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Maurice Hoey
Born: 5 August 1984
Lives: Dunfermline, Fife
Time lived in area: All my life
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Maurice, playing in a seven-asides match, remembers 'skelping' a goalpost after he let a goal through that he wanted to save.
Language of interview: Scots
Duration: 0:20 (mins/secs)
The participants were asked to describe how they spoke in their own words.
How do you describe your accent: Not Given
Have there been other influences on the way you speak: Not Given
Do you have skills in languages other than English?: No
Other languages: None
MAURICE: No that long ago a wis playin' seven asides, in a wis playin' in goals, in a wis really infuriaed cos ahd let this goal in at a shudna ave an a just wanted tae hit sumhin eh, an the nearest thing wis this goalpost, so a just turned roond an skelped it wi ma fist, in and no joke I think I broke ma knuckle in two places or sumhin like, it wis sair but a didna feel it until a got hame an a took ma glove off n ma knuckle was away oot here.
Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes
An extremely subtle difference between various dialects across the UK is the way in which negative constructions are formed in speech. For many speakers in Scotland, the preferred negative particle is nae which can be attached more simply to most verbs than its Standard English counterpart, not, which is abbreviated in a variety of ways in different dialects. Listen to the way Maurice says should nae and did nae rather than shouldn't and didn't in the statements I'd let this goal in that I should nae have and I did nae feel it till I got hame. Interestingly he also uses another Scottish alternative negative particle, no, in the statement no that long ago, which would probably be rendered not that long ago in Standard English.
There are also a number of aspects of Maurice's speech that identify him as coming from this part of Scotland. Listen carefully to the way he pronounces the vowel sounds in words in the following four sets; ago, goals, goalposts and broke; playing, infuriated, places and away; hit and fist and round and out. More specifically, listen to his intriguing pronunciation of the word sore in the statement it was sore, but I did nae feel it till I got hame. An alternative interpretation would be to identify this with the Scots dialect word sair, rather than simply a matter of pronunciation. The Scots word mair, pronounced to rhyme with sair and equivalent to Standard English more, would fall into the same category and illustrates how difficult it is to decide whether a certain form is illustrative of variety in terms of dialect vocabulary or pronunciation. This is particularly true in Scotland, where an alternative linguistic system, Scots, exists alongside a prestige variety, Standard Scottish English spoken with a local accent and individual speakers tend to drift between these two competing forms depending on context.
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