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.

10 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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  5. Born and raised in East Lothian, lived in various places in England for fifteen years and now 20 years in the mid-east of the USA. First go told me 96% Chinese. Second said 35% Jamaican and third said 63% Irish.

    This puts me in mind of the phone app doing the rounds some years ago that purported to measure your blood pressure. It was nothing more than a random number generator.

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    1. I tried it about six or seven times and got Scottish all but once. I'm wondering if some of the wilder results are caused by sound issues? Or maybe it just can't tell the difference between Scottish and Jamaican.

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  6. 55% Chinese! 😂Moved to Fife 16 years ago. That’s probably the issue😁

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  7. did it 3X. 1)my normal voice = New Zealand 2) posh English = English 3) with a "German" accent = Scottish

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  8. I think they need to work a little harder on this app

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  9. I was told Jamaican (am Scottish)

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