Scottish Voice Over Recordings

Everything you never needed to know about speaking Scottish accent

The Scottish accent
The Scottish accent is a mixture of Gaelic and Scots with a dash of English. Accents aren’t the same in the Scottish highlands than in the lowlands. So, wherever you go i9n Scotland people will sound different.

Don’t expect the same Pronunciation
Pronunciation in Scottish English isn’t quite the same as English, they have some very distinct pronunciation rules, and they also use different words like wee meaning small and bairn meaning child.

Don’t be the black sheep
Some farmers in the north of Scotland think it is unlucky to have a black faced sheep. They say it brings bad luck to the flock and it is where the expression ‘black sheep of the family’ comes from meaning someone who has brought shame to the family name.

Haggis
While your visiting Scotland you’ll see Haggis on some restaurant menus. Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made from offal, suet, oatmeal, and seasoning which is then boiled inside a sheep’s stomach. It is served with mashed potatoes and mashed swede.

Enjoy your Neeps and taties
Burns night is celebrated on the 25th January to pay tribute to Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The celebration was thought to have started over 200 years ago when friends of Burns decided to raise a toast to their dead friend. On Burns night it is traditional to eat Haggis with Neeps, which is swede and taties, potatoes. Afterwards you should be ready to enjoy a good Scottish whisky.

Highland Dress
The kilt is a skirt worn by Scottish men who are wearing traditional Highland dress. You might see them at weddings, military tattoos and highland events. In England King Charles II always wears a kilt when he visits Balmoral. Each kilt is made of material that has been coloured and designed to represent the surname (or clan) of a Scottish family. Traditional kilts represent families like The Campbells, McDougall’s, and the Stewarts.

Fancy a climb
If you’re a mountain climber and you’re visiting Scotland then you won’t be able to resist Ben Nevis. Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in Great Britain. At it’s peak it is 4,411 feet high (1,345 metres) above sea level. The mountain is located at the end of the Grampian Mountains in the Highlands. It is close to Lochaber near the town of Fort William.

Playing woodwind instruments
The Scots are famous for playing the bagpipes. The bagpipe is a woodwind instrument and consists of a bag, a blowpipe, a chanter which is played with two hands to give the melody and one or two drones which give it its distinctive sound. Although bagpipes are played in other parts of the world, the Scottish tradition of playing this instrument remains the most well-known.

Scotland has volcanoes
Scotland has various extinct volcanoes including that at Arthur’s Seat. Arthur’s seat is located in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh at the end of the Royal Mile. The volcano last erupted some 350 million years ago. Today the volcano is popular with hikers of all levels. The most popular route takes between 30 and 60 minutes to climb. You are then rewarded with spectacular views over Edinburgh.

A wee dram
If you ask for a dram in Scotland you’ll be given a glass of whisky. A dram isn’t an official measure, it is said to be the amount of the liquid you can drink in one swallow. Single malt whisky is distilled in more than 131 distilleries in Scotland and they produce over 400,950,00 litres. The best selling Scotch Whisky is Johnnie Walker.

Origins of the Scottish language and accent

Many people think that Scots is merely a dialect of English, but others believe that Scots is a language of its own and that the Scots we hear today is Scottish Standard English.

Scots came from the Angles, who came to Scotland in 600AD. By the 7th century Scotland’s people were speaking Northumbrian Old English, Celtic and the Pictish language. However Gaelic speakers began to settle in the west and the east of Scotland and within a few hundred years it had spread southwards to the lowlands and parts of Northumberland then became Scottish.

At the beginning of the 11th century, many Scottish people spoke Gaelic, apart from the settlers in the far north who were influenced by Viking invaders and spoke Old Norse. By the 14th century most people living in the eastern side of Scotland were speaking English.

The Scottish language by this time had influences from Norse, German, Latin and French due to alliances and trade. Scottish was spoken mainly in the highlands and in the lowland areas of Carrick and Galloway.

The Middle Scots period began in the 16th century when the language was differentiated from English by calling it Scots-Gaelic or Scottish English. Many Scottish speakers moved across the sea to settle in Ulster in Northern Ireland and the dialect there became known as Ulster-Scots.

Slowly Scottish people began to speak more in English, which led to the creation of Scottish-English, although they retained their distinctive accents.