In an episode of the 1976 BBC 2 series Word of Mouth, a six-part series about accents in Britain, host Melvyn Bragg talks to people in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, to determine how and why the accents are so different between the two. Speaking for Glasgow is comedian Billy Connolly and poet Tom Leonard. Speaking for Edinburgh is poet Robert Garioch and theater manager Sadie Aitken.
Edinburgh and Glasgow are traditional rivals, a rivalry that is reflected in the contrast between the voices of the two cities. The East and West of Scotland speak a very different tongue – but is this a difference that owes as much to social class as to geography?
