North-East Scots (Doric): The History, Present & Future (Complete Video)
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- čas přidán 12. 02. 2019
- Part 1: The History
The Doric tongue so common in the North-East is part of the Scots Language. But where did this language come from, and what makes the Doric special? Our two academics Professors Smith and Millar guide the discussion.
Part 2: The Present
North East Scots has experienced a tumultuous time of late. Join Sheena Blackhall the famed Doric poet and our two academics Professors Smith and Millar to explore how the Doric came to be the way it is.
Part 3: The Future
What does the future hold for the Doric? Explore the answers to that with poet Jo Gilbert, teacher Jamie Fairbairn and former pupil Robert Legge, along with our two academics Professors Smith and Millar
Video by the Elphinstone Institute
Great ti see Doric bein accepted, withoot gettin ower precious aboot it. Like maist natives o Aiberdeenshire, I spik a mix o Doric and English and find it a real asset. It gye near doubles yer vocabulary, which nae only maks the language richer, but if yer a buddin poet or songwriter, maks it a dampt sicht easier ti find a rhyme!
I remember before the war, there were at least four instantly recognisable versions of Doric within Aberdeen alone. 1) Union Street - a softened version, but still thoroughly Doric. 2) the recently arrived folk from the country, very much broader. 3) the West end, tending towards "pan loaf", perjink. 4) East end, which gloried in the glottal stop. "Ah di*a ken abou* *a* . A'm fae Toa* ay, onywie"
Think there still is
Whit war?
What war? You must 126 yrs young.
In the 90s I had a girlfriend in the area of Aboyne. Most people I came across were middle class Scots, or English immigrants, and very few spoke Doric, and most of their parents didn't either.
Dare I say it, but housing booms and influxes of non Doric speakers are changing things, and aren't (or weren't in the 90s) adapting to their new home dialect.
My own family was half Toonser and half Teuchter, so was brought up with a little of both. 'Scotland the What' was a regular act on the telly in the 80s in our house. Now living in Fife, and while I haven't converted anyone, I've managed to train another to understand Doric. "Fit like 'i day" is being trialled in Fife. :D
It all comes down to social pressures, if Doric is considered cool it will thrive, if its considered uneducated or strange the youth will abandon it.
Sheena's my cousin! She came up to my other cousin's farm while we were visiting there a few years ago & she was absolutely delightful. After a big dinner & a few drams, though, the gathered family's Doric rolled in like a thick mist... & today I still feel awed by it (as well as a wee bit ashamed by my American ignorance of the conversation.)
🤯
What a poetical language! So beautiful to hear, so musical...
I'm English, but was brought up from a bairn in Rural Moray living in farms round Lossie Forest. I went to school with local loons an' quines. For me teuchter Doric is a beautiful and hamely sound. Aberdeen Doric is different, maybe having a harsher sound. I don't care I love it all!
god bless you from a Gaelic Canadian!
I was born in 1940 both my parents were country folk, so I grew up speaking a different form of English to my school-friends who all spoke Aberdeen English. When I was at primary school (Ashley Road) I was recorded speaking Doric
Fit interestin! Div ye hae a recordin o't? Wid love tae hear't.
I’m Aberdeen born and bred but now live near Perth Australia. Back in Scotland we met a Dutch family from a town near the Germany border. They spoke English well but often forgot and spoke to us in Dutch and l was amazed how many words were the same as Doric like coo, richt o’re at crossroads, Stracht for straight and so many more. I’ve tried to find out why the similarities but never managed to.
"April 21 1943 Aberdeen bombing"
My Father was in the Gordon Barracks when the shell came through the roof of his barrack and it bounced off the floor close to him in bed , the shell passed through the wall and landed in the barrack next to his . My Father was in hospital for over a month from concussion and other injuries and was one of the lucky soldiers . He told us the fins of the shell were stuck in the roof of his barrack . The soldiers in the next barrack were fataly injured when the shell exploded .
