Ewan Morrison - 'There are many instances when talking with no teeth is identical to Glaswegian'

Published on Saturday 16 February 2008 18:58

MY SIX-year-old daughter has now lost six of her eight milk teeth and, along with her wonderful toothless grin, has picked up a few endearing speech eccentricities. There is, of course, the difficulty in formulating the 'th' sound, however, one unexpected change is that her Glaswegian accent has grown stronger.

What an absurd proposition, you might protest – the acquisition of a local accent is nothing to do with one's dental state. The explanation is simple, you say – since she goes to school with kids with a thicker Glaswegian brogue, it is only natural that, over time, she should pick it up. There is just one thing that unsettles this explanation though: my mother's false teeth.

My mother has a soft Lowland twang, and is often mistaken for an Englishwoman, but on the rare occasions I have called late at night and she has reached for the phone before putting in her dentures, she sounds like she was born and bred in the Gorbals.

Far be it from me to abuse the Glesca patter. I love it dearly, own a patter dictionary, and after 18 years can just about pass as a local. What I am proposing is not as far-fetched or as insulting as some other claims about the origins of the accent – for example that Glaswegians talk that way because they are perpetually drunk, which is a long-running international joke I've heard said from Nova Scotia to Sydney.

I should like to replace such slander with a scientifically verifiable, historically accurate theory: Glaswegian is what happens when English is spoken with no teeth.

Consider the facts: within 30 years of the Union of the Crowns, Glasgow became the Second City of the Empire, the primary port for American tobacco and Caribbean sugar. The building blocks of the rapidly industrialising city were sugar cubes. Think of the workers in their tens of thousands, coming home from the port, with their dividends paid in sugar, a bag of the famous Coulter's Candy for the bairns and something sweet for the wife, all oblivious to the dental dangers. As a result, seven generations of Glaswegian children were taught how to speak by parents and grandparents with not an incisor between them.

If you don't believe me, try stretching your lips back over your teeth and say "Give us a break". You will find that it comes out "gib up uh brek". The easiest way round this problem is to turn the three jumpy short vowels into one long one – an "eee" sound. The result is "Geeza brek". Similarly, with only gums, words of several syllables and interspersed consonants prove problematic. "Anybody" becomes "eh may buhb day" hence the genius of the Glaswegian conflation "emdy", as in "emdy upfura pint?"

With no teeth for the tongue to push against, 'th' sounds are nigh on impossible – so words like "something" become the innovative "Sumhm". Not only can awkward 'th's be removed but, for ease, initial consonants may be excised. Thus "come on then" becomes "'mon 'en".

There are many other instances when talking with no teeth is identical to Glaswegian. If you do not agree and have access to any aged toothless relatives who are not from Glasgow, please feel free to test my theory.