The Sunday
Times, Ecosse section, 18th October 2009
extract from
IS GLASWEGIAN LOST IN TRANSLATION?
by Marc Horne and Stuart MacDonald
Is the dialect really so difficult to decode? Why does it continue to bamboozle most of those born outside Scotland’s biggest city? And what is it about the Glesgae patter that has made it endure when so many other regional dialects have succumbed to the influence of the estuary English and American accents ubiquitous on television and in films? Janey Godley, the award-winning comedian, is characteristically frank about the problems that come with speaking like an extra from River City rather than a BBC executive at White City. “I would love to say that people in my beautiful, cosmopolitan home city speak as clear as a bell but they don’t,” she says. “The accent is incredibly difficult, it’s very exclusive and not everybody gets it.” |
Godley admits that she had to tone down her east-end accent to make herself understood on the international comedy circuit. A similar approach is apparent in the routines of Billy Connolly, whose accent has mellowed over the years. “I quickly learned to speak clearly,” she says. “I am proud of where I came from and under no circumstance did I change my accent to hide that — I changed it so people in New York and New Zealand could understand me.” The comic, who performed to sell-out crowds and rave reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, said Glaswegians routinely face the sorts of snide comments that would be considered unacceptable if they were directed against other groups in society. She recalls how the late writer Clement Freud sneeringly demanded a translator after she appeared alongside him on Radio 4. |