Learn about the SCOTTISH accent, dialect, and slang!

I'm fed up with doing these disclaimers, so I'm just going to do it in Scottish, alright?

Hello, everybody, welcome to me Scottish lesson.

In today's lesson, I'm going to teach you the Scots tongue, and if you follow me, you'll

be able to speak and understand Scottish.

Let's begin with some Scottish-isms.

Now, I donne think that people in Scotland see this every day.

A Scottish-ism is a phrase that brings to life the Scottish - the Scottish dialect,

but people don't say it.

Here we go.

It's a braw, cricht, moonliche nicht.

Can you say that with me this time?

It's a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht.

And the second one here: There's a moose loose aboot this hoose.

Say it with me: There's a moose losse aboot this hoose.

Okay, so in Scotland, we have - we speak the same language, which is English, but up in

Scotland, we could say they have their own dialect, where they have some different words

that we don't use in English English down in England.

So, if you ever went to Scotland and you hadn't been there before, at first you might find

the accent hard to understand and there might be a lot of vocabulary that you've never heard

before, so let's have a look at some common Scottish words and Scottish dialect.

We'll start with the words for people.

We call Scottish people "Scots".

He's a Scot.

Or, if there's more than one, they're Scots.

And we describe things that are Scottish as "Scots".

I'm wearing a Scots hat today for my lesson to teach you.

The Scots call the English "Sassenach".

I'm a Sassenach trying to speak Scottish in my lesson today.

In Scotland, a way you can say "boy" or "girl" or perhaps more like "lady" and "man", young,

you say "lassie" or "laddie".

Lassie is for a woman and laddie is for a man.

Lassie, Laddie.

A "mon" is a man, a "bairn" is a child and something to point out here, in Scottish,

they roll their "r"s, and I cannot do that because I'm from the South.

I wish I could do it.

So, Scottish "r" is - if you can do it, do it for me - rrrrr, can't do it.

So, when a Scottish person says the letter "r", you really hear it and it stands out

in the word.

We also, in Scotland, for a little child or a little one, they would say "Wee'un".

Ah, what a dear wee'un!

"Wee" means little and "'un" means "one" here.

Wee'un.

The words for "mother", there are two words you can use, you can say "maw", maw, or "mither",

mither.

And for "dad" you say "da".

"Granda" is "granddad", and "Nana" is "grandmother".

So, let's look now at the common Scottish words, starting with "naw" for "no", "aye",

aye, aye, "oot", "get oot, get oot now!".

"Noo", "now".

"Auld", "He's an auld man, he's an auld man".

"Hen", hen.

Hen means something like "dear" or "Love", it's a term of - it's a term of endearment,

so you can say that to someone that you're familiar with, but it really depends on the

tone of voice that you're using.

Sometimes, when a Scottish person says the words "hen", "son", or "pal", they can be

very angry with ya.

So, if you say "Pal, stop messin' around!", that means you're not happy.

My tone of voice is angry, so even though I'm saying "Friend", I'm not friendly.

So, depending on the tone, it's either very warm to the person or it's because you're

angry.

Next, we have Scottish adjectives.

In Scotland, they say that things are "bonny".

"Oh, what a bonny wind!".

"Bonny" means "beautiful".

"Canny" means "smart".

He's a canny mon.

Next, we've got some slang Scottish words.

"Ragin'", he was absolutely ragin'.

Angry, very angry.

"Pished", absolutely pished, he was drinking all night, pished.

And "jammy".

Jammy means a lucky person, not necessarily in a positive way like, "Oh, they're so lucky!",

it's somebody who they - they do things that perhaps aren't always honest, and they get

good luck, or they always get away with it.

So, another way - "jammy" often comes along with "jammy bastard!", but you would say it

kind of laughing about the thing that that person got away with.

Looking now at the weather words.

Do you know, up in Scotland, the weather, it's always raining and it's cold, so they

have lots of weather words and these words are in the Scottish Dialect.

These words are not generally known in England or used in England.

And, if you think about it, it's because we have different weather in England.

It doesn't rain quite as much and it's not as cold as it is up in Scotland.

