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-My favourite Scots word is stramash. -Fankle. -Gallus. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
-Glaikit. -Feart. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
This is a celebration of the Scots language. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
Rich, varied, moaning and funny. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
We've asked a bunch of well-kennt faces to choose their | 0:00:12 | 0:00:16 | |
favourite Scots word, tell us why and celebrate a few others besides. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:21 | |
Oh, ya cheeky besom! | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
Argh! | 0:00:23 | 0:00:25 | |
-A nest of fearties. -Look at those wee beasties. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:29 | |
You must dae that. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:30 | |
You rackle-handed gowk! | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
There's been a murder! | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
You know, one of my favourite old Scots words, | 0:00:40 | 0:00:44 | |
and one that I miss a lot, is fankle. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
This is a classic example of a fankle. You do it all the time. | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
You know, the back of the stereo with all the wires, the fankle. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
One of those really useful words, but I didn't even know what it looked like, cos you just said it. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:59 | |
You never wrote it down. But let's have a look at what it looks like. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:03 | |
It's... Wait a minute, no, no, this is a fankle for a start! | 0:01:03 | 0:01:06 | |
That's... from there to there to there | 0:01:06 | 0:01:10 | |
and, you see, we've unfankled it. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:13 | |
Fankle, a great wee word. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
Actor Bill Paterson remembers his childhood well | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
and some of the words he used. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:21 | |
Growing up, if you used any Scots words, which we did... | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
We used glaikit and numpty, we used dreich and we used dour. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:29 | |
We used them all, but I could never have spelt them. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
The idea of using them in school would have been unheard of. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:36 | |
You'd have got a row, if not the belt, for using the word glaikit in the class. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:41 | |
What really interests me now is that you can actually see these words being spelt and in dictionaries. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:47 | |
It's got a certain kind of shape. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:50 | |
The words never had a shape to us. They were completely oral. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:53 | |
They were something we heard and we passed on and we lived with in that way. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
And for these school children in Aberdeen, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
their version of Scots - Doric - is very much alive and kicking. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
Stoater can refer to an attractive person. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:24 | |
It's a nice thing to be. To be a stoater is you're doing good. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:28 | |
I wouldn't mind if occasionally somebody described me as a stoater once in a while. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
Not only is Scots still birling around the playground, but it's now found its way | 0:02:37 | 0:02:42 | |
into some classrooms too. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:44 | |
Wee Jackie Pirie sat on a chairie, hookin' oot plums fae a flan. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
He lickit his fingers and said, "They're humdingers. Fit a smart little birkie I am." | 0:02:48 | 0:02:53 | |
Oh me, me, my granny touched a flea. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
She roasted it and toasted it and had it for her tea. Yuck! | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
Sheepie sheepie blackface, fit's tha oo? | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
Nae that all, sir, three packets fu'. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
Ane for the wifie and ane for the boss, | 0:03:04 | 0:03:06 | |
And ane for the auld loon that sleeps upon the close. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
My mother used to use words like bein, | 0:03:11 | 0:03:13 | |
and of course, she used ashet for pies and gigot for chops. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
One day I said, "You know, Mum, these are all French words." She said, "No, I don't know any. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:22 | |
"I've never spoken a word of French in my life." I said, "They are." | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
Bein, I believe, is from the French bien, meaning well, well-off. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:29 | |
I'd say, "Who are these bein folks?" She said, "They're well-off." "Mum, they're French." | 0:03:29 | 0:03:35 | |
The ashet pies that we knew, the pie is baked in a dish, | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
the French assiette. Old Robbie Burns with his | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
"Bring to me a pint of wine and put it in a silver tassie," | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
that's using a French word, tasse. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
"Tasse du vin" for a glass. So we had a wide influence, but none of them we ever saw written down. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:52 | |
I think it's fantastic now to think that we're studying these words and | 0:03:52 | 0:03:57 | |
kids are picking them up again and using them. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
My favourite Scots word is gallus. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
Cheeky, bold, mischievous and, let's face it, more than a little bit stylish. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:12 | |
That's me. Gallus. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
Singer and television presenter Michelle McManus is wary of the weather, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:19 | |
especially when she's stravaigin in the country. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
It's not easy being stylish in the Scottish weather. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
If you're in the city, even on a dreich day like this, all you have to do is jump in a cab. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:31 | |
