Showing Off Scottish Pride

By C. MacDonald

The Queen Mary celebrates its festive, exciting ScotsFestival and International Highland Games in February and there are other such colorful, cultural events in California throughout the year. Covering them is fun but they do pose a challenge. I possess a most Scottish name and my ancestors were famous warriors going back in time. But what I lack most is an accent or dialect.

Being a proud Scotsman without an accent is like being a baseball player without a glove or a football athlete without strength. No matter if I'm in a Scottish kilt, complete with bagpipe and family plaid tie, without that famous traditional accent, I'm just not capturing the proper flavor of the old country.

Chatting with my fellow Scots enables me to enjoy the thick accent from the highlands and I really try hard to focus and learn the unique terms of certain sectors of Scotland. Sometimes its a real challenge to try to listen and interpret the words the Scots rattle off in a rapid, rich, brogue.

When I try to repeat my ethnic language it just doesn't sound like a true clansman. I can easily pick up other accents, such as the Southern drawl enunciated by Texans and even the cadence of a Brooklyner, but many years of California speech have left me unprepared to project an important part of my roots.

For many years, there were language schools set up to teach crash courses in French, Spanish and German, but few offered Gaelic (Scottish) and accent training.

When I was single, friends suggested either getting a Scottish accent coach or marrying a Scottish lass to learn to speak correctly. One pal said I should buy some Scottish CDs and emulate the singers or go to Scotland and hang around the pubs a few weeks. All of these kind suggestions came before public access to the Internet.

Bless the Internet. I recently discovered that wikihow.com shows how to speak in a Scottish accent, complete with illustrations. You also can find youtube videos showing Scots speaking.

I'm proud of my heritage and so are some of these Scots, who speak (or spoke) pretty clearly, without brogue, and have made quite a name for themselves: Ronald Reagan, Harry S. Truman, Donald J. Trump, Johnny Cash, Lucille Ball, Thomas Edison, Ginger Rogers, Joan Baez, Elvis Presley, Bill Gates, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Buzz Aldrin and Johnny Cash.

As my ancestors would say, Mar sin leat, feumaidh mi ruith (Goodbye, I must run).