The Dialect - Enlightenment

I love a good Scottish accent, and when I moved first moved to the East Neuk of Fife, I was very disappointed to discover that St Andrews harbours far more English/American-sounding people than most towns in England. Then, I took a waitressing job in our village and discovered what a relief it was to be able to occasionally escape to St Andrews and have coherent verbal exchanges.

Allow me to illustrate with a few choice Fife phrases.

Walking into the cafe in the morning, I would be greeted with a "Wutja see tit?"

It isn't enough to just surmise that if these words were uttered by a 1950s BBC newsreader, they would sound more like "What do you say to it?".  Managing this literal translation, and still being none the wiser as to what I should actually say to it, I requested further clarification.

"Howz yeu?"

Aha.

Similarly, when being trained to take diner's orders, I was perplexed by the "Zaat yeu? [Is that you?]" with which the staff invariably finished.  Impressed by their apparent recognition of every single customer, but confused by the lack of friendly banter after that diner's affirmation ("Aye"), I once again pressed for an anglicisation. Turns out that this question is actually Fife shorthand for "Is that everything I can get for you, sir/madam?"

How obtuse of me.

The other thing about which I should warn you at this point is the vocal timbre of the native East Fife male.  Unlike the 'refained' burr found in the Scottish capital, there's nothing soft about the Fife intonation.  Many of them sound as if they're very surprised to be having a serious asthma attack. When speaking in this modulating wheeze, even the friendliest of greetings (and they are very friendly) can sound like a threat to rape and pillage one of the larger border towns. Do not mistake this for hostility, unless you just made the irredeemable mistake of calling something in Scotland 'English'.

After I learned about the semi-amiable anti-English malaise in Scotland, I developed a defensive mechanism whereby I automatically apologised in a Fife accent - "Sohree" with a rolled 'r' - whenever I bumped into anyone, or the suchlike. I only realised how entrenched this had become when this reflex reaction continued to manifest on a recent holiday to Istanbul. I had to hang around in St Andrews for weeks afterwards to get rid of the habit.