Scottish/Irish Accents

[KiltedBishop]

And people from the Republic of Ireland often have a hard time understanding Northern Irelanders.
It is true what you are asking is like saying you want an "Southern" accent. Well do you mean Texas? Georgia? etc.

what we think of as Scottish accent in my experience is Edinburough, and Irish is Dublin.

[Tim Walker]

Having worked in the theatre and having therefore heard WAY too many really bad attempts at various accents....

...I'm almost convinced that you have to go there and live for about six months for it to rub off on you. My brother got sent to Ireland for three months by his company and came back with the "ending every sentence with an interrogative" thing...every sentence ended with "...isn't it?" or "...aren't they?" or something similar...it's a couple of years later and he still does it. I drink in a bar that has a healthy smattering of native Irish and they have the same tendency.

It's not just vowel sounds...it's cadence and intonation...rising and falling inflections...syntax...it's very complex and very subtle. That's probably why a native speaker can spot someone affecting an accent so easily.

best

auld argonian

It may be best not to attempt humor. Too much may depend on subtlety.

DVDs include the option of cast commentary. It was mentioned by one actor that Ewen Bremner tried an American accent for Alien vs. Predator, but his attempts at humor failed.

[MacConnachie]

And then there are those who attempt some sort of Irish or Scots "accent" as an affectation, to perhaps "out-Irish/Scottish" the next person at _______________________ [fill in the name of the event or gathering HERE].

Those I have dubbed the "phony-baloney" type of accent, because those people are fooling absolutely noone, making fools of themselves in the process. Caricatures 'R Us . . .

[jfellrath]

When I was in Edinburgh, I had little trouble understanding folks. But in Glasgow, and especially among the ex-pats in our local Celtic FC Supporters' Club, I can't understand a word those guys are saying sometimes!

A good place to hear a lot of different accents, though, is on BBC America. Shows like Monarch of the Glen, Rockface, etc. have good examples of the accents of Scotland. And though you won't necessarily have regional dialects explained to you, you will hear a good smattering of them all. Another good place is on Sky Sports News from Fox Soccer Channel - you'll hear Scots announcers and such there on occasion.

If you're really feeling adventurous and want to immerse yourself entirely in the dialect/accent, find a good soccer pub and go when Celtic, Rangers, or another SPL club is playing. You'll get your fill of all sorts of stuff!

[Sherry]

Scotspeak. Here are two articles about it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1682371.stm
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1580762001

The only place I could find the book & cd available is here:
http://www.countrybookshop.co.uk/boo...for=1899920013

I think that's weird. It was pretty well publicized, but doesn't seem to have been picked up by retailers.

Here's another interesting article about Scots accents:
The Case of the Missing Accents
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2912004

Sherry

[KiltedCanuk]

I got me a short clip on me camcorder, of a lads flatmate talking in a bar. Phoneticly put, this is it. (Close as I can get over the din in the bar)

"A wull say, we wis a wee bittie worried. Bit at a meinit tae ten she cam hurryin oot. Come on awbodie, rin she tellt us. We aw run and they won on tae their train richt on the chap o ten"

Northern Scotland somewheres he is from. Canna fer the life of me remember where however. I only met him in the bar, and the convo was short as I was well on me way tits up on a tab.

[highlander_Daz]

A wull say, we wis a wee bittie worried. Bit at a meinit tae ten she cam hurryin oot. Come on awbodie, rin she tellt us. We aw run and they won on tae their train richt on the chap o ten"


"I will say we were a little worried , but at one minute to ten, she came hurrying out. Come along everbody-"RUN" she told us, so we all ran and they got onto the train right on the stroke of ten!"

Its almost impossible to pinpoint a regional accent from this but the word "Run" prounonced as "Rin" would suggest west coast as the further North/East you go it becomes "ron"

for a light hearted listen to bible quotations In Scots click on this,

http://www.electricscotland.com/bible/scots.htm

This chaps accent is quite unusual its sort of Borders but with Northern Trillings on the R sounds and Hes obviously spent some time in Newcastle at some time but Its not bad, I think hes "poshing" and slowing, beacase hes reading.

[Graham]

I started out thinking this was a silly thread and have ended up ordering Scotspeak!

I'll try to do a review of it later on

[David Thornton]

Not silly Graham, fun. Beats the daylights out of arguments over semantics.

Although true southern hill jack, my accent is neutral, unless I'm drinking beer with the cousins. Who, by the way, still call me Australian. I spent a bit over a year down under playing polo and loved every minute. We, my host & I, did spend about a month wondering why we were having difficulties with the same language.

I never picked any Canadian or English or S African although I travel there as well.

David

[Brasilikilt]

Hey all!

When I was in highschool I watched "The Commitments" several times and from that, was able to mimic a Dublin accent well enough to fool any stranger I talked to...I was having some fun with it for a while.
Some months later I ran into a guy who was faking an Irish accent VERY poorly, yet refused to admit that he was American.
Since I have some Irish roots, I figured that gave me some liscense to play around with the accent, but after running into that guy I felt very silly for having done so and figured that if I was meant to speak with that accent I would have been born in Dublin.........