Scotland 12

Listen to Scotland 12, a 22-year-old man from New Galloway and Edinburgh, Scotland. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples.  IDEA is a free resource;  please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 22

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1980

PLACE OF BIRTH: Balmaclellan, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: N/A

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject went to a private school in Edinburgh, and this has had clear influence on his dialect, which is a recognizably Scottish accent but a light one. He was raised in New Galloway from the age of 5.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject had traveled extensively in Europe and America over a two-year period prior to the recording.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Ros Steen

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/02/2003

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Balmaclellan in Dumfries and Galloway, which is, I think about five miles from New Galloway. Um, I then moved to New Galloway at the age of 5, I think, and started going to school at Kells Primary School. There were four people in my class, um, and about thirty people in the whole school. And that was, that was for seven years till primary seven. Um, New Galloway’s sort of a small town in the southwest of Scotland. There’s absolutely nothing there; there was a sort of one main street. Um, I used to live in a castle, well, the castle steadings actually; it was Kenmure Castle, um, near Loch Ken, and I used to, sort of, charge around the castle grounds there and cause all sorts of mischief with the local tourists.

Um, I then moved to Edinburgh, where I went to, uh, private school [unclear] School and was there till the end of, till the end of sixth year. Um, where I took two years out, um, went traveling, took bits and pieces, worked in, worked in a couple of restaurants and bars, such like. And then I came to Glasgow … Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, um, met sort of, worked in various schools and helped to build things. It was great; that was good fun. And then myself and three mates, um — God knows how we did it — we went off to Saint Petersburg and got up to lots of mischief there. And went off to Helsinki, and then we flew back, and we all spent about six months working, and then myself and one of my friends: We went off to America. Flew out to San Francisco, uh, which is beautiful, gorgeous place. And then we just traveled down, down the West Coast, all the way down to Mexico and then back up to the East Coast. It was a real journey; we went to all, all the big sights. We saw them all, to Las Vegas and New Orleans. It was great fun; it was great.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Karina Lemmer

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/07/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Although this speaker was brought up in the Borders, there is little trace of it in his speech, which is more influenced by his private schooling in Edinburgh. It is a recognizably Scottish accent but a light one; some might regard it as slightly “posh.” It would be useful in these contexts. One key characteristic is the presence of a soft /r/ rather than a more muscular tapped or rolled one.

COMMENTARY BY: Ros Steen

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/02/2003

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.