View Full Version : Caithness accent
coppertop 1958
05-Oct-09, 11:34
Caithness accent
do you talk in a Caithness accent
http://www.caithness.org/dialect/index.htm
just to let you know this is a open poll any one can see whats your poll results are
Invisible
05-Oct-09, 11:42
I use proper dialect sometimes but thats only when the person im speaking to is from Caithness. Down in Glasgow, I asked someone what the crack and he said "sorry not my thing"
although i do say whiest an awful lot
I do, but i try not to, it's a terrible accent, and everytime i hear a Caithnesian on the Tv, i cringe with embarrasment, we just sound like a bunch of inbred yokels.
we just sound like a bunch of inbred yokels.
No point in shying away from what we are ;)
Losh yes ! I choost luv id.
Fit else wad ye do fan yur fae e' pleice?
Trinkie
Depends on the situation! Have been away for almost 30 years now:eek:
If I'm speaking on the phone and it business, then no.
If I'm speaking to friends and family then yes.
If I'm blootered, definately...[lol]
As a Yank who visits Caithness from time to time, let me just say that I love hearing the accent. It is, by some measure, a beautiful set of inflections upon english and it makes me smile to hear it spoken.
Bruce H
~~Tides~~
05-Oct-09, 16:31
Only when gettin e crack way some mad culls.
The Pepsi Challenge
05-Oct-09, 17:09
Careful what you say lassagies and biygees. Anything so much as remotely picking on the Caithness accent will only serve to get John Cairns from Caithness Arts denouncing you all as an insult to the county, its culture and its heritage in the local rag. Boo! Hiss! :)
Anyone speak Gaelic with a Caithness twang?
Having worked in call centres for years, then moving to Glasgow, my accent has calmed down a lot.. though i sstill get the mickey taken out of me all the time at work for the way say certain words.. like Friday.
saying that, if ive been on the drams, my accent seems to get stronger again!
redeyedtreefrog
05-Oct-09, 18:58
Just a it, but I'm trying to get rid of it. I try to say Fri-day instead of fruy-day, etc..
coppertop 1958
05-Oct-09, 19:13
Anyone speak Gaelic with a Caithness twang?
LIKE IT ....... i not came over any in my time but be good to hear eh ......
George Brims
05-Oct-09, 19:40
I've had to drop the accent due to moving about a bit. First week in Edinburgh at University I was in accommodation with a bunch of guys from Fife and Dundee. It took about that first week for any of us to understand each other.
When I lived in Hawaii in the 1980s, it was interesting to see how the kids would speak the local "pidgin", a blend of English with Hawaiian, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese words when out playing, but switch to "proper" English when talking to the teacher. Just like Caithness!
Now I live in California I have little trace of Caithness left, though my wife will notice it creep back in when talking to someone back home on the phone (same with her Inverness accent).
A couple of years ago I heard a bloke called Garry Anderson, an engineer in F1, talking on the radio to a driver. He's an Ulsterman, and he sounds exactly like me!
Um speak with forked tongue.
changilass
05-Oct-09, 20:52
It all depends on who I am talking to and how many Voddies and Tigers I have had.:lol:
Hubby does say that I am the only person he knows who can change accents with every single word in a sentence.:eek:
ShelleyCowie
05-Oct-09, 21:12
My accent changes quite often, i catch on to accents fast. :eek: My auntie lived in orkney and at Army Cadet Camp Caithness and Orkney stuck together alot so i can catch on to that accent fast, when im in Skye well.....i catch on to that too. Then when my OH's parents are up visiting from Inverness i get that accent too! Im terrible.
And its a completely different language never mind accent when im drunk! [lol]
Don't really have a caithness accent at all. Think i may have it slightly but atm it is mixed with a inverness accent. Finding i'm saying things like my inverness workmates now and i have had a few people I know in thurso say i sound different now. I like to think i have a scottish accent and say alot of scottish words like wee etc instead of the proper english word.
I have relatives in orkney and quite easily go into a orkadian accent when over there and takes a week to switch it off when i'm home again. :lol:
scotsannie
05-Oct-09, 22:17
HI:lol:
Having just come back from being "Up Home" I miss the accent, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, how anyone can say it is embarrassing, I just don't understand.Where I live it used to be nice Lancashire Accents but there are so many incomers from "Manchester" when you are out and about and you hear the way people speak, I can't wait to get back to Thurso.:lol:
I now believe that the local accent to caithness originates south of the border...
I used to be very broad spoken and fast fast fast, but in college I had it chased out of me by tutors as they said I could not possibly look after children if I didn't speak proper english :eek:
Kevin Milkins
05-Oct-09, 23:07
I use proper dialect sometimes but thats only when the person im speaking to is from Caithness. Down in Glasgow, I asked someone what the crack and he said "sorry not my thing"
although i do say whiest an awful lot
When I first came to Wick , the ice cream man ask me, "whats e crack en"? and then spent a further ten minutes explaining what he meant. Although I now understand most of the local dialect (thanks to Trix's posts) I sort of got the impression that he wished he hadn't asked.
Whitewater
05-Oct-09, 23:18
I guess I must talk in a Caithness accent, being born and brought up in Thurso, then getting married and moving to Wick. As far as I'm aware I talk the same way as I always talked. When I lived in Australia a lot of people used to mistake my accent for Northern Irish.
I would have voted "not at all" to this but after talking to a friend and some of the words I see used in here. I guess some of the dialect traveled down to Glasgow with my family and is still being passed on.
I'll find out soon enough when I get up there next week whoo hooo :lol:
dietcokegirl
06-Oct-09, 09:48
I do, I've lived in a few different places over the years but my accent never seems to change.
ragdollyanna
06-Oct-09, 11:06
I didna think I hed a Caithness accent, till I went abroad till teach English. There are now hoards of Italians going round saying "fufteen" asking for "a pint of mulk".:cool:
I do, but i try not to, it's a terrible accent, and everytime i hear a Caithnesian on the Tv, i cringe with embarrasment, we just sound like a bunch of inbred yokels.
This. Although I don't agree that it's a terrible accent, we do sound like the Cleetus' of Scotland.
http://premium1.uploadit.org/Tru2004//cleetus.jpg
spaceddaisy
06-Oct-09, 12:23
I've just moved to Caithness and am originally from Lanarkshire. I love the accent up here, it's really lovely to hear though it took me a wee while to work it out.
I've done my best to lose my Lanarkshire accent because I dislike it so much- it sounds common and uneducated. I've succeeded to some extent, people can work out I'm from the West central area but can't usually place the accent itself.
i use loads of caithness words but in a southern accent .. it sounds really funny!
people will ask me where im from, and sometimes for the cheek (exspecially when their strangers of caithness themselves) ill say, that i was born and bred in wick!
I now believe that the local accent to caithness originates south of the border...
Definitely. Not often do I go to Tescos or Co op or wherever but honestly all English and foreign accents doing there weekly shop, behind the tills and everywhere so hold on to the accent as it is certainly dying out. Even the kent faces are all gone......What is happening to good old Caithness??? Still all locals at my work with Caithness accents but we are all old so what will the new employees bring when we all retire..................:lol:
The Pepsi Challenge
07-Oct-09, 04:46
Well, if we let it decay a bit further, it'll mean we can cadge no end of funding and grants awards in the future. Might even get our own Caithness TV channel, too. Works for the Gaels.
Speaking of TV shows - and, in particular soap operas that bestow regional accents - it would be great to have a Caithness TV soap opera. It should be called Culls. Or maybe Fisherbiggins. Or maybe Springparkers. Or perhaps Holburn Avenue. Or mayb...
The Pepsi Challenge
07-Oct-09, 13:47
Caithness accent
do you talk in a Caithness accent
http://www.caithness.org/dialect/index.htm
just to let you know this is a open poll any one can see whats your poll results are
I guess I still do, but it all depends when and where am speaking. Personally, I feel pronunciations and dialects, which developed and survived because of populations being isolated, are dying out because modern communications have removed the isolation.
ŠAmethyst
07-Oct-09, 13:49
I only have a local accent when I'm drunk now :(
I spent the last 3 years living in Ross-shire and working in Inverness. So sadly I think I've picked up a mixture of those accents.
I remember one night at a bar years ago down in Inverness, had a couple of drinks in me and suddenly my friends went from being able to understand me to not being able to. So I have been avoiding having much to drink (the odd wine now and then though).
Now I'm back in Thurso I hope to regain my accent!
oldmarine
07-Oct-09, 14:21
I guess I was not in Thurso long enough time to pick up a Caithness accent.
Amy-Winehouse
08-Oct-09, 14:00
I speak in full twang wherever I go, it gets a bit frustrating when you have to repeat everything a 4 or 5 times to an Aberdonian but a Nigerian can understand you perfectly well:confused Folk from the North East seem to think they speak the most perfect accent ever?? Especially those from the Broch.
