Parliamo Glasgow

7/11/2015

It was fun reading your comments on the previous post with this title, and before I drop the subject want to share just a little more with you.

Aw rerry are ower rerr!

A family at a service station looking around for the cutlery etc. This was a father speaking to his daughter.

Oh, there they are over there!

I laughed (affectionately) for days....

The writer Jackie Kay said she knew she was home in Glasgow when the taxi driver asked her

Are you wearin' tha' ha' for a be' hen?

Are you wearing that hat for a bet, dear/love/chuck/whatever endearment applies depending where in UK you live.

Most Glaswegians of course are 'bi-lingual' ie they speak English too, so don't hesitate to visit if you get the chance! There are books (you can read quite a bit of this one online) and mugs and tea-towels and t shirts based on The Patter as it is known.

I know that Liverpool and Newcastle, and famously London's east end, have their own patter and wonder Do cities in your country have such distinct dialects?

I do love Glasgow!

16 Comments

ChompyChipmunk

7/11/2015 05:34:24 pm

Canada is in strong contrast to the UK in that there is relatively little variation among native English speakers' accents and vocabulary for a relatively small population that is spread out over a huge geographic area. A testament to the power of mobility, radio, television and other communications. There are some regional accents and word variations (particularly Newfoundland), but it is pretty standard otherwise.

When it comes to the Glasgow patter, maybe I'm missing subtleties, but a lot of my Fife relatives speak a similar dialect and use similar expressions -- the difference is in the accent -- the east coast accents are noticeably different. I can recall being picked up at the Glasgow airport one time by a second cousin whom I didn't know well. He was very nice and helpful, but I didn't understand much of what he said -- his inland FIfe accent was so thick.

Overall, though, the softer standard Scottish English accents can be among the most pleasant English-speaking accents there are, in my opinion. (Don't tell any posh Englishmen that, though!)

Freda

8/11/2015 09:10:45 am

They do say the Scots from Inverness speak the best English in uk!
The east coast accent is very 'sing-song' to my ear.

ChompyChipmunk

7/11/2015 06:03:12 pm

On the topic of accents, here's an interesting story about a Canadian woman whose accent changed from Canadian to highland Scots English accent after she fell off her horse and hit her head. It's all the more interesting that the Highland Scots accent is what came out because her name is such a common HIghland name (Sharon Campbell).

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-woman-who-hit-head-and-developed-scottish-accent-finds-therapy-in-trip-to-the-highlands

Freda

8/11/2015 09:11:16 am

That's amazing!

Swissrose link

8/11/2015 03:30:48 am

My mother writes about the Black Country (industrial West Midlands) dialect on her blog in general and more specifically in poetry at https://catterel.wordpress.com/black-country-stuff/ if you're interested!

As linguists, we're all very interested in dialect and the longer I live here in Switzerland, the more they claim me. There is a huge project online to save old dialect words from all over the country, known as the Idiotikon - not idiot but idiom!
I'd love to dip into the Scottish ones, love listening and your video links gave us a good laugh :)

Freda

8/11/2015 09:23:37 am

Thank you for the link Swissrose - there is a wealth of stuff online on the subject - some of it very funny!

julia

8/11/2015 09:20:41 am

hi freda, i live just south west of pittsburgh, pennsylvania, where the locals are renowned for their "pittsburghese"...i gather that the dialect is a result of scots-irish immigrants in the 1800's, and then add in the slavic peoples... there are some funny videos on youtube about it. here are a few examples: getting ready for christmas, you would be "redding up". if a restaurant server came to check on your table, they might ask you: yinz got everything you need? (instead of the more southern, y'all). one might say that the house needs painted. you might "aks" for help, or you might say you live in the "pixxburgh"area....:-) what surprised me when i listened to the videos, is that it all was quite understandable...i guess i have acclimatized!

Freda

8/11/2015 09:26:12 am

'You yinz' could be straight from Glasgow Julia! You will have no problem here obviously. It is fascinating..

Gareth Rae link

8/11/2015 09:56:44 am

Reading the excerpts form the book had me in fits of laughter. My mother's side of the family come from Glasgow and I've always loved the dry, down to earth imagery of the dialect.

Although a Scot myself, I live in Bristol, but my daughter studies in Glasgow and I'll never forget the taxi driver at Central Station when we took her up for Freshers' Week, commenting, as we struggled to load all her luggage in his cab, that 'ye'll be up fur th'weekend then!' If felt I'd come home.

Freda

8/11/2015 10:27:25 am

Love it! Thanks for sharing.

cath

8/11/2015 10:25:23 am

'Pet' I knew, 'hen' is new. Love it.

We have two very distinct ones, more like a language in a language if you know what I mean: the Frisian, very close to English,
and Limburgs, which is more a German like dialect. We have also what you maybe would call 'Patter': in (parts of ) bigger cities and different provinces.

Freda

8/11/2015 10:29:00 am

'Hen' is pure Glasgow! You do wonder how it all comes about, don't you?

cathy

8/11/2015 10:39:42 am

Following up on Julia's 'Pittsburghese', we also say, instead of slippery, slippy as in 'the snow's made the sidewalk slippy.' We never go down town, we go dahntahn; watteru instead of what are you and jisabaht for just about. But I think the 1 we're most well known for is 'yinz' Yinz guys know what I mean?

Freda

8/11/2015 11:00:28 am

We do! I'm beginning to think it's a bit of a miracle that we all understand each other at all! We were not allowed to use the dialect at school or at home - only out in the street with our pals...

Angela link

8/11/2015 11:07:47 pm

In Australia, we shorten almost everything. Here's a giggle-inducing video by two lads who give you an excellent example of how we talk to each other. Leo asked if I would talk to my friends like this and I agreed wholeheartedly! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yDb_WsAt_Z0
This story has been doing the rounds recently too, about the Australian vernacular being influenced by alcohol! http://mobile.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/australian-accent-moulded-by-booze-and-weve-become-inarticulate-because-of-it/story-fnu2q5nu-1227585547259
I do love language!

Freda

9/11/2015 02:07:30 pm

Oh these did make me laugh!

Parliamo Glasgow

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