April 21, 1943. Gordon Barracks
My Father : James Henry Chapman
My first tongue is Fraserburgh (Fisher) Doric from the 1960's. Today I can still switch in to the language of my childhood. But those who understand me are getting fewer. I can hear how much damage modern communications, media, internet has done to the language (Yes, language) I was raised to speak by my parents/Grandparents. (and of course the negative influence of the British State)
Even today when I lapse in to my natural Doric in front for example, born and bred Aberdonians, - I get chided for (as they say) my 'Broch Twang'
My grandad was from Fraserburgh originally. I grew up in East Lothian, but I learned a wee bit of imperfect Doric fae him. He's lang syne moved onto the next world, so I've naebody to practice with noo. When I'm working abroad I often miss the tongue of the Scots, both the Lothian and Borders Scots of my peers and the Broch speech of my grandfather.
I knew Frasers in Aberdeen their ancient background musta been from there
I like the bit around the 19 minute mark. I'm Australian, and I've been learning Scots fae CZcams! It's very strange to an Australian like me tae hear aboot ye using different language and accents in places that are only miles apart. In Australia we basically have just one accent, but in varying degrees of strength. I cannae listen tae someone fae Sydney or Melbourne and know fae which wan they come.
I am from the English West Midlands. I cannot for the life of me imitate even the mildest Scots accent. But for me, the greatest work of fiction of the 20th century is written in Doric. That is "A Scots Quair" by Lewis Grassic Gibbonn. I am extremely surprised that there is no reference to it here.
i hope you would be willing to say that the greatest work of poetry of the 20th is A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle by Hugh MacDiarmid-tho it be a synthetic Lallans and not a Doric proper, it is far better than anything I can think of from the 20th century, and most of what I read is 20th century english language poetry so
Fascinating, and brilliantly presented. Glad to have ancestors from Newton of Mounie.
My husband & I were born and raised in Aberdeen. We spent most of our lives living in Aberdeen as adults. It was very much our experience that speaking Doric or Aberdonian was viewed as being common and from a lower background. This would explain why two people who were from the North East would speak differently as the posh folks in say the West End were less likely to speak Doric than folks say from the council estates. When I was younger I got a job in an office and I remember constant comments from family about me becoming posh (too big for my boots). I wasn’t getting posh or above myself but just simply trying to be understood. I also grew up with relatives speaking the Kant/Cant (gypsy). Looking back it was like speaking three different languages that all intertwined into one language. If languages aren’t used then they are lost. It was great to hear our mither tongue. It was also great to see Sheena in the video as my husband used to work with her at Aberdeen Arts Centre. Thank you for the video.
I am a Northeastern Scot now living in the USA. In 2000 I was in an Ohio town named Wooster and was at the house of a woman who spoke only English. She asked me to take a look at a book she had which was in a different language. I took the book and opened it and was very surprised to discover it was a bible in Doric. I read from it and then translated what I had read for her. She thanked me and put the book back on a shelf. I had no idea that such a thing existed. I wanted to buy it but it was not to be.
Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for this, I had no notion of any of this and feel I have genuinely learnt something new and valuable.
As a Scots born (Fife) Aussie and having visited/stayed in Cullen, Portknockie, Portsoy and Buckie I find this video very interesting.
I mind being on a drilling rig where very nearly everyone was fae Buckie, I could understand them but I couldnae abide eating aw the fash they did.
Lovely little villages, I have a cottage in portknockie and I love that part of scotland.
Excellent and informative.
Having grown up in Old Deer, and having family deeply involved with The Buchan Heritage Society, I thought they might have earned a mention at some point. I left Scotland when I joined the navy in 1965 and now live in Malaysia but the moment I step off the plane at Dyce Airport I switch instantly back to Doric.
The narrator sounds like he's having a hard time wi the Doric like
His accent sounds West Coast. I would like to know who it is and to know.
