Scottish accent

Kimber   Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:22 pm GMT
I'd like to learn to speak with a generic Scottish accent. Does anyone have any suggestions/web sites/etc to give me?
Chris   Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:49 pm GMT
David Allan Stern's "Acting with an Accent" audio K-7s.
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Jun 22, 2006 5:55 pm GMT
I wonder why you want to learn to speak with a "generic" Scottish accent? Have you any particular Scottish accent in mind? We have a few on offer, some quite different from another......Edinburgh from Glasgow.....a wee bit like chalk and cheese. Nip across the Firth of Forth to Fife...different; cut across Fife and over the Tay to: Dundee...distinctly different again, then up along the coast to Stonehaven and Brechin......they speak another kind of Scottish. Go on through Laurencekirk and on up to the granite city - Aberdeen and you're in another accent zone again.
Go way up to Inverness and you get the full Highland lilt..and so on, all around my lovely country, Scotland.....including the Gaelic speaking Western Isles of the Hebrides (pronounced "HEB-rid-dees") and you get the full flow of the local distinct lilt that will lull you to sleep.

Go round Scotland on the map in this link, remembering to have your sound system switched on. Click on any location in Scotland (the bit at the top!) and you'll hear the whole gamut of Scottish accents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/

For general info on Scottish accents pop into the following links if you want further enlightenment. You will see that some Scottish accents are not so hot, and are asociated with guys like Ralph C Nesbitt and Billy Connolly......both from the area around Glasgow. If you think I have a downer on Glasgow, I haven't as it's a really fine city......it was the European City of Culture one year and well deservedly so, as it has loads of culture and great architecture and history. It's just that the Glasgow accent (worse in some parts of the sprawling city) does not have a good reputation and you will see that some people in Glasgow are having their kids go to elocution classes to modify their accent.

Edinburgh does not have that problem....our accent is much softer and is described in one of the links as a low, light Scottish accent of the Lowlands.

http://news.bbc/co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4175605.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1682371.stm

http://news/scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1106082002

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Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:03 pm GMT
Kimber   Fri Jun 23, 2006 12:59 am GMT
Thanks. I said generic mainly because I didn't know the region of the accent I liked... I've listened to a great of them and I'd have to say I like the sample from Inveraray, Argyll the best.