Scotland 29

Listen to Scotland 29, a 32-year-old man from Oban, Scotland, UK. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples. IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 32

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/10/1992

PLACE OF BIRTH: Harlow, Essex, UK

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: White/Caucasian/Scottish-English

OCCUPATION: public servant

EDUCATION: master’s degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was born in Essex, England, and lived there as a baby. (A parent worked there, but he has no other family connections to Essex.) He grew up in Oban, Scotland, but has lived in other Scottish towns such as Livingston (West Lothian), Stirling, and Glasgow.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

His parents grew up in England, which may influence how they and the subject speak. Several family members have been based in Merseyside or North Wales.

The subject says that his occupation means his dialect is probably consciously filtered to a more neutral Scottish sound when he is at work.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: subject

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/08/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So I grew up most of my childhood in a wee town called Oban, which is in the West Highlands of Scotland. Um, it’s about two hours’ drive from Glasgow, which is where I now live. Um, it’s perhaps not as musical sounding as, as the accents you’d hear in the Western Isles, which have got a real kind of lilt to them. Um, but it’s also not, you know, monotone, like the accents you get on the east coast of Scotland.

Um, I’m not a born-and-bred Obanite. You know, I, I’ve got a lot of family in the area — like, my sister still lives there. Um, and I always notice when the accent is sort of kind of coming back in, when I’ve spent a lot of time there, but I’m a bit of a mongrel in that I’ve lived in different places and have family from different places, uh, across the UK. So, I suppose this is an interesting exercise in that I, I’d say that I’m relatively representative of how some folk my age speak in the area, but there are some people that have much stronger accents. um, so, yeah, I’d say, um, for an exercise like this, my, hearing my accent compared to other Scottish accents is certainly interesting because I think vowel sounds change a fair bit depending on where in Scotland you go.

TRANSCRIBED BY: subject

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/08/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.