I was born 1964 in Aberdeen I was Raised by my Gran she was born 1918 further north, So i find my first language i learnt was a spoken language not taught to me as written language, schooling was harder i guess i had to write the way that i spoke as apposed to my learned Doric I swap between Doric and English according to the speaker so naturally, I do not realize ive changed. Example A is for Apple as in doric its pronounced epple so show me as a kid a picture of a apple Id say its a epple. that would end up in a thick lug for me.
Brilliant presentations, can't wait to be part of Aberdeen community and student comes September. Beautiful campus and colourful collections!!
15:00 "20 years ago, nobody used the word Doric..." well I was in Aberdeen/Inverurie/Meldrum over 30 years ago & was very well aware of ordinary folks that called their dialect "The Doric". There were even Doric phrase books on sale.
Ah'm fae Meldrum an aa!! Eest tae bide at Cautens Fairm jist doon ih road fae ih distillery. Went tae squeel in Inverurie an left efter 6th year in 1972... Aa us teuchters were Doric spikers!
I grew up in Angus, and I first heard the word in the 1970s. Interestingly, it was pronounced to me as Doo ric, not Dor ic.
I lived in Gardenstown, 30 years ago and I knew the dialect being spoken there as Doric.
Ane a ma sisters bides a' Meldrum the noo, Ma and ither sisters en Porthlethen, an ane iv mi brithers issa Doric motormooth, love heerin him spik peshed up.
Maybe nae in Buckie, bit my Granmithir wis weel awar thit fit she spoke wis doric nae " the doric".
An she wis fae St Fergus an nivir spoke ony english ata.
I'm so glade ti hear bairns are gettin ti spik ther aine tounge nooadays, I widve loved ti learn aboot doric infact learned aboot a Scots tounges
I spend 10 years in Aberdeen and I wery miss it🙏 Hopefully once I will back to live there.
1.06...
Explains why as a West coast Cumbrian I have such an affinity and leaning to Doric,
It came from the same root haha!
I'm a Scots Canadian through my father who was from Glasgow. I spent my formative years, 10 (1973) to 17 (1980), in Aboyne on Royal Deeside. For the first three or four years I didn't have a clue what anyone was saying. By the time I went back to Canada in 1980 I understood what was going on around me (for the most part)!! I have 7 SCE "O' Levels and 4 Highers. When I came back to Canada I had to go to school for one year, completing grade 12. Generally, I found that Scottish education was at least one year ahead and in some cases two years ahead of my Canadian classmates. I consider myself as much Scots as Canadian although I don't sound very Scottish! I can still recognise a Doric accent when I hear it and think back on it fondly. Alba gu brath!!
Started watching this because I couldn't remember the guy who made doric a thing I love! When I was a kid Stanley Robertson read poetry to us at the art's centre in Aberdeen
Jist luve tha Doric Language jist cannae get enough listenin' to it.
I moved fae Stonie to Buckie (Buckpool) as a teenager. There wiz a big difference in dialect and abidy thought I wiz posh and a toonser. Then fan I move ti Eberdeen they all thought I was a tuechter. That lassy fae the sloch on this looks familiar, think we may have been a Buckie high at same time.
Wow, hearing Scots for pretty much the first time. Beautiful sounds. Keep it folk. Sláinte Mhór a chairde.
tapadh leat so much for this video!
The Doris, the only language in the world that can have an entire conversation with only the 5 vowels?
Back in the early 70s, while at university, I had a summer job in Waverley station in Edinburgh. I worked in the stores and cellars and regularly met the restaurant and buffet car crews working the trains between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. One of the guys, Joe Law, was the brother of Denis Law. He used to tell us that his maw had 4 kids. 3 of them had jobs and the 4th, Joe, was employed on the railways. When there were two of the crew talking together we couldn't understand a word they said.
It was beaten of us in our primary schools.
