Carlisle accent

[freddie999]

I have been told by my sister that she heard that our grandfather came from Fife, I have been unable to find any evidence of this through the Scottish census,and cannot imagine why a worker would travel such a distance to work in a bisuit factory. My brother has told me that he found it difficult in understanding our grandfather speech. This could be explained if he still had retained his Scottish accent, for the 40 years when he had been in Carlisle. My reseach has led me to his birth (which I am not 100% convinced about) in Carlisle; this would mean he would have grown up as man and boy in Carlisle. I was wondering would people have a distinct accent in Carlisle, in the early '60s, which would confuse my brother a Lincoln lad; or would it have been a Scottish accent confusing him?

Thanks

Freddie

[carolchipp]

Hi Freddie
There is a 'Carlisle' accent,much as there are accents peculiar to most places - to some people it may sound as though it's a bit scottish. It would probably depend on how broad was the accent. Like any other accent, it could be hard for someone not familiar with it to understand - my husband was once talking to a friend from Wolverhampton (with a very strong Black Country accent) and I could hardly tell a word he said, much to his friend's amusement

[arthurk]

This page (http://sounds.bl.uk/BrowseCategory.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects) from the British Library has links to audio clips of accents from all over the country. There's one from Carlisle and some from other parts of Cumberland and Cumbria.

Arthur