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From: "Sam Heron" <>
Subject: [WIG LIST] Pronunciations - Accents in Wigtownshire
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:47:17 +1000
References: <20040127123035.EHGS16066.mta02-svc.ntlworld.com@[62.253.8.149]>


Fellow Listers,
On pronunciations, I recently was watching a show on Television that
originated in New Zealand and on seeing that one of the prominent persons
was named CAUGHEY I was intrigued to hear their pronunciation of this name.
In Wigtownshire it would be pronounced with the distinct K - YA- CH
(guttural as in Loch) -IE. The commentators all pronounced it "CO - AY".
Given that KEACHIE is another spelling for it one can see how names change
over time.
I suffered the same at school in Stranraer in the 1940s and it was very hard
to get ones tongue around the words SIR and GIRL as the tendency was to say
SUR and GURL and I can assure you it was difficult to change the tongues
placement in the mouth to give the sound IR instead or UR. Those two words
were my greatest nightmare as it meant reprimand if incorrectly pronounced.
It still feels funny saying them.
The teachers were unbending in their quest to change our speech, indeed our
language.
Everything Bill is saying about how the language is dying is correct.
One never heard the Mc or Mac pronounced it was alway Ma with a very short
"a" sound as in MaMillan, MaNellie, MaDowall.
However, the demise of the language can be traced even further back when one
reads in the Statistical Account for Dumfries dated September 1833:
Language - "The language universally spoken by the lower ranks is the
lowland Scotch, which has, however, within the last forty years, lost much
of its national peculiarity, - many words which were then used having now
become obsolete."
The reason Robert Burns books have a glossary is because he inserted one, as
while he was listening to the older folks - gathering songs and poems - he
was hearing almost obsolete words and he set about capturing them for
posterity and of course he had to describe their meaning for the then modern
generation, hence the glossary.
In the Statistical Account for Parish of Stranraer in January 1839 it was
written:
"Language.- The language generally spoken is tolerably good. The lower
orders (of whom a great many are natives of Ireland) have a good deal of
accent of that country. Indeed, strangers allege that all classes of the
inhabitants have a good deal of the Irish accent. This, no doubt, arises
from our proximity to Ireland, and our very frequent intercourse with the
Irish."
One can see why we were described as being Galloway-Irish.
When, as a boy, I used to go to Glasgow for my holidays the Tram Conductor
would ask me where in Ireland I was from? I would tell them Larne (being a
good Stranraer boy)or similar and they would let me travel on the tram for
nothing warning me "if the Inspector (of Tickets) gets on tell him I just
got on at the last stop".
Sam Heron, Brisbane, Australia


----- Original Message -----
From: "bill.copland" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 10:29 PM
Subject: [WIG LIST] pronunciation of McGeoch


> Hi there
> The pronunciation of the surname McGeoch as M'G-yoch is not 'slang'. It
is
> the way it has been traditionally pronounced in Galloway for generations,
> and it is still the way that the older residents of Galloway pronounce it.
> There was an article in the newsletter of the D&G FHS concerning a very
> eminent and respectable dynasty of Galloway McGeochs in Glasgow, and they
> still insist on using the traditional pronounciation.
> Sadly, an increasing number of the younger generation in Galloway use the
> pronunciatin M'Gee-uch.
> Readers will thus realise that Ian McClumpha and I come from the older
> generation, while Diana is obviously just a wee young thing.
> This is not the only example of traditional pronunciation dying out. As a
> wee boy I spent my summer holidays with my grandfathers in Stranraer and
> Wigtown, and everybody I met pronounced the names McDowall and McKeand as
> Ma-Dole and M'K-yand, but now they have become Mc-Dow-al and M'Keend.
> This co-incided with a period in the 1950's and 60's when it was
considered
> socially uncouth and educationally unacceptable for people to use
> traditional scots words in polite society or in schools and universites.
> Sadly, it was our schools and schoolteachers that caused the greatest
> undermining of the traditional scots tongue. The novelist McIlvanney
often
> recounts how he was belted by a primary teacher in the 1950's for using
the
> scots word 'sheuch' in the classroom. One of my own primary teachers
would
> go apopleptic if any of the pupils used such common scots words as 'aye'
or
> 'wee'.
> One unfortunate result of this is that most scots under the age of 40 have
> trouble understanding the works of Robert Burns and other Scottish
writers.
> Ironically, our educationalists have now realised that the traditional
> language of the Scottish Lowlands is under serious threat, and
> schoolteachers are now being encouraged to include aspects of what is
called
> 'Lallans' into the curriculum in primary schools and in secondary school
> english departments.
> Cheers
> Bill


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