Since Al MacBharrais (pronounced as mac VARE ish) and his companions are Glaswegians and have a particular way of speaking, I’ve provided some guidance here as to how their speech should be pronounced, in case you want it. I haven’t tried to reproduce the Glaswegian Scots dialect in all its glory but rather chosen to focus on a few phrases and words that provide the general flavor of their speech. While it may seem disorienting at first, you do get used to it and will find the rules are pretty consistent. There are, as well, some specific words from the Irish language that probably need some helpful hints, since their pronunciation would not be immediately obvious to English speakers. So here we go:
Caoránach = CARE ah NACH, an Irish name, where the final syllable would rhyme with rack, except that the ch sound is more like a guttural German thing instead of a hard k sound.
Oilliphéist = UHL ih FISHT, because that i before the s means it’s a slender vowel and turns the s into a sh sound. First syllable would rhyme with dull. That’s your other Irish word.
Okay, now to the Scots! First, and most important: Ye is not pronounced as yee, with a long e. No, no, no. Weegies are not speaking lines from old-timey pirate movies. Ye is pronounced like yuh and used in place of you in most cases. Sometimes they will take the trouble to spell and pronounce you the standard way, just for emphasis, but when they are calling someone a name, as in you jammy bastard, the vowel shifts differently to a short a sound, so it would appear as ya jammy bastard. For extra credit, you can combine them in repetitive phrases, as when a parent might call their mildly misbehaving child you rascal you; a Weegie would say ya rascal ye. In the same vein, yer is used in place of your and ye’re in place of you’re, and again, there’s no long e sound in either of those. The long e is next!
Tae is pronounced like tee and is used in place of to in speech. Happy birthday to you, therefore, would be happy birthday tae ye, pronounced as tee yuh (except, I imagine, when it is sung).
Gonnay is the same as gonna in English slang, but the vowel at the end is a long a, so the spelling reflects that.
My is typically pronounced as ma in speech and is therefore spelled that way, as in I’m gonnay call ma mum.
Head and dead are pronounced like heed and deed but spelled as heid and deid.
Polis is the police, but it’s pronounced like POH-lis rather than poh-LEASE.
To avoid using contractions like didn’t and couldn’t, the Scots often use nae in place of the n’t, pronounced like knee. So he didnae run far because he couldnae, since his shoelaces were tied. If the word not is to be used by itself, the t at the end is often dropped, resulting in phrases like I’m no gonnay pay for yer booze, ya wanker. Ye should pay ma bill instead. An interesting exception to the rule is the use of don’t instead of dinnae; while dinnae is commonly used on the east coast of Scotland, it isn’t used at all in Glasgow, and since Al, Buck, and Nadia are using Glasgow Scots, you’ll see don’t throughout. (There are actual linguistic papers that detail the “Glasgow Dinnae Gap” and yes I have read them, because I geek out on linguistics a bit.)
Ooyah! is an exclamation equivalent to ouch!
Haud is used sometimes in lieu of hold, and it’s regionally accented, meaning it might be pronounced differently depending on where in Scotland the speaker is from. In this case we’re using the Weegie accent, so haud is going to rhyme with clawed. Overheard in Glasgow: Oi, ye only got two meters in distance pissing? Haud ma beer while I unroll ma firehose.
A stooshie and a rammy are both Scots terms that refer to a violent confrontation. I take particular joy in these words, since they sound adorable but in practice involve the spilling of blood and the breaking of bones.
A walloper is something big enough to give you a wallop, but the standard implication is that it might just be a huge dick.
A pile of jobbies means a whole lot of turds.
A jammy bastard is a person who’s extremely lucky but with the implication that maybe they don’t deserve to be.
Gallus is an adjective that means stylish and impressive.
Wot is just a shorter, vowel-shifted what, almost exclusively used by Buck Foi.
The phrase nae danger can mean either no worries or no chance.
A few Scots words that need to be broken down:
Milngavie = mil GUY. Yeah, I know. That looks like three syllables and you’re wondering why the n and the v are silent, so that’s why I provide these guides. I’m told that in the extra-credit Weegie pronunciation, when it’s spoken quickly, the first syllable will vowel-shift to a short u, so it sounds like mul GUY.
Bardowie = bar DOW ee, rhymes with Howie.
Weans = waynes. But that there is a noun, my friends, not a verb. In Scotland it’s a contraction for wee ones and therefore refers to children. At one point in Glasgow, there was a baby clothing shop called Weans World.
And, since this novel is mostly set in Australia, there are a few Aussie slang terms that might need some elucidation: Arvo is a term that means afternoon. Unco is a shortened version of uncoordinated. Flat out means incredibly busy.
Also, you will find that there is a location named Donnelly Weir and an associated park and picnic area as well, but the road to it is named Donnellys Weir Road and the creek is Donnellys Creek. This is not an inconsistency or an editing error but rather reflective of how those places are spelled in Australia. The inconsistency exists in reality, in other words, and we are being consistent with that.
