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April 20th, 2013

ritaxis: (hat)
Saturday, April 20th, 2013 11:32 am
I was listening to a BBC reporter talking about the earthquake in China. Aside fromthe awfulness of the event, I was really struck by his accent, which was one I was sure I had never heard before. It was I guess "thick" in that every sound of every word was particular to the accent, but it was also perfectly comprehensible to me which would I guess mean that it isn't thick? The point is, I thought it was a really nice way of speaking, and I could listen to him all night long.

It seemed like his sentences had a rhythm like Irish speakers, but his pronunciations sounded more like Northern England (please remember I have no right to make judgements like this as my exposure is so slight). He did something odd: he pronounced urban with an H. Like Hurban. I'd never heard that sound attached to a word beginning with that vowel. So I paid attention at the end of the segment, learned his name, and trolled the BBC website and eventually Google till I learned that his name is Martin Patience and he's originally from Glasgow.

But I don't know what kind of Glaswegian accent he has (or if it's really a Glasgow accent or something else). So if you know Scottish accents, would you please listen to a Martin Patience piece and tell me what you think?

I know this is a distraction. But I dearly love the way that man talks and I'd just like to know more about it and searching online has been less than helpful.