Last week I stayed in a ski chalet in France with 5 other men. All the men were from Scotland, and frankly I had difficulty understanding them and I was concerned that I may return to the UK speaking with a Scottish accent.
I don't really know the difference between an accent and a dialect. I thought that if different words were used for exactly the same meaning, it was a dialect. If so, in this case it was a dialect. For example, for the word “No” the guys said “Nay”.
It may not have been a dialect even, it may have been another language. I do speak some French and if they had been speaking that language I would possibly have understood more.
I probably didn't understand one word in three and at first had to keep asking them to repeat themselves. This they did, a repetition of the phrase exactly, so I still didn't understand. They must have thought I was dense or deaf. Maybe I am?
We had 2 chalet girls looking after us and lo and behold, Sophie quickly admitted that she was born and spent her early years in Scotland. There was an English Chalet girl, Jess, so I wasn't totally alone. I asked Sophie if the Scots could understand me and she affirmed that they could. I can't really follow that logic, can anyone explain?
The five guys did not live in the same areas of Scotland and it was pointed out to me that I wasn't the only one who couldn't understand, at times, they could't understand each other, ie the Glaswegians could not understand the Aberdonians.
To complicate matters of the 6 men, 3 were called Michael,..... I think ….
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