I miss my Aberdeen
I have a sister in England (Hertfordshire). She was born in Aberdeen but learned to spread down there (as I did). So English accent. One of her sons has an American type accent. Yes, watching everything online.
At 5:21 it is revealed that Scots is a truer ancient British English pronunciation because it preserves those ancient features that were more common in England in centuries past.
I love the Scottish accent, so soothing on the ears
It’s not an accent Scot’s is a language and Doric is a dialect of Scots. It’s the sister language of English.
The word Doric is new to me,having been overseas for many years.Is it not a put down of our native tongue,since it's source is Greek meaning rustic?
I know that lady in the thumbnail she works at our school
I am part Torry, part Oldmeldrum and Huntly and the surrounds play a big role in where I was made too. Doric is in my blood. I would say that my home is where the Dullan, Deveron Fiddich and the River Dee runs.
As weird as it may sound, I tried to find something out about Doric for a fanfiction to make it as realistic as possible, but now I‘m quite interested in that topic lol
When I was growing up in Aberdeen in the 50's, I never heard the word 'Doric' being used. The trouble with only being able to speak in what has now become known as Doric, is that it is virtually unintelligible to people in other parts of the UK and totally unintelligible to people in other parts of the world.
As I came to Scotland the first time, I had a lovely experience. I was heading for the camp hill estate near Aberdeen. I asked the bus driver in my school English, if it was the right bus and where I would have to get out. And he answered me in Doric... 😂 I couldn't get a single word!! But with gestures he told me, he would tell me. So I sat down. Than I saw a sign for the station, my friend from the camp hill estate told me to get out. But the bus driver did nothing an drove on. I was a little nervous... A few hundred meters later he stopped and gave me a sign to get out. I first couldn't get it. He stopped exactly where the road to the estate was - especially for me! I couldn't believe it. Here in Germany you are sometimes lucky, you can get out of the bus at your station when you drive outside a city. This was my first impression of the helpfulness of the Scottish people. Since than I love these folks and the landscapes and I wished I could live there someday...
Any chance you might add closed captions for learners and/or people who are hard of hearing?
Eh Buchan area wis eh broadest doric aboot. It didnae maiter far ye wint, naebudy kint fit ye wiz spikin aboot.
Very interesting video, for some reason the scots-dialect from the north east is easier to understand for someone from the north of germany than other english dialects. Although it doesn`t sound at all like the so called low german which used to be spoken mostly by peasants. Low german in fact sounds more like english. I don`t know if this makes sense at all - there so many dialects, maybe there is no such thing as "english" existing. As it is in germany...
Lots of Doric words are Scandinavian
Is the accent of Doric in Buchan different from the accent of Doric in Mearns?
Any time we spoke anything other than "proper" English at home or school we were told off. It certainly was not ok to write in doric. That was the 70s and early 80s
80s/90s ..I’m from Newcastle and my Mam was the same, got the belt loads for saying owt deemed slang.. my bairns get wrong for over southern pronunciation 🤣
As someone who grow up in North Lanark shire (Central Scotland) speaking mostly kind of Robert Burns type of talk of that region, Why can I understand most of what these people are saying? I thought Doric was a different language from people in the people of Central Scotland but it sounds mostly like the words I was raised on, I was always told it was a dialect (Well, teachers told me it was slang or improper English) and told to speak proper English in school.
HAIL TO ALL OF YOU CHILDREN OF HERACLES AND ZEUS!
Does anyone know where the Doric dialect came from?
Hello everyone,
My name is Cristina and I am a Translation and Interpreting student. I am doing my final thesis and I am doing a translation from castúo (my dialect in Spain) to Doric because of their similarities when it comes to phonetics, syntax and use of words. I would love if someone could help me with historic facts, documents, dictionaries, etc. Even though this video is being very useful so far. Thanks a lot!
