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Accent Breakdowns Production Materials Utah Shakespeare Festival

USF Greenshow: Scotland

Accent Materials for the 2025 USF Greenshow

Hello Cast!

If you’ve never worked in an accent other than your own, please see How to Work on an Accent for some tips on practicing this skill.

Accent Models

This is a YouTube playlist…make sure you check out all the accent model options using the menu in the top right corner of the player!

Accent Features

The practice phrases below are borrowed from Eric Armstrong’s Lexical Sets for Actors.

Key Consonant Sounds

Rhoticity: “R-ishness”

Scottish accents retain R in all positions (unlike many accents further south in England). If your R doesn’t sound as Scottish as you’d like, you can try angling your tongue tip upward toward the upper gum ridge. Although very old-fashioned, traditional Scottish accents might employ a trilled R, this is not necessary for an authentic-sounding accent, so don’t worry if rolling your Rs is a difficult coordination.

  • Better, stronger, faster.
  • Clearly fearless.
  • Upstairs Downstairs.
  • A large star chart.
  • Play the chord on the organ.

L-Backing

Scottish accents employ a “heavy” back L sound in all positions, where the back of the tongue body arches up in the mouth. This is different than many American accents, where the back of the tongue remains low for L in initial syllable position.

Note: This sound is one helpful adjustment that can help to differentiate a Scottish accent from an Irish one.

  • Lisa lived in Clifton Knolls until college.
  • Cal was dealing lithium for moolah.
  • Ollie and Callie played Solomon with their dolly.
  • Larry slathered lavash with licorice jelly for Mel.
  • I can tell, the lovers’ dalliance belonged in Las Vegas.

*Practice phrases borrowed from Introduction to Speechwork for Actors by Ron Carlos

Wine/Whine Split

Words spelled with WH- use a voiceless consonant sound, sometimes transcribed as “hw”.

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

Key Vowel Sounds

Words like FACE and GOAT

These groups of words tend to use a single steady vowel quality rather than a diphthong (a vowel sound that glides from one quality to another).

FACE:

  • A great place to stay.
  • The rail at the tail of the sailboat.
  • Today’s the day!
  • No pain, no gain.
  • Don’t cut the main brachial vein!

GOAT:

  • Don’t go home.
  • Row, row, row your boat.
  • Moan and groan on the phone.
  • Toby’s bespoke smoking jacket.
  • Moe totaled the Toyota he got in Tokyo.

Words like TRAP, BATH, and SPA

Words like these use a forward, open vowel sound. Note: Scottish accents do not differentiate between BATH and TRAP words the way Southern English accents do.

  • The cat’s father can’t catch half the mice it will have to.
  • Patrick sat in the enchanting bathroom in the aftermath of dancing with the daft actor.
  • The montage of the masked man in the last scene was masterfully performed by the acting class.

Words like GOOSE and FOOT

This sound is made with the tongue body fronted while the lips remain round. Note that the FOOT vowel is not distinct from the GOOSE vowel.

  • Once in a blue moon.
  • The good cookbook.
  • You loser!
  • By hook or by crook.
  • Do you swear to tell the truth?
  • Your woolen pull-over
  • You’ve got some smooth moves.
  • He took the Sugar cookies.
  • Cool as a cucumber

Words like MOUTH

This sound’s starting place is slightly higher than in many American varieties of English, near to the vowel in DRESS (e.g. “MEH-ooth”).

  • Get out of town!
  • Somehow they allowed those eyebrows.
  • The turnout for the workout was outrageous.
  • Groucho crouched on the couch.
  • Shout out loud.

Additional Vowel Sounds

FUR/FIR/FERN Split

In many varieties of English, words like FUR, FIR, and FERN use the same vowel sound regardless of their different spellings. In Scottish English, however, the pronunciation will follow the spelling more closely, e.g.:

  • FUR = “uh+R”
  • FIR = “ih+R”
  • FERN = “eh+R”
  • The worst burnt sirloin.
  • Bernie gave Bertha some perfume.
  • Sherlock searched for the murderer.
  • The early bird catches the worm.
  • The nurses in the maternity ward helped with the birth.

Challenge:

  • Alert the quirky Turk that he’s not a “berk” when he shirks his work to twerk!

Words like KIT

These words may use a more open vowel quality than in many varieties of American English.

  • This is it.
  • I will finish it.
  • Which is it?
  • Silverfish infestation
  • In it to win it.

Words like LOT and THOUGHT

These sounds employ a good deal of lip rounding.

  • The boss botched his toss to the tot.
  • The hot coffee made Tom cough.
  • Saul didn’t wash the soft cloths with his laundry.
  • The cost to install the hot water softener in the office was appalling.

NORTH/FORCE Split

These sounds, merged in most varieties of English, remain distinct in Scottish accents. NORTH is more open and less round, while FORCE is less open and more round.

Here is a lookup tool for NORTH and FORCE words.

  • The boarder who was hoarse rode his horse to the border to mourn for his mother this morning.
  • There was no remorse for people caught using outside resources during the final exam of the Morse Code Course.

Words like happY

This vowel, found in unstressed final position, is often more open than in many varieties of contemporary American English.

  • My budgie Ritchie
  • Your date is trashy and nosey
  • Stringy zucchini
  • A baggie of veggies