Episode 15 Blethering Scots

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-Our favourite Scots words are...

-Neep.

Coo.

Gie.

Michty.

Foos yer doos!

Tattie.

Fit like.

Our favourite Scottish words!

For these Aberdonian schoolchildren, speaking,

writing and reading in Scots is very important.

They've even got a magic bus to help them.

I'm a muckle fearsome pirate wi' a beard like a hairy dug

A bunnet wi' twa fight-crossed banes and a gold ring in my lug

But my pirate days are numbered as the joiner can confirm

He's diagnosed my wooden leg has terminal woodworm.

Down the road in Dundee, poet Mark Thomson lives and breathes Scots.

He's particularly passionate about his native dialect.

It's the tartans, it's the pipes, it's using words like glaikit

Halkit, barkit, crabbit, clype

Potted hough, haggis, stovies, cybies, tripe.

It's the hills, it's the heathers, it's the lochs, it's the glens

It's aboot the Highland games

Tossin' the caber, throwin' the hammer

And being 500 miles awa fae the Thames

Hairy coos and hardy bits

Highland dancin', bonny views

Eagles, ospreys, red grouse, capercaillies

Ceilidhs, clansmen, kilts and claymores

Blended single malts, whiskies galore

It's the highlands, the islands, stags, nooks, crannies and crags

It's a' that and mair

It's just bein' Scots withoot the red hair

But it's much bigger than that...

It's just bein' Scottish and it's as simple as that.

When I write, I've got a choice of Scottish words, English words

and Dundonian words, as well.

So when I'm looking for a word, I'm no stuck.

I can play aboot with the three of them, like.

And for me when I'm writing stuff it's aboot...

It's aboot usin' sounds.

No necessarily words, it's the sound for me

that creates the meaning

and the flow and the rhythm of what I'm actually kinda writing about.

It's just like when Burns was livin' 250 years ago,

Burns used his ain dialect and it's great to hear.

Back in the 1780s, many literate,

educated people were moving away from Scots,

but Rabbie Burns published his first collection of poems

chiefly in the mither tongue.

For me, Burns is very important.

He's very important to the Scottish language to have kept it alive.

If Burns hadnae have been writing in his ain dialect as well

we wouldnae be talking aboot him the day.

Up In The Morning Early by Robert Burns.

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west

The drift is driving sairly

Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast - I'm sure it's winter fairly!

Up in the morning's no for me, Up in the morning early

When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw

I'm sure it's winter fairly.

The Check-Oot Quine's Lament by Sheena Blackhall.

Tatties, neeps, and ingan, Poother for the wash

Wullie's needin new sheen, Grip, skyte, flash

Noo ma shift is endin, Beans and orange squash

Hame tae dee the hoosewirk, Up, oot, dash!

It's about where you're fae.

And your accent and your dialect is where you're fae,

so dinnae change it.

Keep it the way it is.

It's important, and let's keep it alive.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd