sounds like Greater Glasgow.

If you remember miners’ leader Mick McGahey, that’s the ballpark of my late paternal grandad’s accent. South Lanarkshire (non rural division). Not Glasgow.

 

[sparkling]

We gave an elderly lady a lift to Huntly ceilidh over the new year. She had lived in Keith and nearer to Cullen all of her life. Her accent was soft and gentle but she spoke so fast and we could only get about every third word. The difficulties were exacerbated by her siting in the back of the car, in the dark so we could not even lip read or work out by gestures. All we could do was join in when she laughed.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

She had lived in Keith

What did Keith have to say about that arrangement?

 

[Voley]

Stonehaven claims to be the birthplace of the deep fried Mars bar.

Exported as far and wide as Nepal, I can confirm.

I had a 'Snickers Roll' trekking on the Annapurna Circuit. Didn't feel too guilty about it having done about 6 pretty much vertical miles that day. Washed down with a hot chocolate with a double Khukri rum in it. 'For the altitude', I was assured.

 

[xenon]

Furthest north I've been is up near Forres. Heard seals in the surf of the Moray Firth. And fed some highland cattle a couple of slices of bread.

Have Scotch on both sides of the family. Mum lost her Glasgow accent though as moved to London when still a child. But would use odd phrases. Dad's mum always tried to get me to try porridge with salt... I know but yeah.

 

[sparkling]

Stonehaven claims to be the birthplace of the deep fried Mars bar.

Its got a pretty good heated lido

 

[sparkling]

What did Keith have to say about that arrangement?

Keith never made a comment.