Wednesday, July 9, 2025

What's in an accent?

 

I thought I'd take the above screenshot as a souvenir, because when I was growing up in Kilsyth, although I used a decent sprinkling of Scots words like 'doon' and 'hoose' and 'didnae' and 'how?' and 'gallus', I nevertheless had a Frankenstein mid-Atlantic accent that made everyone at school think I was either Australian or Irish.  It became much more Scottish from the age of about twelve onwards, but if you listen very carefully you can still hear the occasional very faint trace of American here or there. 

So when I took the accent test, it was with a due sense of trepidation, and I was half-expecting to be told I was from New Zealand or somewhere.  But nope, it came back as 82% Scottish.  If you're in a quiet room and have a microphone enabled, have a go yourself and let me know your results.

4 comments:

  1. born in edinburgh, brought up in the borders, then 45 years in cambridge but apparently my accent is 54 perent welsh, now thats a surprise as no one ever has accused of such a crime

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  2. 99% Scottish.

    No great surprise to me.

    Born in Central Belt and spent most of my life in and around Glasgow.

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  3. 62% Indian followed another test at 35% Jamaican. Not sure what’s happening there as stayed around Glasgow all my life 😂

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  4. Born and raised in Aberdeen. Computer say 86% Scottish. So pretty close.

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