When you're out in the country, you never know what you're going to get. It can be hot, it can be cold, | 0:04:31 | 0:04:36 | |
it can be cloudy, it can be windy, or it could be pouring with rain. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
And let's face it, nobody wants to get drookit. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
Then it gets cold, really cold. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
I am talking chitterin'. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:54 | |
When that happens, I like to put on a nice, big scarf, the more colourful the better. | 0:04:54 | 0:05:00 | |
Don't talk to me about the wind. When it is blowing a gale outside and you've spent | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
three hours doing your hair, you're left scunnered by it. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
But the worst of all is the wind, the cold, and the rain. Nightmare. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:22 | |
In Scotland, it's no coincidence that we have many different words | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
for rain and cold, but not that many for sun. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
I wonder why. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
Surely the best Scots word for Scots weather is braw. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:50 | |
Fine, beautiful, excellent. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:53 | |
Anyway, enough about me. See you later! | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
My favourite Scots word is stramash. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
A bunch of buys playing rugby, desperate to get their hands on this ball. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
Having won 61 caps for his country, Gavin Hastings is one of the best | 0:06:09 | 0:06:14 | |
rugby players ever to come out of Scotland. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
Stramash. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
These big, hairy forwards just wrestling for the ball and giving it to the backs to try and score tries. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:28 | |
It was great fun. We used to get messy and muddy. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
It was a big stramash. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
I think there's occasions when really you feel that | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
a Scots word really sums up what on earth is going on. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
For me stramash is just fantastic, particularly when applied to rugby. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:52 | |
I'll tell you a word that I really, really like | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
but I very seldom get an opportunity to use. And here it is. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:11 | |
What I'm much more likely to do is this, to blether. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:19 | |
-'Call Kaye on BBC Radio Scotland.' -Good morning, good morning. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
I hope I find you well even though it is a guy dreich day out there. Never mind. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
It's Kaye Adams' job to talk, and as a broadcaster on both radio and television, language is her business. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:36 | |
I really enjoy using the Scots language. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
I get a kick out of these words and sometimes dropping them into conversation, | 0:07:38 | 0:07:43 | |
knowing that the people that I'm with won't have a clue what I'm talking about. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
But I absolutely feel that we should be sharing them | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
and sending them out there and making them part of a great big mix. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
'0500 82 95 00. Call Kaye now.' | 0:07:54 | 0:08:01 | |
It's so enjoyable actually using these words and as I think about it, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
I realise that I censor myself, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:06 | |
because when you're in a professional situation, | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
for some reason, you think you've got to be proper. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
I shouldn't really, should I? | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
There's so many words that are just so expressive. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:18 | |
You bampot. You clype. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
Tumshie. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
You eejit. You blethering skyte. You cheeky besom. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:27 | |
I remember on one occasion | 0:08:27 | 0:08:29 | |
talking within Loose Women and it got very passionate and heated | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
and I said something like, "This is a ridiculous stooshie." | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
Everyone just stopped because they didn't have a clue what I was talking about. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
So I had to kind of back play a little bit there. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
So I suppose it goes back to the time that I was brought up. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:49 | |
You know, you had a posh voice, you had a telephone voice, | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
you had to speak properly if you wanted to get on in the world. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
Frankly, we don't have that feeling quite so much now because | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
we all travel so much more as people and generally enjoy language. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:04 | |
Most people enjoy language, enjoy playing with it. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
Any time that I have been outside Scotland and I've used words | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
that are very Scottish, whether it's dreich, or even the word wee, tiny wee, toatie wee word. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:16 | |
Used all over the world and interestingly, most usually used | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
in just the right sense, because it means more than just size. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
Wee has got a whole kind of atmosphere to it as a word. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:29 | |
It's incredible how people of all different nationalities click right into it. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:34 | |
Argy bargy is another one. One of those words that has just transcended a nationality. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:40 | |
