Articles

Winner of the Toulmin Prize for 2009, by Eleanor Fordyce

Androcles saw there wis a muckle stob in the pad o his fit. He pulled it oot, cannily an gentle like, an gied the beast a gentle tickle ahin the lugs as he used tae dae tae his maister’s dogs.

“The recipe, as explained to me many years ago, is impressively easy to follow: Tae mak brose? One, a haunfae o oatmeal. Two, a pickie saut. Three, haud on the bilin watter. Fower, steer like buggery.”

Who were the “brave Ramsay and Fergusson” whom Burns toppled from the throne of poetry? Here, we will discover a truth which we in Scotland are prone to overlook: Burns is the greatest, but far from the only, Scottish poet.

The whole spectacular production was let down by the female lead, who sported – as one of my colleagues used to say – a voice like a crackit chunty

When did Scots first emerge as a distinct language? There is a clear answer, and one with particular interest for the North-East. The Bruce, the first literary work to survive in the Scots tongue, dates from 1375, pre-dating Chaucer; its author was John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen.

The original Scots were Gaelic speakers, so why do we now apply the word to the language of the Lowlands?

In the smaller fishing towns on the Moray coast, many families share a surname; certain first names are favoured, too, so quite a few individuals may have the same names. That’s where the tee-name, or by-name, comes in.

Do you have piles of old letters, memos, articles or essays in your attic, in Aberdeenshire Scots – the Doric – or other language varieties used in Scotland? Do you own the copyright yourself, or know who does? If so, the Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech – Scots – is interested.

Professor Bill Nicolaisen explores the history of the Scottish surname Junner or Junor.

Norman Harper on the Doric language.