inverness

[MacKenzie]

I had a primary school teacher and family members who added "R" to oil (sounded like "oral").

Ya mean modur earl?

[Kiltedjohn]

A couple of off-the-cuff examples.

1) A friend was asking, in the north-East of Scotland, for directions to a place called "Sandend". The locals seemed completely baffled. Eventually, one of them said, "...unless you mean San-EEN". Apparently that was the local pronunciation!

2) On a flight-simulation programme, the traffic controllers (supposedly in Edinburgh) gave me clearance to fly to "Glas-gow" (as in "now"). They don't say it that way in Scotland!

[MacKenzie]

As a native New Englander, I'd theorized that the disappearance of the letter "R" was because New England had had 350 years of maritime history. You can not yell the sound of the letter "R" from weatherdeck to crow's nest, or from one ship to another (try yelling "lob-sterrrrr." It comes out "lob-stahhhh.") I assumed that whalers and fisherman developed this tendency to replace "R" with "AH", and then upon returning to shore would propagate this to their families.

I expect your theory is good. I have some friends from Maine that transplanted down heyah ta Nawth Ca-lie-nah. I always accuse them of "moving the R". As in, "Drawr me a pic-shah."

Next, I discovered in the mid-west, some folks had a tendency to add the letter "R" where none was required. People would "warsh" their clothes in "warter."

Also very prevalent in Southern Appalachia.

[plaid preacher]

As a teen, and in my early twenties, I marveled at pronunciations I'd heard all around the country, when I was in the Coast Guard.

As a native New Englander, I'd theorized that the disappearance of the letter "R" was because New England had had 350 years of maritime history. You can not yell the sound of the letter "R" from weatherdeck to crow's nest, or from one ship to another (try yelling "lob-sterrrrr." It comes out "lob-stahhhh.") I assumed that whalers and fisherman developed this tendency to replace "R" with "AH", and then upon returning to shore would propagate this to their families.

Next, I discovered in the mid-west, some folks had a tendency to add the letter "R" where none was required. People would "warsh" their clothes in "warter."

Actually, I heard a linguist being interviewed once regarding the New England accent (among others) and the change of "r" to "ah" - as in "I'll Paahk the cah in the garage". He noted that the New England accent actually is an old English pronunciation, which has now mostly disappeared in the UK, but because of the isolation of those first settlers in New England, still exists on this side of the Atlantic.

As an aside, the same is true of the French spoken in Quebec (and northern Maine). It is 17th Century French which has evolved differently (or some would say not at all) from Modern Parisian French because of its isolation.

[The Q]

[QUOTE=plaid preacher;1289985]Actually, I heard a linguist being interviewed once regarding the New England accent (among others) and the change of "r" to "ah" - as in "I'll Paahk the cah in the garage". He noted that the New England accent actually is an old English pronunciation, which has now mostly disappeared in the UK, but because of the isolation of those first settlers in New England, still exists on this side of the Atlantic.

QUOTE]
Sadly I believe it is disappearing in the USA as well as the UK, traditionally Norwich , in the UK is pronounced Norrich or Norridge, but having seen a program from the USA / UK about pronunciation some time ago, of the 9 Norwichs in the USA, the only ones still using that were those on the east coast and then only by old timers, all were gradually changing to Nor-Wich but with their own particular local accent.

Of course the classic about accents was the bombing of the Atlanta Olympic games, when the person who received the call was asked what accent the bomber had, the person said they had no accent. Only later was it realised it meant a local to Atlanta accent.

Then also in the USA you generally say ZEE in the UK we say ZED but another old pronunciation is IZZARD.

In England generally saying the Alphabet you learn: I (eye), J ( jay), K (kay),
in Scotland they often say I (Eye), J (jai), K(kay),
Which is an older pronunciation from the fact I and J were the same letter in old English.

