Why are Dwarves Scottish?

[fusangite]

I was wondering about this last night. From Jackson's version of LOTR to the Order of the Stick and everything in between, Dwarves are Scottish. The stereotypical Dwarf speaks with a Glaswegian accent.

I've been in a lot of campaigns with dwarves and this has never been the case. Deep voice, yes. Scottish accent, no.

He drinks, a lot, and headbutts people. Sometimes Dwarves are portrayed as sort of Nordic or Viking,

This is more what I'm used to, and Stafford dwarves with their mechanistic worldview.

but most of the time, especially in comic fantasy, Dwarves are always Scottish. Here's my question. Why?

I don't think it was really around before the Jackson films, actually.

 

[Zander]

Poul Anderson had a dwarf (probably more of a gnome in D&D terms) in Three Hearts and Three Lions with a Scottish accent so strong (written phonetically) I had to read it aloud to understand what he was saying most of the time. A lot of other D&D conventions come from this book, so why not Scottish dwarves.

Although the character is described as a "dwarf" in 3H3L, I agree with you that he's much closer to a (1E) gnome. So although he did have an accent, he isn't really the basis for dwarves in D&D.

It's been a while since I read 3H3L, but I imagined the gnome as having a West Country, e.g. Cornish, accent. I don't know if that was Anderson's intention.

 

[MonsterMash]

Of course you could try making Dwarves ulster-scots (Northern Irish) - [ian paisley voice] "Khaz'ad-dun says NO!"

Gnomes I could make more irish or welsh, not sure that I've heard the cornish accent enough to try it, but my Dwarves are resolutely staying yorkshiremen, tha knows.

What accent do Orcs have in most peoples games? In the LotR they are portrayed as being working class with their slang and I suspect bad cockney accents abound for them.

 

[Zander]

Not only have I wondered why dwarves have a scottish accent also, but I've also wondered why my fellow americans think using bad scottish/english/irish accents means they are roleplaying their fantasy character more like a fantasy character.

Probably because they think that it sounds more Old Worldy.

With that logic, do Europeans roleplay their D&D characters with American accents so they can get more into the role?

No. Probably because European accents sound more Old Wordy to us too and because Europeans can't do US accents anymore than Americans can do European ones.

 

[Zander]

I remember Roger Moore (the American one who writes D&D stuff, not the British one who played James Bond) said he thought dwarves had many stereotypically Jewish characteristics (which he said was OK to say, since he's Jewish; in America, that makes it automatically OK to talk about otherwise hands-off topics) -- like being in exile (at least in Middle Earth) and dealing in gold.

This is an idea inspired by Tolkien. JRRT liked to blend real world cultures to create his fantasy ones. It seems that Tolkien's dwarves are a mix of Nordic and Jewish influences. Tolkien actually said that in terms of their alienation/migration, he thought of dwarves as Jews.

There also seem to be grammatical similarities between the dwarven language and Hebrew. Tolkien, a philologist, derived the concept of some of his fantasy races from real world languages. So this linguistic link is particularly significant.

 

[Reynard]

What accent do Orcs have in most peoples games? In the LotR they are portrayed as being working class with their slang and I suspect bad cockney accents abound for them.

Orcs can talk?

 

[Gez]

I was wondering about this last night. From Jackson's version of LOTR to the Order of the Stick and everything in between, Dwarves are Scottish. The stereotypical Dwarf speaks with a Glaswegian accent. He drinks, a lot, and headbutts people. Sometimes Dwarves are portrayed as sort of Nordic or Viking, but most of the time, especially in comic fantasy, Dwarves are always Scottish.

Well, mine are rather a weird mix between celts, saxons, and russians.

 

[diaglo]

What accent do Orcs have in most peoples games?

French. very much french.

 

[StupidSmurf]

As a rule, I don't do ethnic accents, but here's my breakdown of how I roleplay each speech, for what it's worth:

Gnomes: Speaking rapidly, with a nasal accent. Lots of run-on sentences, jumping from topic to topic like a squirrel on crack. Tangent city, man...

Dwarves: Gruff, short sentences. Blunt, to the point, gravelly sort of voice. Stays on topic, shoots from the hip. Works from the starting assumption that everyone else has no idea what they're talking about.

Elves: Flowery sort of speech, few contractions if any. Evasive (keeping in mind the old Tolkein adage, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Never ask an elf, for he will say yes and no"), lilting speech.

Orcs: Gutteral, pronoun-challenged. As painful to say as it is to hear.

Halflings: Haven't used them very much, but they sound "normal," with perhaps just a bit of high-pitched tone. Polite, yet circumspect.

 

[Shadowslayer]

My PC dwarf (in somebody else's campaign) supposedly has a Canadian accent,

Heh, that I'd love to see.

The sneering, fire bearded dwarf marches up to you, plants the top of his axe on the ground between his feet, leans on the handle with his chin (Ken Dryden style)

and says "Howz she goin' eh?"