A language learners’ forum

I have a fond memory of sitting next to an excited and very talkative six year old Scottish boy on a flight from Europe to Australia years ago. It was a totally weird experience. For about 28 hours as I sat next to him I knew he was speaking English but couldn't understand anything he was saying.

BTW: I just want to point out that the first Mad Max film with Mel Gibson was dubbed into American English when it was released into the United States in 1979. I wonder if the Americans also dubbed Canadian films during this era.

Personally I had zero trouble with the speaker in the video, but that may be the influence of register (he is speaking formal English with pretty much no lexical, syntactic or morphological differences to what I'd hear in Australia; it's entirely an issue of pronunciation). If I heard the same speaker talk to someone from the same background in a more informal setting I might begin to struggle.

Here's a transcription:

"I know from speaking to a number of parliamentary colleagues that there are still certain aspects of the Estate, including the Northern Estate, that are not great for people with disabilities. Can I ask the honourable gentleman what work is being done to make sure this place is more accessible, particularly for some of their colleagues who have a disability?

Well, very popular today. Ehm, I'm saying that a number of parliamentary colleagues who have disabilities do find it quite difficult getting around certain parts of the Estate. Given we're doing this refurbishment work, what can be done to make sure that those with a disability are able to move around more freely and [that] the place is accessible."

The problem we have when talking about Scottish English and Scots is that everybody in the conversation is talking about something different.

English exists in Scotland in a continuum with Scots, the language that evolved from Middle Northumbrian. The speaker in the video is very definitely speaking "Scottish English", i.e. high register, school influenced English with a few Scottish features. When you go to something like Trainspotting, you're hearing something that sits between Scots and English, with many linguistic features that are not present in English (if you exclude dialects from the North-East of England, i.e. the rest of the former Kingdom of Northumbria).

The question in the title says "Scottish English", so the parliamentary speaker, not Trainspotting.

I could not understand him that well. Maybe 50% comprehension on the first listen and 90% on the second listen. I'm a native English speaker (born in the U.S.). I understood bits and pieces of what he was sayiny but it was difficult. If I spent a day in Scotland I feel like my comprehension would be really good. A lot of times it just comes down to getting used to o the accent.


To be honest, it almost reminded me of when I listen to somebody speak Portuguese. There is enough similarities between Spanish and Portuguese where I can kind of make out words here and there, but in the end I'm left with a headache. Same thing happened here.

Years of South African English and watching UK and Australian/NZ sports broadcasts had prepared me for the Scottish accent

This reminds me of when Diane Kruger struggled to understand the scouse accent xD

I mostly speak "Scottish English" as described by Cainntear and like the politicians in the videos, especially if any non-Scots are around: standard English but with an accent. I can confirm that many non-Scots, native English speakers or otherwise, have considerable difficulty understanding me. As I mentioned in another recent thread, I did manage to tone down the accent a little when I started university where most people I met were from England and could barely understand me, but it's still there and still causes problems even when I try to speak as clearly as I can.

A big problem is sounds that can be quite different from in other standards of English. The /ɪ/ in particular is more open and tends to be misheard as an /ɛ/. I never learnt to pronounce it in the "normal" way and struggle to do so even if I try when repeating myself. The T as a glottal stop is another, although easier to avoid with some conscious effort, and our "dark L" is often not understood as an L by people whose native language only includes the "light" variant.

There are plenty people whose accents are obviously Scottish but are far more comprehensible, such as TV and radio presenters and even most of the Scottish side of my family (from the East coast). I however grew up in a mostly working-class area in the centre, so picked up a stronger and more mixed accent which is hard to lose. On the plus side, I can understand pretty much any accent from the country, even the infamous Glaswegian, although Doric-influenced speech from the North-East can be quite opaque.

It depends on how thick the accent is. Mostly it's fine if it's just an accent, once they veer into actual Scots the chances of losing me are higher.

I traveled to Scotland via Iceland last year. I landed in Glasgow and took the train to Edinburgh. I could understand almost everyone in Edinburgh. It's a very mild accent. I understood almost nothing in Glasgow.

At the train station, I accidentally bought a round trip ticket from a machine instead of a one-way ticket. The round-trip tickets were only for one day, so they were useless to me because I wasn't returning for a few days. I walked up to the information desk and asked the gentleman what I could do and if it were possible to get a refund or exchange my ticket for a one-way. He said something I didn't understand. I repeated my question. He may have repeated himself, or he may have said something different. He saw that I still looked lost, so he took out a prop (a 10p coin), and I eventually realized he had been saying that the difference in price wasn't but ten pence. I thanked him and went on my way.

When I got to Edinburgh, I took a taxi to the place where I was staying. I asked the driver if he took credit cards. He said something and took out the reader, so what he probably said was that yes, he did take credit cards. I paid and then got out of the cab. He said something with a polite smile and he was probably wishing me a good day, so I said "thanks, you too!" and left. I think he may have been from Glasgow.

This was a bit of a culture shock, because I had just come from Iceland where everyone spoke very clear English.

I'm hoping to spend a bit of time studying Doric Scots, and maybe that will improve my understanding of Scottish English outside of Edinburgh. Doric is spoken in the northeast, far from Glasgow, but maybe it could help.