McGonagall's accent was Re: SS/PS question

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom@>
> wrote:
> 
> > Have any Brits heard the Dale version for McGonagall? Sounds Russian 
> > to me. 
> 
> 
> Sounds German to me :-)! So *that's* the Scottish accent! The "r"s
> don't sound English at all :-). McGonagall didn't talk like this in
> the movie, so Jim Dale's pronunciation came as a surprise to me. Good
> to know :-)!
> 
> It seems to me though that Bellatrix also speaks with some accent in
> Dale's recording. Is it French or is it one more accent that I don't
> know about :-)?
> 
> 
> zanooda, not very good at recognizing accents ...

Geoff:
Escape clause. I write this bearing in mind that I have never 
heard Jim Dale reading the books.

Bear in mind that there is no such thing as a 'Scots accent' in 
the same way that there is no such thing as an 'English accent' 
per se.

Maggie Smith speaks with an Edinburgh accent whereas Robbie 
Coltrane, when speaking as himself, has a rather heavy Glaswegian 
accent. The humorous part about Maggie Smith is that, although 
she is often though of as a Scotswoman, she was born in the 
South-east of England.

If you go into the Western Highlands -where a fair number of 
people also speak Gaelic on a regular basis - the accent is much 
softer and often slower.