To Celia and Nivard particularly: In a college English class I took from an Iranian, he emphasised that every single person on the face of the earth speaks a different dialect. Only those who are foreigners who do not speak the native tongue have an accent. Native born people in the U.K., then, speak with different dialects. Having said that, the inflection of the English tongue, plus the particular vocabulary used by those who would eschew basic English, would lead a foreigner to believe that some Glaswegians, as an example, speak a different tongue with a very strong accent. Years and years ago, when I was a child, there was a 'wee bit of a stramash' when the BBC hired Wilfred Pickles, a Yorkshireman, as their first regionally accented announcer. It was refreshing to listen to him rather than the bland 'Received Pronunciation' trained BBC voices. He would insert some Yorkshire idioms, easily understood within context. Here in the USA (but not so much in Canada), some regional dialects are very difficult to understand. As with BBC trained voices, some media announcers in the USA have voice training to present a 'blander' Mid-West type speech pattern. A person from the Deep South would have to take the edge off this dialect if he/she wanted to reach a broader audience. Me, with an unintelligible Glesga accent to most people on this side of the Atlantic, had the nerve to correct my husband's attractive-sounding Long Island, New York dialect when he would stick an 'r' at the end of idea and law, to become idear and lawr...incidentally, in some areas of England this is also an inflection. After over 60 years on this side of the world, though not Americanised, I am more readily understood, with compliments that I have a very nice 'voice!' Better that than the glazed look from those who hadn't a clue what my utterances were when I first came here. Of California's over 30 million native-born residents, there is barely a discernable difference in the speech pattern, though in the northern part of the state there are those who say warsh for wash and deesh for dish (maybe Pennsyvalnia transplants!). As noted, each person speaks with a different dialect: one of my daughters pronounces the word doll as dull. I'm Mam to her but Mom to the other. To my son, his pronunciation is somewhere in between! Glasgow people, and anyone else who has a strong regional dialect, do well communicating among their own. The difficulty lies in communicating with those not attuned to a particularly strong dialect. Two Glasgow classmates had elocution lessons, but as adults the lessons must not have 'stuck' as they still spoke like the rest of us....pure dead Glesga! Here's tae us wha's like us, dampt the yin, an' they're a' deid! Maisie From: Nivard Ovington via Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 1:18 AM To: lanark@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Lanark] Glasgow sound has stayed the same Hi Maisie When I read articles like this I do wonder if the people making them up actually set foot outside of their ivory towers, be they in Glasgow Uni or London The regional accents are alive and well as far as I can can tell Whereas in London its just a mixture of languages often foreign ones mixed with English Some people have always changed the way they speak "to get on", its just a fact of life, no matter what some may say You are clearly more likely to get on in most jobs if you speak properly Perhaps this is a slow news period and they are needing to fill column? Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 14/01/2016 00:44, Maisie Egger via wrote: > Researchers say that the Glaswegian sound has stayed the same, > > The Jan/Feb 2016 issue of The Highlander magazine is a bit more > informative than this Google link, though the research is by the same > person: > > http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/619869/Future-Scottish-accents-sounding-good > > The Highlander magazine heading: “Scottish Accents Endure While > England’s Disappear” is maybe a bit of a glittering generality as > English friends and relatives seem to have the same speech pattern as > they started out with. > > To me, the Glasgow ‘wye o’ speakin’ is ‘murder polis’ and has indeed > not changed a bit! Noted before, since coming to North American, I > have had to train myself to soften the Glasgow way of speaking as no > one could understand me, yet I did not consider myself rough spoken. > Being an office worker one had to smooth the edges off a bit when > answering the phone.