Did you ever get anyone to help you? 😅
@16:19 'Nobody used the term Doric 20 years ago'? What are they on. Please read 'The Christian Watt Papers' She was from Broadsea, Fraserburgh writing in the 1800's. She specifically told of her Grandmother telling her the Gaelic, and her 'Doric' needed to be preserved.
Great book!
john mearns used the term, Doric
GrearTo see the quinee's done well for hersell😅😅
8 fowk at gave ess video a thumbs doon ur probably fae Dundee!
I think it's really great that this is being put up on CZcams.
I grew up in Mastrick, Aberdeen - only 21.. but I've always been brought up around doric. A lot of people I come across these days that speak doric come from the country, as they've said "tuctor" I don't see a lot of "toonzers" who speak doric and especially not at my age.
I was fortunate to have a family who taught me, like the professor was saying that there are circumstances where you can use your doric voice and where you use Scottish standardised English "phone voice" or "school voice" etc.
I can't imagine not speaking doric, but I see younger generations of my family picking up on it, just like I did some 15 years ago but I almost try and deter them from speaking that way because they are still quite young and it doesn't represent well if they speak that way. Only when they become old enough to understand how and when to modify it, would I become more accepting of it.
Don't discourage them bud, trust me they won't come back to learn it later. I grew up in Ireland and watched local dialects of Hiberno English become thoroughly standardised (anglicised) over the years. Now all the young people sound more like what middle class Dubs used to sound like when I was younger (I live in the west of the country nowhere near Dublin). These young people think they have the accents of their regions but they truly don't. Only the most isolated of rural farmers speak true regional dialects now.
I don't think people need to worry. As the profs said, Doric will evolve as all languages and change. Words will drop out of use and be replaced with new ones. But the dry humour and lyrical beauty of the tongue will be sustained.
Doric warms ma hairt.
Similar to the Coloured English accent (South African coloureds). Their language is Afrikaans (Dutch dialect)
NB: coloureds are a unique race in South Africa {not white and both not black} but very lightskined almost white.
You are wrong. Afrikaans is a language which has adapted from 17th century Dutch and is also spoken by White South Africans(predominantly), as they are descendants of Dutch, French, Germans and the coloureds speak English or Afrikaans.
Issy U the coloureds Afrikaans sounds a bit different to white Afrikaans though.
I am here to get use with Scottish accent.
The voice in the introduction did not sound like a genuine Doric accent
Scots is not even on Google translate. Start there
How do you say 'My love is like a red red rose' in Scots? How do you say 'I love you?' in Scots? How do you say 'Fish swim in the sea.' In Scots?
Part of the problem here is that the Anglosphere does not understand the difference between dialect and language, and the result is the misappropriation and misapprehension of terms. When I say that Scots is a true dialect, I don't mean that it's just an accent or slang. However it is a 'lect' that has close abstand to English, it is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language, and consequently it has certain shared features, in the same way that Swabian, Alemannic, and Bavarian are all perhaps languages in their own right, but they are also still considered dialects of High German. The Anglsophere can't make space for linguistic divergence, and thus, it devours every single divergent dialect in its path, which is actually quite a tragedy. Scots was leveled, but it was perhaps too divergent to be leveled completely by the standard English monster.
But the other consequence of the misapprehension of terms is that you've taken a dialect group like Scots, and you've tried to force it to take on the mantle of 'minority language'. Thus, you've placed an unfair burden on it for it to compete with standard English as an official language. If you do that to poor Scots, it certainly will die...it can't compete with standard English. It needs to be taught and protected but as the local dialect, not propped up with an artificial standard that no one actually accepts or uses. You see the disaster of this kind of language policy with Asturian in Spain, and it's done nothing but create resentment and unnecessary conflict in the Asturias region of Spain.
Language is a stretch, my geordie isn’t a “language” and it’s about the same patter but with Scottish twang
You're not wrong, a lot of Doric is a colorful version of English, but as these dialects and accents slowly disappear if we call them languages then better attention on the importance of them to be preserved.
