Table Of Content<ATSKSWVUIIDUEOZTIBYDOTEFLJWFHTECESHHCOOIEN"ETTRRDFI"DGo1O"""5rSVH4"i0c"ET">:"A"TW"2h,2e0V"doialulemcteotf8"North-EastScotland"
Doric:
TheDialectofNorth-EastScotland
Varieties of English Around the World
GeneralEditor
EdgarW.Schneider
DepartmentofEnglish&AmericanStudies
UniversityofRegensburg
Universitätsstraße31
D-93053REGENSBURG
Germany
[email protected]
EditorialAssistants
AlexanderKautzsch,AndreasHiltscher,MagnusHuber(Regensburg)
EditorialBoard
MichaelAceto(PuertoRico);LaurieBauer(Wellington)
J.K.Chambers(Toronto);JennyCheshire(London)
ManfredGörlach(Cologne);BarbaraHorvath(Sydney)
JeffreyKallen(Dublin);ThiruKandiah(Colombo)
ViviandeKlerk(Grahamstown,SouthAfrica)
WilliamA.Kretzschmar,Jr.(Athens,GA)
CarolineMacafee(Aberdeen);MichaelMontgomery(Columbia,SC)
PeterMühlhäusler(Adelaide);PeterL.Patrick(Colchester)
TextSeries
VolumeT8
Doric:TheDialectofNorth-EastScotland
byJ.DerrickMcClure
Doric
The Dialect of North-East Scotland
J. Derrick McClure
UniversityofAberdeen
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
TM ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
8
NationalStandardforInformationSciences–PermanenceofPaperforPrinted
LibraryMaterials,ansiz39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
McClure,J.Derrick
Doric:thedialectofNorth-EastScotland/ J.DerrickMcClure.
p. cm.(VarietiesofEnglishAroundtheWorld,issn0172–7362;v.T8)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Scotslanguage--Dialects--Scotland--Grampian.2.Grampian(Scotland)--Social
lifeandcustoms.I.Title.II.Series.
PE2121.N7 M38 2002
427.9’4121--dc21 2001056475
isbn902724717(cid:3)X(Eur.)/158811130(cid:3)X(US)(Hb;alk.paper)
©2002–JohnBenjaminsB.V.
Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyform,byprint,photoprint,microfilm,orany
othermeans,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCo.·P.O.Box36224·1020meAmsterdam·TheNetherlands
JohnBenjaminsNorthAmerica·P.O.Box27519·Philadelphiapa19118-0519·usa
Table of Contents
. The North-East: an overview
. Demographic and linguistic history
. Previous accounts of the dialect
. Examples of recorded speech
5. Examples of written texts
. Poetry
. Prose
. Drama
References
Glossary
Index
Thanks are due to the following for permission to print copyright material: Ronald S.
Wadsworth, secretary to the Charles Murray Memorial Trust, for Charles Murray’s
Winter; James Michie, President of the David Rorie Society, for Mary Symon’s The
Glen’s Muster-Roll; Steve Savage Publishers Ltd. for Flora Garry’s Mains o’ Yawal’s
Dookand Peter Buchan’s The Skipper’s Wife; Margaret Duncan for J.C. Milne’s O for
Friday Nicht!; Cath Scott for Alexander Scott’s Haar in Princes Street; Bet Mackie for
Alastair Mackie’s Aiberdeen The-Day; Sheena Blackhall for her Wanted; Sandy
Stronach and Bennachie Publishing for Texts 18-23 in the Poetry section. Thanks are
also due to Simon Fogiel for the extracts from the Student Shows and to Jill Hay for
the extract from the Attic pantomime (Drama section, Texts 7 and 8). I have been
unable to locate George Ritchie and Raymond Falconer, or to identify the copyright
holders for their poems.
