Scotland Twelve - Text
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.
Recorded by Ros Steen, February 7, 2003; and edited March 6, 2003 by Paul Meier. Running time: 00:03.37.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Beattock in Dumfries and Galloway, which is, I think about five miles from New Galloway. (Um) Then I moved to New Galloway at the age of five, I think and started going to school at Cals [sp?..] 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 south west of Scotland. There’s absolutely nothing there, there was sort of one main street. (Um) I used to live in a castle, well the castle, well the castle sidings actually, it was Cardoness castle, (um) near Lochmaben and I used to, sort of, charge around the castle grounds there and cause all sorts of mischief with the local tourists. (Um) Then I moved to Edinburgh where I went to private school Sher...? 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, (em) 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 went off to America. Flew out to San Francisco which is beautiful, gorgeous place. And then we just traveled down the east coast. It was a real journey, we went to sort of all the big sites, we saw them all, to Las Vegas and New Orleans, it was great fun, it was great.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY KARINA LEMMER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR SOUTH AFRICA, July 20, 2008