Very interesting stuff. The poet Sheila related exactly the strange inverted snobbery of the accent there. I went from a Banff then Torry primary school to a boarding school in Wales (mostly English pupils), where my accent had to radically alter just to be understood! But what a shock upon returning to Aberdeen with my modified 'English' tones, just how much borderline hostility I encountered for being 'nae fae 'roon here onay mare'. My own take is that the rise of a folk laying on their native accents thick is due to a general lack of any real meaning in our increasingly Globsl world. Everyone increasingly glued to screens which dictate a Globalist view of reality, where most consume American 'culture' and entertainment, incessant droning of robotic rhythms and pulses, where there is a massive, yawing chasm where the Transcendent used to be, the peaceful, the simple. Perhaps there's an unconscious clinging to lost past by way of accent fetishisation, and as patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, 'localism' is a comfortable and assuring refuge for the existentially (and technologically augmented) stupefied?
Dundonian now thats a language
11:40 ??????
From the start of her talk to camera at 11:17 (here is the translation)
''I hate it if you meet somebodys who's English and somebody who's Scots, because I once had 2 poets standing, well, 2 Scots folk (Aberdonians, either side of me). One was Dr Ken Morris and he went to Robert Gordons (University), and was ''posh''. And Robbie Shepherd was on the other side, and _he_ went to Robert Gordons and he _wasn't_ posh! And, I just thought, ''I can't say a word'', because I didn't want Dr Ken Morris to think I was a fool, and I didn't want Robbie Shepherd to think I was ''up myself', so, I didn't say anything....''
Hope that helps Ivar! - All the best from Aberdeenshire. Dawg.
@@WhosAGoodDogue Thanks!
@@vampyricon7026 You're more than welcome Vampyricon! Enjoy the rest of your weekend. All the best. Dogue.
Doric? Ancient Greek brothers
Doric is my language I hardly speak English these days
Are they very different? How do you say 'My love is like a red red rose' in Doric? How do you say 'I love you?' in Doric? How do you say 'Fish swim in the sea.' In Doric? I thought it was just like an older form of English.
@@user-kh6jx1jj4v yer nae affa clued up are ye manny , hud yer weesht if ye Dinna ken fit yr spicken aboot min
@@kevgoeswandering8488 A ken fine weel fit doric soons like min. İt's jis nae spiking proper n ats at
An' a winna wheesht gin ye canna answer yon questions I speert
@@user-kh6jx1jj4v fit iver yr a bam
I was brocht up in Forres in Moray in the 80s bit if ye'd spik Scots the teacher smacked yer coupon and said it was degenerate. I can unnerstand ivry word they're spraffin here like, bit I cannae spik the doric weel and I'd hope there micht be a culture cintre bhein Eberdeen. Bairns spik American noo, they're een stuck on the CZcams. I wint tae ma heritage back...
am nae very aul but I wis lucky enough tae hae Doric-spikkin femly on baith ma mam and dad's sides. dad's femly wis fae Lossie and ma mam's were fae Keith, until I movit doon tae the central belt fir education I thocht abdy in Scotland spikkit lik me an ma femly did. alas fan I went doon an startit wi caul, quine, loon, abdy, fit, fa, fan, fou, etc, naebdy kaint fit I wis sen. took me fir a fair surprise.
ma wee brither is luckily keepin up wi the Doric noo he's an adult.
Is this comment written in Doric?
@@CinCee- it is 'at
@@TheFaceSoap I was able to understand 95% of it in its written form. Probably would have been harder to undertand if it was spoke to me
"Alas fan I went doon an startit wi caul, quine, loon, abdy, fit, fa, fan, fou ect.. naebody kaint fit I wis sen"
you said: when you moved down south & started using your Doric vocabulary nobody could understand what you were saying
?
@@CinCee- exactly that aye
Och aye the noo!