A reader emailed me this and wondered if I could understand it.
(Warning: it uses the word which manages to cross most language/accent barriers).
I dinnae have a problem and could understand every worrrrd he said.
My father was a Scot and while my friends all told me he had a really strong accent I couldn’t hear it.
But when we went to Scotland I had no trouble understanding the locals and often had to translate for my farmer.
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When mrs pdm and I mad our first visit to Scotland in 1977 initally we stayed in Glasgow with my Uncle (by marriage) – my fathers sister having died about 6 months before we got there. He was an Aberdonian and we had great difficulty understanding him.
The plan was for us to travel to the Isle Of Lewis where my father came from and where his brother and family still lived. Because we had the difficulty understanding my Aberdonian Uncle mrs pdm refused to go as she thought she wouldn’t be able to understand a word they said on Lewis – so she went to my cousins in Dunblane.
Imagine my surprise when our eldest daughter and I got there to find they spoke with a dialect very similar to ours. I persuaded mrs pdm to come up and we had a great 10 days or so with them. The only time we struggled was when they occasionally lapsed into Gaelic.
Hah – difficult but with the repetition intelligible. Isn’t language fun and aren’t human beings wonderful
Try this – rapid Rusyn a language or a dialect? spoken by virtually nobody – pleasing to the ear though