So, in Scotland, they say "Chankin'", It was chankin' today, today was absolutely chankin'.

"Freezing".

It was freezing cold today.

Noo, we have "dreich".

"Dreich" means miserable weather, one of those grey Scottish days where it's constantly raining

a little bit, there's some drizzle going on, you haven't seen the sun in a long time, that

kind of day is "dreich".

"Drookit" means "very wet".

So, similar meaning there.

"Flaggie", "A wee flaggie", "flaggie" means "snowflake", and the most bonnie Scottish

word of them all is "watergaw".

"Watergaw" means "incomplete rainbow".

So, this could be when the weather keeps stopping and starting raining and there's just one

small patch of rainbow there to see.

Now, let's look at the Scottish insults.

All of these insults we consider as slang.

Slang words tend to change quite a lot and quite fast, and slang words mainly insult

people.

So, these are - these are common ways to insult a person up in Scotland.

First one being "bawbag", which means "ballbag", testicles.

You can call some a "jessie", he's a Jessie, it means he's very weak.

A "bampot".

He's a bampot, crazy, watch out, he's a bampot.

Someone who is a "Jakey" is always drinking, drinking every day of his life.

A "dunderheid", dunderheid is an idiot, and a "besom", she's a besom, is a cheeky woman.

Besom comes from the word for "broomstick", so in older times, if you called someone a

"besom", it would be like calling them a witch, but the way that the word is used now is a

feisty kind of woman, it's not - depending on how it's used and the tone and the phrase

that you're using it in, "besom" can be good or bad when you use it to describe a woman.

Next, we've got Scottish phrases.

Ugh, I'm such a bampot, I forgot to tell you what "minger" means.

Minger means an ugly person.

That word is also used in English slang, but because slang moves very quickly, I don't

hear it said so often as it used to be said, but originally, minger comes from Scottish.

Ok, noo, we have some Scottish phrases for ya.

We'll start with "Foos yer doos?"

Foos yer doos?

This means "How are you?" and it's in Aberdeen Doric dialect.

Aberdeen is right at the north of Scotland, so I think they have, for my ears, they have

the strongest Scottish accent.

And a lot of words and expressions that aren't necessarily understood even within Scotland

by everyone, so English people have an even harder time to understand these kind of phrases.

"Foos yer doos?"

How are you?

And the reply is "Och eye, peckin'", that means, it doesn't really make sense what it

means, it means "Oh yes, pecking."

Pecking like a bird, but it means something like "I'm fine, I'm good".

And, yes, it does literally mean "I'm pecking" like a bird.

"Aye, right."

Aye, right, depends on the tone.

If you don't believe what someone has told you and they've told you some tall tale and

you don't believe them, you can say "Aye, right.".

But if you say it in a different intonation, this could be agreeing with someone, like

"Aye, right, right you are."

Next one is "Yer aff ye rheid mon!"

You're crazy.

"I dinne ken."

I dinne ken, mon.

These three, let's call them "Scottish-isms" and say they're kind of Trainspotter Scottish-isms,

if you've ever heard of that film, a very famous film from, I think it was from the

'90s, late '90s, where a lot of the dialect in that film became famous for being Scottish,

so I don't know how - how widely these kind of phrases are said in our times today, but

these last phrases here are more contemporary Scottish slang, which you've probably never

heard before, so you say "Yer bum's out the windae!", and that one means you're talking

nonsense.

Yer bum's out the windae!

Or this one, "Don't be a wee clipe!"

Don't be a wee clipe, don't be a tell-tale.

Stop making things up.

Perhaps this one would be said to children.

Don't be a wee clipe.

And the last one, we've got "Haud yer wheest!", Haud yer wheest.

Keep quiet and "Haud yer wheest", "wheest" means mouth, so this means like "Hold your

mouth", means "keep quiet".

So, I'm a Sassenach.

I did me best in this Scottish lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it very much, and I hope also you'll go to Scotland one day and see

the real thing.

And noo, for you to do the quiz on this lesson ( www.engvid.com ). Goodbye everyone, I'll

see you soon.