Is this a scottish accent?

Punk   Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:05 pm GMT
Im trying to find audiobooks with scottish accent, and I've found this which occurs in the Shetland Islands, but I wnat to know if the narrator (Gordon Griffin) has a scottish accent.

http://www.audible.co.uk/aduk/site/product.jsp?p=BK_ISIS_000932UK&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes
cnalbumin   Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:25 pm GMT
If you're looking for a true scottish accent, you need to find something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v1jmVvF4gM

I wonder if this guy could be persuaded to do educational audiobooks, for those wishing to learn how to understand the true Scottish accent?
Steak 'n' Chips   Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:51 pm GMT
Which Scottish accent do you want? Scottish accents vary across the country. A Shetland accent is very different from a Glasgow accent, for instance.
Uriel   Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:38 am GMT
It sounds more like an English accent to me. I don't hear much that's distinctively Scottish about it.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Mar 15, 2010 7:59 pm GMT
The accent of the reader Gordon Griffin is about as Scottish as that of Brian Sewell or Germaine Greer.....in spite of his first name he no way whatsoever demonstrates any of our accents up here in Scotland.

He may well be talking about Whalsay and the Shetland Islands but he could well be a local guide conducting a tour of some stately home in Sussex or Hampshire or somewhere deep down in the South of England instead of up there in those islands at the very top end of the UK, which are in fact closer to Norway than they are to southern Scotland let along anywhere in England and Wales.

If you want to hear the real Shetland island accent then listen to some people living on Whalsay itself as recorded on the BBC Voices site.....make sure you have the relative audio system installed on your computer.

You can actually here the slight Scandinavian influence in the speech of some of the people speaking, who sound quite elderly as it happens. I don't think younger people in either the Shetlands or the Orkneys (the island archipelago just to the south of the Shetlands) have the "Scandi effect" to the same degree.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/scotland-whalsay.shtml
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:04 pm GMT
Typo:

You can actually here....> "hear"

You probably won't be able to understand very much, if anything, in those Whalsay recordings but good luck anyway.....
Punk   Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:06 am GMT
I think those BBC recordings are in Scots which i believe is different from Scottish English.

I've listened to Voice clip 1 and Voice Clip 2 and apart form some scattered words here and there I dind't understand anything. I'm curious about you Damien, being Scottish, if you understood everything said?
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Mar 16, 2010 9:17 am GMT
I repeat - those recordings were probably made a fair number of years ago and even then they were quite elderly by the sound of their voices. I doubt very much that the younger people of the present day Shetland or Orkney islands speak in the same manner.

You obviously know that there is a difference between old Scots and Scottish English, but those speakers on Whalsay were using the local dialect which, I'm sure you would agree, indicates a Scandinavian influence.

Did I understand every word? I could follow the general gist of what they were saying but with a certain amount of difficulty. I've never actually been to the Shetlands, yet, but I'm pretty sure I'd have no difficulty understanding the local people of my own age group at least - 18 to 35 as quoted in in most social surveys in the UK.

Please try and get my name spelled correctly if you don't mind.

Anyway, Gordon Griffin is about as Scottish as Norfolk dumplings.
Billy   Fri Mar 19, 2010 2:05 pm GMT
No he doesn't. He sounds English.

I'm Scottish.
Billy   Fri Mar 19, 2010 2:18 pm GMT
This is a Scottish accent, click on the second sample.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/scotland-coldstream.shtml
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:55 pm GMT
The discussion in the second clip is so very true......the people of Coldstream were speaking....a wee town situed right on the banks of the River Tweed which forms the boundary between Scotland and England at that point and for much of its length. Coldstream is on the northern bank (naturally eneough) and is a true border town, the first in Scotland once you have crossed over from England at that particular spot.

The River Tweed at Coldstream separates the official South East Scotland region known as the Scottish Borders (now there's a surprise) from the English county of Northumberland.

Driving along the road in Northumberland towards the river and the Scottish border you come to the wee village of Cornhill-on-Tweed, the last community in England on that route, and situated about a mile and a half from the bridge carrying you over the Tweed into Coldstream and simultaneously into Scotland.