The North-East: an overview1
“The North-East,” in Scotland, is not simply a geographical expression;
though the fundamental reason for the region’s distinctive identity is clear
from the merest glance at a map. This great hump of land, bounded by coast-
lines running east-to-west and roughly north-east to south-west and on the
landward side by mountain ranges, forms a natural territorial unit which has
become home to one of the strongest and best-preserved regional cultures in
Scotland (Maps 1 and 2)2.
Map 1
Doric: the dialect of North-East Scotland
Map 2
The interior landscape with its delightful and often spectacular variety of farm-
land, forest, moorland and rugged mountains, and the coast with its alterna-
tions of long sandy beaches and imposing cliffs, have often been described;
usually in terms which clearly reveal the affection which this part of Scotland
inspires in both natives and visitors. We are here concerned with the topogra-
phy of the area only to the extent that it has affected the traditional patterns of
life, and hence the culture and language, of the inhabitants. Westward, the
region extends to the Cairngorm Mountains, and southward to the Mounth,
which runs almost to the sea near the town of Stonehaven. Until the advent of
modern roads, these two vast highland massifs proved a virtually total barrier
to communication between the North-East and the rest of Scotland. Only
along the Laigh of Moray, the broad belt of low-lying land which extends along
the northern (Moray Firth) coast, has land travel between the North-East and
any other area of Scotland been easy. Until the eighteenth or even the nine-
teenth century, indeed, the regional capital, the ancient cathedral city and trad-
ing port of Aberdeen, maintained more frequent and regular contact with
towns of the North European coast than with any other towns in Scotland. The
traditional isolation and self-sufficiency of the North-East is certainly a con-
tributory factor both to the highly distinctive nature of its dialects and to their
unusually good state of preservation even in our own times.
Agriculture and fishing are, and have been for generations, two of the
The North-East: an overview
principal industries of the area. In its southern part, a coastal belt of red sand-
stone-derived soil offers fertile arable and grazing land. Elsewhere, one of the
most potent contributory factors to the region’s distinctive identity, its folk-
memory, and its literature both oral and written, has been an intensive pro-
gramme of agricultural improvement begun in the nineteenth century, which
transformed the physical face of the North-East and established a way of life
which survived until well into living memory. Notwithstanding the efforts of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landowners to offset the small villages,
townships and farms scattered randomly on the more fertile spots by the
establishment of larger farms and planned settlements, the large-scale
improvement of the area is the work of the individual farmers and their fee’t
[hired] workers: a breed whose place in the social history of the North-East is
beyond challenge. The rich stocks of cod and herring in the North Sea, too,
have since ancient times supported a productive fishing industry. The fishing
communities in the small coastal settlements were strictly exclusive and
endogamous: young fishermen married girls from their own or other fishing
villages, and sons followed their fathers into the trade. Between the farming
and the fishing populations there was very little social contact: rather a tradi-
tion of mutual antipathy. Despite the daunting conditions of life in the trade
— the North Sea is notoriously rough and treacherous — the communities
not only endured but prospered; and the North-Eastern fishermen, adapting
over the years to technical and commercial developments, maintained the sta-
tus of the area as one of the most productive fishing grounds in Europe until
international overfishing in recent years resulted in disastrously depleted
stocks and reduced the industry to a state of crisis.
Aberdeen, not only the largest town in North-East Scotland but one of the
most northerly major cities in the world, is in every sense — economic, indus-
trial and cultural — the capital of the region. It is situated between the mouths
of two rivers, and was originally two distinct settlements focused respectively
on a Church foundation at the Don firth and the natural harbour provided by
the mouth of the Dee. Both settlements date from very remote times, and
though the Don area of the modern city is still known as Old Aberdeen and
the city’s name actually means “mouth of the Don”, there is no more concrete
evidence that either can claim greater antiquity than the other. Positioned
squarely on the principal (and until recently the only practicable) route from
South-East to North-East Scotland, and occupying a favourable position for
continental trade, Aberdeen was developed from early times as a commercial
centre. By a charter of King William I (William the Lion) in 1178 the city
