2.07.2008

Is this English?



This is what would happen if Star Trek was in Scotland. Presumably, they speak English there, and I speak English too, but I can't understand much of what they're saying. I guess what they're speaking would be called Scottish.

4 comments:

Lilly said...

OH YEAH! Same guys as the ones behind [and in] one of my ALL-TIME favourite Scottish comedy shows Chewin' The Fat. Absolutely cracking. You'll get to see plenty of neds in it too, MJ! :-D

What you hear in this clip is primarily a Glaswegian variant of the beautiful Scottish language.

Margaret Larkin said...

Thanks for that info!

Rose said...

I can mostly understand what they're saying. I think it's probably because in New Zealand I grew up with British TV programmes along with the usual US fare, so I got to hear a lot of British accents, including Scottish. In the 80s we used to watch a very popular British series called Au Wiedersehen Pet, which was often nigh to impossible to understand, with a mix of all sorts of broad UK accents.

I've noticed sometimes when watching a US programme that has British people speaking that they have been subtitled. Perhaps there has in the past been so much solely American programming on your TV channels that you haven't grown up listening to accents apart from your own cultural mix. Do you think there is more of a mix now than in the past? Did you ever see British TV series when you were young?

Margaret Larkin said...

I also watched British TV growing up, but what makes this Scottish scene difficult is the slang they use. Even when I went to Scotland, I didn't always understand what they were saying.

There have always been British shows on TV, especially PBS (public television). I've never seen subtitles for British accents, but they could be there because sometimes the speaking isn't clear. They even sometimes use subtitles for Americans who don't speak so clearly.

btw--I've never heard the word "nigh" used in that way before :D