Bear in mind that the very short distance of only about a mile and a half to two miles separates England's Cornhill-on-Tweed from Scotland's Coldstream, yet in accent terms it might just as well be a whole lot more than just that.

Many people living in Cornhill have the type of accent which can only be described as English, something similar but not quite to the Geordie accent as "Geordieland" - the area of North East England in the Tyne / Tees /Newcastle/ Middlesbrough area (the accent heard in both the "Billy Elliot" film and stage productions - the one featuring the miner's son who became a Sadlers Wells male ballet dancer). Well, no surprise there - it is an English village after all, if only by a stone's throw.

The people of Coldstream, however, have a distinct Scottish accent for the most part, and once you have crossed that bridge over from English territory, past the "Welcome to Scotland" and the "Welcome to the Scottish Borders Region" you know for sure that you are now in a different country. As you drive along the short distance into the town you see various obvious changes, such as the names of the banks, and certain names for official buildings which are different from those in England.

Stop off at a cafe in the main street for a cup of tea and some Scottish shorbread and maybe a bannock or two and you are moct likely to be served by a lady with a very Scottish sounding accent. Again, no surprise there - this is Scotland now and England is that place you have just left behind, on the other side of the river. You are now in Heaven on Earth....

;-)

Coldstream is also well known for bearing the same name as a Regiment of Guards within the British Army.....the Coldstream Guards, the ones you can identify by the number of buttons the men wear on their scarlet tunics and the emblem they carry on the side of their huge black busbies.
D in E   Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:57 pm GMT
Typo:

a wee town situed = situated
Punk   Sat Mar 20, 2010 4:12 am GMT
Billy:
In the link you provided it says "language of interview: Scots"

It's my understanding that Scots and Scottish English are different, and I'm interested primarily in Scottish English, but in all those BBC voice recordings, all the points that I click in Scotland give "language of interview: Scots"

Is there any point in the map that gives an interview in Scottish English?


Damian: You're making Scotland sound very tantalizing. I'd like a piece of that bannock. :D
Damian in Edinburgh   Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:06 pm GMT
My last posting was riddled with stupid typos....I need a replacement laptop.

Punk - you're more than welcome to visit Scotland any time you like - it's a whole lot warmer here now than it's been for three months after all the crappy winter weather. I don't want to see another snowflake or icy road for at least nine months.

The Scots language, so called, is indeed different from Scottish English and the majority of Scots use the latter. I was born and brought up here in Edinburgh, the most Anglicised part of Scotland, and my accent reflects that - basically it's a Scottish form of RP but I can lapse into a kind of Scots when the fancy takes me and when circumstances permit me to do so.

Anyway, let's pop up to Aberdeen, that great Granite City on the north east coast of Scotland, facing the bracing winds straight off the grey and choppy North Sea.

Listen to the news reporter from Scotland - following the intro by his English colleague down in London. The Scot is using his standard Scottish English accent, then listen to the guy from Aberdeen, the Aberdonian, who is talking about a shoplifter who brazenly strode in through the front door of his store, grabbed a bag of dorritos, and then made off with it out into the street without paying for it.....the wee scunge!

Then the robber had the nerve to open up the bag and start to consume its contents on the pavement outside the shop. When apprehended by the shopkeeper, who was obviously making a citizen's arrest, the thief made no comment at all - not even a wee screech - s/he remained tight-billed except when scoffing dorritos so it was not possible to determine his/her accent. Instead s/he gobbled up some more of the dorritos and then took flight...literally.....making his/her getaway before the local constabulary arrived to deal with this serious matter....someone had obviously dialled 999.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqy9hxhUxK0&feature=related
Damian in Edinburgh   Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:17 pm GMT
Another mistake on my part - it was of course a Reporting Scotland news reporter from Glasgow and not an Englishman from London introducing the clip from Aberdeen......the live backdrop from the studio was obviously Glasgow and not London, as any Scot would instantly know.

And they were doritos of course, and not dorritos....I quite ike them myself, especially when I've paid for them.

I wonder if any charges were pressed against the pigeons for consuming stolen goods? By all accounts the real thief always seems to get away with it.