Also the Scottish name of Menzies is or should be pronounced ( approximately) Mengis, this is from the disappearance of a letter for the old NG sound and the nearest in shape to the old letter was a Z. Sadly even in Scotland I often hear: Men-zees

[sydnie7]

(snip)Of course the classic about accents was the bombing of the Atlanta Olympic games, when the person who received the call was asked what accent the bomber had, the person said they had no accent. Only later was it realised it meant a local to Atlanta accent.(snip)

Ah yes, when I worked for a car company we had several engineers on the tech line. A tech called in and said he'd been discussing a problem with "the fellow with the foreign accent" and was dutifully transferred to Bill Roche, an irrepressible Scot (RIP). Bill determined that the caller had in fact been on the line with Steve, who was from "down Maine"!

[MacKenzie]

Also the Scottish name of Menzies is or should be pronounced ( approximately) Mengis, this is from the disappearance of a letter for the old NG sound and the nearest in shape to the old letter was a Z. Sadly even in Scotland I often hear: Men-zees

The yogh.

The Anglicised Mackenzie had originally been pronounced "Mackaingye" – with a modern English Y sound represented with the letter yogh ȝ. In the 18th century it became popular to write and pronounce the name with what is the equivalent of a modern English Z sound, because of the similarity of the letter yogh and letter Z. There are Lowland Scots words and Scottish names that have been affected in a similar way (example: the surname Menzies).

http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/cmLFyo.asp

[Stitchwiz]

No one here has an accent - just everyone else has one.

My father grew up in northern Yorkshire and was a stickler for correct English. He's in his late 80s now and will still correct one of us or our children if we mis-pronounce a word or use incorrect grammar. I will admit, we are getting lazy...

I soon learned not to question the pronunciation of a teacher - even the one who said 'pronounciation' instead of 'pronunciation'. When I was in kindergarten, age 5, I walked past another school on the way to my school when one teacher ordered me to get inside and get 'warshed up' before school started. I explained to her that I was not a student at that school and then I foolishly asked her what she meant by 'warshing up'. The teacher literally ranted at me when I questioned her use of 'warsh'. I apologized and left and never walked that way to school again. But it did spark an interest that was not there before.

Accents have always fascinated me. I'm sure I drove my parents crazy when I was a child, because I would imitate every accent that I heard. This actually made it easier when I studied languages; I was able to pick up the correct accents much faster that most. When I was in Europe, I fit in quickly because I picked up the local accents... and the slang!



Auto-correct has been going crazy as I typed this. Today it is definitely not my friend - as I got to the end, it had stopped correcting even the most obvious mistakes - like adn instead of and.

[robbiethepiper]

I was at the watering hole asking about a departed waitress how she was doing ..her chum said she was living in ..Inverness, Fla.

but it came out like : in'foorniss ..sounded like "in furnace"

I got a kick out of that ..

other day I called about a 4x4 ATV somebody was peddlin' ..I said I knew the area she was up north of Sacandaga (in the 70's my granda 'right, fae Aberdeen min ! used to blow gaskets trying to pronounce local Dutch /n Indian name villages ..lakes) 'SCHAGTICOKE' WAS A DEAL BREAKER schnectady was not far behind ..Kayaderosseras Creek put him on the floor !!

she lady asked how I knew area ..so I told her ..well Dad's ma'd a camp up over at Edinburgh [correct Edin-bur'rah] and we'd to drive up each 3 wks to take her grocery shopping 'as she lived spring till fall ..

YEP she murdered it .. y'mean Ed 'n berg ..

just funny I guess .

th
d

Gàidhlig name for the city in Scotland is Inbhir Nis = mouth of the (river) Nis. Pronunciation something like INNER NEESH.

[georgeetta]

gàidhlig name for the city in scotland is inbhir nis = mouth of the (river) nis. Pronunciation something like inner neesh.

thanks, family lives there .

Run a b'n'b ..by the brook .

Th
d

when i was a yute ..ma'd still'd a strong accent but she spoke king's english as did her aberdonian ..relatives who came over after ww2 . The "kids" got many accolades because of the household 2nd language angle ..since we had to have developed dexterous tongues ..funny pronouncing doric with my 'mirak'n accent .

Doncha nose .