How does one learn a Scottish accent?

[haiiro]

C'mon, you're all forgetting So I Married an Axe Murderer -- Mike Myers as the dad is priceless. It'll bone you right up on your over-the-top Scottish accent.

 

[jaerdaph]

"Captain, the engines can't take much more of this!" - Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott, Star Trek: TOS

 

[Aeric]

I often wonder where the concept of dwarves having Scottish accents came from. It would seem to me that, if anything, dwarves would have Norweigian accents.

The last thing anyone wants to see is a dwarf in a kilt.

 

[Turjan]

The last thing anyone wants to see is a dwarf in a kilt.

At least, the kilt hangs low enough so that nobody can look under it. On the other hand, this would make distinguishing female from male dwarves less troublesome .

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The cliche Dwarf speaks with a Scottish accent, right? (Or is it Irish?) I was hoping to get some good tips on how to learn said accent for roleplaying and perhaps annoying the heck out of my group . Although personally I think it sounds very cool whenever I hear it, I'm not sure how my friends feel on the issue .

Get a Billy Connolly CD (he's a very funny comedian) and listen to it over and over. Considering the guy is that funny, it should not be too difficult. You'll be talking like a Dwarf in no time - and your Dwarf will have a few jokes to tell as well.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Doug McCrae]

C'mon, you're all forgetting So I Married an Axe Murderer -- Mike Myers as the dad is priceless. It'll bone you right up on your over-the-top Scottish accent.

For an even more over the top Mike Myers Scottish accent check out Fat B-stard from the 2nd Austen Powers movie.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't know if written accents are helpful to you, personally I find I get a lot out of them. If so you could have a look at Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Both the swanmay, Alianora, and the dwarf, Hugi, speak in Scots.

Also the following links might be useful:
http://www.ngaiopress.com/glossary.htm
http://www.clanshop.co.uk/docs/dialect.html
http://www.contemporarypottery.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/59
http://www.dintur.net/cgi-bin/stafett.pl?story=62
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Heritage/FSCNS/Scots_NS/Clans/MacRae/Tales_Tom_McRae/Hughie_Greta.html


I found most of them by searching for the phrase "dinnae fash yersel" which is highly Scottish. Though not quite as Scottish as "Thair's a moose loose aboot this hoose!"

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

For an even more over the top Mike Myers Scottish accent...

What, no votes for Shrek?

I'd watch that 50 times before I'd watch Trainspotting again.


Wulf

 

[Psion]

My vote: The old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Yosemite Sam stars as a Scottsman, and Bugs is looking for the Labrrrrrrrrrrrae Tar pits!

 

[Mark]

Here in Toronto there is a great bookstore called Theatre Books (I think...) and last time I checked, they sold tapes/CDs to teach accents to actors. Maybe there is a similar bookstore where you live?

These "Acting with an Accent" products by David Stern work well and I've picked up a few different accents and dialects for stage work with them. This one is for Sottish. It's worth mentioning that simply doing an accent for comic affect doesn't have legs without the proper material, and it's actually the material that gets the laughs in the long run. You're better off not going "over the top", but rather doing it subtly and well (almost as a afterthought). Pushing to do the biggest scenery-chewing accents with nothing to say or worthy of attention will more likely bring a game to a screeching halt.

I know one DM who does one (count it, one) squeaky voice and it became very tiresome when that same voice was used for each session but for different characters; One time it was for a small child, then for an imp, another time for an old woman. It wasn't inappropriate for any of the individual times he did use it, but it got to the point where myself and others were wondering what type of appropriate character would be shoehorned into a given session's events so he could break it out. It got distracting, to say the least.

I do a lot of accents, dialects, and impressions but break them out very, very sparingly so that they don't overwhelm or detract from the meat of the game. I won't use any particular accent or dialect for a given race or region (as a general rule), but rather just use them very lightly to denote when a particular character should stand out as interesting or noteworthy...but foreign (in some way). If you do them subtly enough, they are almost imperceptible, and undefinable, but will help to clue in your players that something is up or askew.

Sometimes I'll utilize the impressions for comic affect (about the only time to use them without plunging the game into a stand up act) but I try to make it otherwise of importance to the game, as well. I had one group who always used a particular city gate because the two guards (as Stalone and Schwarzenegger) who worked "the swing shift" always gossiped about the people who had passed through earlier in the day...if you got them talking about it. The image of those two gossiping, with their voices but in the style of a couple of elderly women, just cracked me up, but was also a good vehicle to pass along information to the players. They might be arguing about the clothing of someone while unwittingly giving out information about who it was, where they were from, what they had in their cart, etc. (Stalone - "What a shabby cloak he wore!"/Schwarzenegger - "Yes! He was dressed like a refuge from Somethingland, with no pride whatsoever!"/Stalone - "I'll doubt they'll allow him to stay at the Local Arms Hotel no matter how much of his gold he breaks out of those chests!"), Part of the fun was that I definitely never named them Stalone or Schwarzenegger, and I even denied I was doing impressions of them, though, of course, everyone knew exactly what I was doing.

Anyway, that's some of my thinking regarding unusual voices and their use in roleplying games, for whatever it is worth...