Our local accent is bad though, anytime I hear a Wicker on telly I listen to see if theyre trying to be posh or if theyll speak the way the way that is classed as normal. Then again why should we adapt for everyone elses benefit when they dont do it for us?
Tom Cornwall
08-Oct-09, 14:08
I do, but i try not to, it's a terrible accent, and everytime i hear a Caithnesian on the Tv, i cringe with embarrasment, we just sound like a bunch of inbred yokels.
Have you been down my neck of the woods lately:)
Amy-Winehouse
08-Oct-09, 14:25
Have you been down my neck of the woods lately:)
Aye carrot munchers have an accent all of their own,
Kevin Milkins
08-Oct-09, 14:50
Have you been down my neck of the woods lately:)
It's not the accent that troubles me in Norfolk, but the web feet.:eek:;)
The Pepsi Challenge
08-Oct-09, 16:17
It's not the accent that troubles me in Norfolk, but the web feet.:eek:;)
Oh, the ironing.
Only sometimes, if I'm arguing with someone then all the Caithness slang and words come out LOL.
I definitely don't spell or type that way though, I can't stand when I talk to someone in a forum and they type using the Caithness slang.
But even worse than that is when a snob comes up here and tries to pass comment on my accent - they need to recognise what part of the world they are in and that I'm not going to put on a posh accent for nobody.
The Pepsi Challenge
08-Oct-09, 16:30
Only sometimes, if I'm arguing with someone then all the Caithness slang and words come out LOL.
I definitely don't spell or type that way though, I can't stand when I talk to someone in a forum and they type using the Caithness slang.
But even worse than that is when a snob comes up here and tries to pass comment on my accent - they need to recognise what part of the world they are in and that I'm not going to put on a posh accent for nobody.
(You are) "An insult to Caithness, its dialect, culture and its identity" - John Cairns
I totally agree with you, though.
madmissus
08-Oct-09, 23:07
You might not believe it but when I went to work in london first of all I had 2 guys arguing as to where I came from, one said belfast, one said glasgow, and up to then I had never been out of Thurso, what a laugh I had!!:Razz
Amy-Winehouse
09-Oct-09, 18:00
You might not believe it but when I went to work in london first of all I had 2 guys arguing as to where I came from, one said belfast, one said glasgow, and up to then I had never been out of Thurso, what a laugh I had!!:Razz
#I would believe it, we used to get it every time we went to Ibrox- which part of Ulster were we from? Everytime
Kevin Milkins
09-Oct-09, 18:44
My accent changes quite often, i catch on to accents fast. :eek: My auntie lived in orkney and at Army Cadet Camp Caithness and Orkney stuck together alot so i can catch on to that accent fast, when im in Skye well.....i catch on to that too. Then when my OH's parents are up visiting from Inverness i get that accent too! Im terrible.
And its a completely different language never mind accent when im drunk! [lol]
Have you ever been to Rome? ;)
i think our accent is quite nice. i live down in edinburgh just now and most people like the way i speak cause its softer than a lot of edinburgh accents.
although they do laugh at me a lot. the a is pronounced quite differently down there so they make fun when i say words like card or carrots. they think it sounds like im saying cord and corrots and often have to ask me what im on about!
i spent ages one day asking where carrie was and all i got back was 'who the hell is corrie?!'
morvenview
09-Oct-09, 21:08
If ur fay edinburgh e spek edinburgh if ur fay glesgow e spek glesgow if ur fay caithness an e dina spek caithness then e must b an in comer!!!!
Hids no at difficult e surely spek way e accent e wiz born way! Am choost a bak e dicker mind e!
highlander
09-Oct-09, 21:37
Im proud to be caithnessian, i talk the talk and i am not ashamed to speak the lingo, as they say thurso has become so cosmopolitan, folk in the future wont know how a caithnessian really sounded like. I remember going to the doctors and said "my bowg has been really sore" Dr Burnie, looked at me as if i had grown two heads, and said in a loud voice PARDON? so i repeated it, my BOWG is sore, then remembered he was not from caithness, we both could not talk for a few minutes for laughing lol
Margaret M.
10-Oct-09, 21:02
I've lived in the U.S. much longer than I lived in Caithness. When I first left Caithness, I had to make an effort to pronounce words properly -- either that or repeat everything I said several times before being understood. Now when I come home, some think I have an American accent with some Caithness words, hoose, oot, etc. Yet when I meet people here for the first time, they usually ask me if I'm from Scotland or Ireland.
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