scottish census question -

  Quote

As part of this year's census people in Scotland will be asked to say if they can understand, speak, read and / or write Scots.

i answered yes before finding this site and listening to the different accents. i think most of this is regional dialect rather than auld rabbie burns style Scots language as such, apart from the odd word here and there. anyway, i'd be interested how much you shermans, aussies, and euros, etc manage to understand in the clips. i pretty much understood everything.

listen to different scots dialect

I'm German, English since 5th grade

• Galloway - no major problems except a few missed words here and there
  
• Borders - so-so, slightly more difficult
  
• West Central - kinda difficult
  
• East Central - easier than West, but could be due to the people
  
• Fife - no prob
  
• Angus - so-so
  
• North East - so-so
  
• Caithness - WTF? I can kinda understand it but the lady from the clip sometimes sounds like an Irishwoman with braces
  
• Orkney - the easiest of the bunch
  
• Shetland - the coolest, also very easy
  

Anyway, they're all very sexy. Unlike Irish.

My father is Scottish, and brought the rest of his immediate family out to Australia in the early 70's. I grew up hearing strong Scottish accents (from Edinburgh) and had no real trouble understanding the audio bites from that page. Some were more difficult than others but I probably have an advantage due to my upbringing.

My family tree goes pretty deep into Scotland but I've never actually been and I don't have any recent fresh off the boat progenitors. So I'm fake Scottish.

I can understand just about all of this except for that fucking Caithness lass oh god what is that?

edit: Also West Central. Whaaa

Ee burish a cornerstoon

Laid beek a chowey penny,

A gash on he's fore'ed -

Plough back too the Denny.

Hang so, leet a man stook a cranny

Bang lo, soot a lass graw a hake

(A cannae one, Crook an' simper !)

An' grew pleenty 'side 'e laek.

Yeah I know Scottish what of it...

I could understand Macca no bother. When were all sober its grand, when you bring drink in its a different scéal.

Few of my mates in college are from Donegal and Antrim, when they get drunk I can miss a word here or there.

But when they use slang, it goes over my head.

The lady from Orkney sounds a bit Welsh.

Caithness was a bit of a head fuck. Otherwise no real issues, maybe a word here or there. The Shetland dialect is lovely.

Both parents are English, my dad is from Alnwick, which is a bit north of Newcastle, so when I used to visit my grandparents up there I would always be exposed to thicker accents and dialect.

  On 4/2/2011 at 2:59 AM, xxx said:

Caithness :wtf: could just be the woman speaking though, innit? North and South dialects in America are pretty different but some folks in each case can get unintelligible.

 

I know some Scots:

 

"och, this message is for...*indistinct...helloh?...Tell you what...*indistinct*....I'm gonnae fackin' kill ya...yes?...*indistinct* over tha fackin' pho-un."

You might not get a word here or there because she uses slang. But you can pick up the meaning.

Shes shitting on about when she was at school and her teacher was some posho.

*misses ivor cutler*

I understood most of it, Caithness being the toughest, especially when she really gets in to it. I expected to not understand it all though, simply because it just seems like an entirely different language in some parts. I mean, if you wrote it down on paper, it wouldn't exactly be English, would it? Is she not using some words that are specific to Scots, or some kind of variation on Scottish Gaelic? Pretty cool, non the less. Makes me think of my great grandparents.

I might be getting this wrong, but I think Scot Gaelic is like Old Irish. Id have a hard time understanding Old Irish, some of the words might be similar to new Irish.

Caithness I mostly understood, but I couldn't decipher the colloquialism type phrases

Not too difficult. Nice accents all IMO.

  On 4/2/2011 at 2:59 AM, xxx said:

Caithness :wtf: could just be the woman speaking though, innit? North and South dialects in America are pretty different but some folks in each case can get unintelligible.

 

I know some Scots:

 

"och, this message is for...*indistinct...helloh?...Tell you what...*indistinct*....I'm gonnae fackin' kill ya...yes?...*indistinct* over tha fackin' pho-un."

is that the message i posted a while back? forgot about that. lol!

easy ;)

‘Every time I’ve had tae say “no” tae you an the weans it’s doubled me up like a kick in the stomach. Christ Almighty! A we’ve din wrong is tae be born intae poverty! Whit dae they think this kind o life dis tae a man? Whiles it turns ye intae a wild animal. Whiles ye’re a human question mark, aye askin why? Why? Why? There’s nae answer. Ye end up a bent back and a heid hanging in shame for whit ye canna help.

:spiteful:

even if it was for me, the guy probably forgot all about it when he sobered up. thankfully.

Aye the census was ne bother fur me since i grew up mostly wa the dundonian dialect, And tell you lot what why and not see if you can understand this comic strip from the sunday post newspaper