back to article Regional accent read-outs coming to satnavs

Drivers may soon find their satnav voice change accent as they move between different parts of the country. Sorry, that's, "droivers miy soon foind thar setnev vices chainge exent as thu moove bitween diff'rent paaarts o' the cunchree, a'raight?" Mio Navman is considering addings software that will change the dialect of the …

COMMENTS

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  1. David Gosnell

    Rind and rind the rindabite

    Is "Rind and rind the rindabite" regional, strictly speaking? Unless perhaps if travelling to the planet our blue-blooded lizard overlords reputedly hail from?

    1. Goat Jam
      Heart

      Yes

      See "New Zealand", land of the "Fush and Chups"

  2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    'Bout time.

    I think it's about time we started championing our regional accents. I love the variety of the British spoken voice. I think it's such a shame that no matter where you are in the UK, the regional BBC presenters all sound the same, with no accent at all.

    1. Bassey

      Re: 'Bout Time

      "no matter where you are in the UK, the regional BBC presenters all sound the same, with no accent at all."

      You've clearly never travelled to Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland then.

      1. Annihilator
        Happy

        @Bassey

        It's pronounced "Norn Iron"

      2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
        WTF?

        @Bassey

        Dw i'n byw yn Gogledd Cymru.

        1. bikerboi87

          Ahhhhh

          Ahhh, dwi'n byw yng Ngogledd Cymru hefyd :)

          I can just imagine somebody driving into Caernarfon, to have the sat-nav say "Croeso i Gaernarfon. Os dach chi'n dwad o Loegr, troi rowd a dos yn ôl adra!", and the people thinking it's something like "Enjoy your visit.".....

  3. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Pirate

    Ah, good....

    ....yet another reason to disable the voice guidance.

    GJC

  4. Tony Humphreys
    Stop

    Um

    "At de end of de f*****g road turn right, dene go 300 f*****g yards and the f*****g dolie is on de left ye t**t"

  5. Code Monkey

    Scouse

    Go left after 300 yards and look the other way while me mates nick yer alloys la.

  6. LinkOfHyrule
    Joke

    fat is a good story, fanks!

    I pronounce my "Th"s as "f"s and I don't personally see what's so thucking wrong with it! Thor thucks sake!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nobody ...

    ... will be able find their way around Glasgow ever again.

  8. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    So then.

    If you go down a new road in Somerset that isn't on the map and thus appear to be in a field, will it shout: "GIT ORF MOI LAAAAND!!!" at you?

  9. Anton Ivanov
    Joke

    Well, probably better than Ozzie Ozbourn

    Well... better than Ozzie, Ralf or Johnnie Bravo guiding your way:

    http://www.nav-voices.co.uk/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=74

    Though I would rather go for this one:

    http://www.nav-voices.co.uk/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=64

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    North West

    Cumberland as was... Any woman with that accent could get her wicked way with me any time, no matter what she looked like... Anon because I'd need my coat if her indoors, who has a southern accent, were to read this...

  11. qwertyuiop
    WTF?

    Am I missing something?

    The Scots accent is apparently the second most popular - so they're going to give us Geordie, Cockney, Brummie and Mancunian. Why no guttural Glaswegian or refined Morningside (posh part of Edinburgh)? It also begs the question of which accent it will switch to when you cross the border.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Horrible.

      Only 'apparently' because our airways and call centres are infested with it, just as our previous government was. It's quite revolting and the popularity was clearly decided by some committee of scotsmen somewhere.

  12. JimC
    Headmaster

    I can forsee the odd problem though..

    Back in the 70s I was a student, and was on the Isle of Cumbrae off Glasgow for a course. The locals speak (or spoke then) particularly distinctive Lalland Scots. On of my fellow students was a country lass from deep in the west country. There were occasions when she genuinely needed someone to act as an interpreter because mutual comprehension was problematic.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Glasgee?

      I dunno where Rab C Nesbitt was from, but p888 was the only way I ever found of making sense of his, um, "english".

      1. jonathanb Silver badge

        Rab C Nesbitt

        Rab C Nesbitt is from the Govan area of Glasgow. Most people round that way speak like him.

  13. Mick Stranahan
    Coffee/keyboard

    Brilliant

    Funniest thing I seen on Reg Hardware for some time.

  14. Martin 19
    Paris Hilton

    "Every other accent is bloody awful", says everyone

    "I wish that everyone with a regional accent other than my own should STFU. They sound well fick, init?!?"

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Will it also change the terminology?

    Being a brummie (sorry), we rarely, if ever, use the word 'roundabout' - to us they are islands (although I know this strictly speaking is something else). So what in a 'posh' accent would be "At thee rind-a-bite, take thee second exit', would be 'Strayit ow-va at the oyland' in Brummie.

    PS. Please let the Brummie accetn be proper Brummie - and not Black Country, or else the most spoken phrase would be 'Yam lost, yam!'.

    :-)

    1. Code Monkey

      Black country. Ayit.

      I've been working in the Black Country too long. I don't know when it happened but it was when "ah" became a reasonable response to any question whatsoever.

  16. James 5

    Hey this'll be fun !

    In Dundee "roundabouts" are called circles. So is the SatNav voice going to use local terms?

    It'll be great to hear it pronounce Footdee in Aberdeen (pron: Fittie) and all those other local dialects.

    It'd be even better if it had a local dialect/language function where it changed as it went through the different areas. I reckon there'd be several thousand of those in "English" for mainland UK alone - not to mention Welsh, Gaelic and other languages..

    Ah what a glorious future we have before us!

    1. Code Monkey

      Aberdeen

      Gawd no. I can't understand the Aberdeenie accent (if it's not Aberdeenie, it should be) to save my life!

      1. Annihilator
        Paris Hilton

        Aberdeenie

        Or Aberdonian, to be precise.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Aberdonian?

          An Aberdonian is a person from Aberdeen, the dialect is known as doric.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To avoid the Accent Wars ...

    ... I suggest a neutral one. Swedish, female. Lovely.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Foreign accents

      Japanese Engrish, if you please...

      And sure, perhaps she'd be misunderstood "preesu torun lefto ato randabatu nexto", but I don't see how this is much different than a southerner driving north and being hit by half a dozen incomprehensible dialects.

  18. Blubster
    Coat

    @AC 12:03

    "PS. Please let the Brummie accetn be proper Brummie - and not Black Country, or else the most spoken phrase would be 'Yam lost, yam!'."

    The fatal accident rate will rocket with a Brummie accent as drivers fall asleep at the wheel being bored by the sheer tedium of it.

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