The Golden Age ay Scottish

As I watched the episode “The Guid Scots Tongue”, I was impressed with the fact that Scottish, being one of the oldest tongues in Britain with the Anglo Saxon tribes, might have become a language of its own. The video is introduced with a news broadcaster who blabbers away in what seems to be our English, yet with a slight twist in accent. It sounded like she had swallowed pepper as was struggling in every word to just spit it out, taking advantage of the r’s to breakthrough a sweat. There were clear subtitles at the bottom, but it was almost as if she was talking in Gibberish the whole time. I did a little research and with the help of the narrator I was able to make out these words with their corresponding translations:

“Ken”                                                NO

“Bide”                                               Stay

“Wee”                                               Small

“Gang”                                              Go

Thanks to our reading of The Stories of English, I was able to connect Scotland’s Golden Age with “received pronunciation”. During this era Scottish was the main tongue of the kings, queens, and aristocrats in the country. Not only was it considered prestigious, but the people started to imitate the upper class just like we learned with Received Pronunciation. This is how the idiom quickly became popular amongst the lower and middle classes of Scotland. This I would consider to be a sociological explanation for a linguistic phenomenon that even today is used in the northern part of the country. 

Personally I find the Scottish accent rather disturbing, but this is just me being intolerant of change. Anyhow I found a cool video from actor and voice coach Garreth Jameson. If you are intrested in learing how to imitate a Scottish accent well the be my guest and enjoy the video!

“The Guid Scots Tongue.” The Story of English: First Season. Writ. Robert MacNeil,Robert MacCrum and William Cran. Dir. William Cran.BBC, 1986. DVD.