“I don’t really know what the future holds for me, but I know that each language I learn and practise will shape me into the person I am.”

In this episode, Élaina tells the story of her relationship with her family’s languages: those that were passed on to her by her parents, or those that weren’t.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Over the past few years, as well as making Accentricity, I’ve been working on the Manchester Voices research project at Manchester Metropolitan University, with Rob Drummond, Holly Dann, Sarah Tasker and Erin Carrie.

As part of this work, we used oral history recordings to explore language change over time, and we’ve recently published a journal article about this work. We’re really proud of this article, but it’s not really that accessible to people who aren’t professional linguists, and we wanted to find a way to share our work with everyone who’s interested: so we made a podcast episode to act as a companion piece to this article.

“This is my voice, not your voice, so if you’ve got a problem with my voice… I don’t know, go to therapy or something.”

As well as making Accentricity, I work on the Manchester Voices project at Manchester Metropolitan University, with Rob Drummond and Holly Dann. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we ran a podcasting course and competition for schools called Talking About Voices. This is a special episode announcing the competition winners.

“At that point I felt like I’d made a very important contact with her on a very deep level, somehow. Because she spoke to me in Polish.”

My mum, Anna, is Polish. But she’s not from Poland - she was born in Edinburgh, and has lived there for most of her life. How can someone who is completely Scottish also be completely Polish? And why does the Polish language play such an important role in her life?

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“It’s different living alone when you have a community around you, and living alone when there’s no community around you to support you.”

Lisa loved living in Hamberg, so when her boss asked her to move across Germany to Bamberg, in Bavaria, she wasn’t sure she could do it…

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“I remember being in the fourth and the fifth grade, and being obsessed with this little fantasy of me being a transfer student from England…”

Helen’s friend Sam never quite felt at home in the country he was born in, America. He left in search of a place to belong, and found Berlin. But after nine years spent there, is Berlin home to him? What does ‘home’ even mean? In this episode, Helen and Sam ask this question.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“I’d just like to understand a little bit more about why me speaking Doric is different from me speaking French.”

Claire is learning to speak Doric, a variety of Scots that comes from the North East of Scotland. But when she speaks it, it makes her husband, who grew up with Doric, feel uncomfortable. In this episode, she tries to understand why this might be.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“It’s like I have one foot here and one foot there. So you have a little bit of both.”

Charles’ aunt, Alejandra, was born in Chile but has been in America for almost 30 years – more than half her life. When you’ve been away from a place for so long, it can be hard to maintain a connection to that place. Alejandra talks about how it feels to fight for that connection, why it matters to her, and the role played by language.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“I don’t sound Scottish… when someone looks at me, they wouldn’t think that I’m Scottish… but that doesn’t prevent me from feeling really at home in a Scottish environment.”

Maria Dokovova has been living in Scotland for ten years, but she doesn’t have a Scottish accent. How would her life be different if she did?

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“My first experience with a different language than my mother tongue wasn’t ideally pleasant...”

Veronica Juliana Schmalz moved from Argentina to Sicily when she was eight. She didn’t know anyone and didn’t speak the language. Now she is fluent in six languages. But what was that journey like?

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

“I was caged in. Couldn’t speak with anyone for the first three years.”

What’s it like to navigate the rocky terrain of school in a brand new language? In this episode, we hear from Leon and Julia, two young people who moved from Poland to Scotland and had to do just that.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

For this episode, we bring you something a little bit different.

A few months ago, we were invited to work in collaboration with Refugee Voices Scotland to make a guest series for a new podcast called The Sounds of Integration.

We decided to make a series on the theme of community. It’s a series celebrating the power of community, but also thinking about what happens when communities are put under strain. When people move from one place to another, moving away from the community they know and into a new one. When borders and visas separate us. When being within two metres of another person becomes dangerous. Can communities survive physical distance? How can we support each other when we can’t stand beside each other?

It’s been about a year since I released episode 4, Learning To Talk, where I met seven kids at different stages of their linguistic development, from newborn Harris to four-year-old Ronan. I enjoyed making that episode so much that I decided to go back and revisit the kids one year later, to see how they were getting on.

There’s something about hearing your own accent does wrong that sets your teeth on edge. But why does it bother us? Why are some accents so often done badly? And what is Tom Cruise even doing in Far and Away?

You can find a transcript for this episode here.

This is a bonus episode featuring some of the amazing people I’ve taught this year at the University of Glasgow. Some are people who are new to linguistics, and some are now pretty seasoned researchers who are about to start PhDs. This is the second of two parts.

This is a bonus episode featuring some of the amazing people I’ve taught this year at the University of Glasgow. Some are people who are new to linguistics, and some are now pretty seasoned researchers who are about to start PhDs. This is the first of two parts.

‘For me, linguistic diversity is absolutely amazing, and it’s incredibly persistent. Diversity persists, despite the many attempts for us to all just speak one language.’ – Alison Phipps

Why is it that despite all of the evidence that using multiple languages is good for you, multilingualism is still sometimes treated with suspicion? In this episode, I examine the concept of verbal hygiene, and how the policing of linguistic borders affects our lives.

You can find a transcript for this episode here.

‘Multilingual societies should be regarded as an opportunity, rather than as a set of problems to solve.’ – Antonella Sorace

Having more than one language is good for lots of obvious reasons, but also some which are not so obvious. This is an episode about multilingualism: why it’s a blessing and not a curse.

You can find a transcript for this episode here.

How do babies learn how to talk? In this episode I explore how they go from little howling machines to little sentence builders in the space of a couple of years.

You can find a transcript for this episode here.

‘And finally there’s just this sort of awakening moment where you realise there’s no way I can tell these stories - wee Central Scotland stories - and have a false accent.’ – Dave Hook

A lot of Scottish singers perform with an accent that doesn’t sound much like their speaking accent – but why is this? And is it changing? In this episode I look at the role of Scottish accents in the Scottish music scene.

You can find a transcript for this episode here.