Doric
The dialect of Scots spoken in the north east of Scotland, from roughly Aberdeen to Elgin, is know as Doric; the Oxford Companion to English Literature explains the link with Ancient Greece:
Since the Dorians were regarded as uncivilised by the Athenians, ‘Doric’ came to mean ‘rustic’ in English, and was applied particularly to the language of Northumbria and…Scotland
There are several distinct sub-dialects within Doric, with the characters in the Summer Crew speaking Morayshire Doric rather than the more commonly known Buchan or Aberdeen Doric.
In these stories I’ve tried to stick to what passes for standardised usage throughout (such as it exists). However, Morayshire Doric has several notable features which just aren’t represented in the more common Buchan- and Aberdeen-based orthographies. Therefore, in an attempt to represent the language more accurately, I’ve gone for phonetic spellings.
py= pay (pronounce pie)
wy= way (pronounced why)
If you want to know more about Doric, then The Elphinstone Kist site is an excellent resource and The Dictionary of the Scots Language contains more on both Doric and Scots. Otherwise, here’s a short glossary to be going on with:
ahind - behind
brasher - forester who strips the branches from trees when they’ve been felled
brae - generally a hill or, in the context of the salmon fishing, the shallow water running over the drop between pools in the river
bide - to live, to reside, e.g. I bide in London = I live in London.
ca canny - take it easy, calm down, proceed with caution
cheil - a lad
cloot - cloth
Clochan dichter - a Dock leaf
cowpit yow - literally, a female sheep which has fallen over - often used in the figurative sense to mean someone who is extremely drunk (fallen sheep can find it difficult to get back to their feet).
dike - wall, generally referring to dry stane dikes
een - one
fa - who
fae - from
faur - where
feart - scared
fecht - fight
feil - stupid, crazy
fit - what
fowk - folk, people
glaikit - stupid
gless ee - glass eye
gnepp - to talk ‘properly’, i.e. in standard RP English, often to an authority figure
gow - gull
gowk - literally cuckoo, figuratively idiot
gey - very
hack - endure
hairst - harvest
havering - talking rubbish, telling tall tales
hurl - to move quickly, to give a lift (in a car or on a bike)
loon - boy, lad
loup - jump
muckle - many, much
neap - literally a swede (turnip), figuratively an idiot
park - field
priest - the short stick, sometimes weighted with lead, used to kill the salmon. Presumably so-called because it administers the last rights.
puddock - frog
quine - girl, lass
rammy - a fight
roch - rough
roup - a farm clearance sale
redd up - tidy up
sark - shirt
scap - the shingle banks of the river
shilt - Horse
teuch - tough
yaldie - a brown trout
Finally, I feel that I should apologise for my accent, which isn’t quite as authentic as it might be, but, in my own defence, I left Morayshire to go to University when I was 18 and I’ve been gnepping full-time ever since, so hopefully you’ll excuse me.