Everyone uses it, so everyone enjoys it, which is a great thing. Minging. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:45 | |
Perhaps not such an attractive word, but Scottish originally, | 0:09:45 | 0:09:50 | |
but now happily used by anyone and everyone. Minging. | 0:09:50 | 0:09:53 | |
One of my favourite Scots words | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
is mirk. Dark. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
I'm here on the dark side of the toon. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:07 | |
The streets of Glasgow have been the haunt of actor John Michie for quite some time. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
He's played more than one famous detective | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
and a lot of his characters have to do at least some of their work at the very spookiest time of day. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:24 | |
From this, the gloaming, to the howe dumb deid, | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
the very darkest moments, the dead of night. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:37 | |
So... there's been a murder. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
I wonder... | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
whether they smoured... | 0:10:50 | 0:10:54 | |
or thrappled. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
All the best murder mysteries are surely set in the mirk, in streets | 0:11:02 | 0:11:07 | |
like these, with a touch of fog for an acting detective to get lost in. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:13 | |
As the sky slaley turns, there's always Lochiel's lantern | 0:11:13 | 0:11:18 | |
to light the way and maybe an occasional fire-flaucht, | 0:11:18 | 0:11:24 | |
a shooting star. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:25 | |
And I'll be needing this as the gloaming turns into the mirk o' the howe dumb deid. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:41 | |
One of my favourite Scots words is glaikit. | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
I love the sound of glaikit, it's onomatopoeic. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:51 | |
It sounds exactly as it means, which is a face empty of all intelligence. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:56 | |
I guess the nearest English equivalent would be gormless. | 0:11:56 | 0:12:00 | |
Glaikit is just a great word, full of character. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
Poet and children's novelist Jackie Kay was raised in Glasgow | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
and the words she heard as a child form an important part of her work. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
Scots language for me is a great cauldron full of riches. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
You can just dip into it and get different things and different flavours and tastes every time. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:26 | |
If I was a cook, I would definitely be using the Scots language, | 0:12:26 | 0:12:31 | |
because you get a great big boost in flavour, you get lots of character, | 0:12:31 | 0:12:36 | |
you get a sense of uniqueness and a sense of time and place. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:41 | |
I like the syntax, the use of repetition. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
My mum might say, "I'm not tired tired, but I'm tired." | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
"I'm not hungry hungry, but I'm hungry." I like that. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:58 | |
I think of that as a Glasgow double, | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
somewhere between these two tireds, these two hungries, you know exactly what she means. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:05 | |
As a writer I've always used Scots language in different ways | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
and explored the way that you lose bits of your language when you move country. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
I live in England now and I have a kind of nostalgic relationship | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
to some words that I don't get to hear anymore or I only get to hear when I go back to Glasgow. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:26 | |
This poem's called Old Tongue and I wrote it for my partner, who left Scotland, | 0:13:32 | 0:13:38 | |
my ex-partner, who left Scotland when she was eight and went to live in England. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:43 | |
It fascinates me when people leave a country | 0:13:43 | 0:13:46 | |
what they often most miss is the language that they've left behind. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
Old Tongue. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
When I was eight, I was forced south | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
Not long after, when I opened my mouth | 0:13:56 | 0:13:59 | |
A strange thing happened | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
I lost my Scottish accent | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
Words fell off my tongue | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
Eejit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
Stumour, teuchter, heidbanger | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
So you are, so am I | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
See you, see my ma | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
Shut yer geggie or I'll gie ye the malkie | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
My own vowels started to stretch like my bones | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
And I turned my back on Scotland | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
Words disappeared in the dead of night | 0:14:25 | 0:14:28 | |
New words marched in, ghastly, awful | 0:14:28 | 0:14:32 | |
Quite dreadful | 0:14:32 | 0:14:34 | |
Scones said like stones | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
Pokey hats into ice cream cones | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
Oh, where did all my words go? | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
My old words, my lost words | 0:14:44 | 0:14:47 | |
Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word? | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Did you ever try and call it back like calling in the sea? | 0:14:50 | 0:14:55 | |
If I could have found my words wandering | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
I swear I would have taken them in | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
Swallowed them whole, knocked them back | 0:15:00 | 0:15:04 | |
Out in the English soil | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
My old words buried themselves | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
It made my mother's blood boil | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth | 0:15:13 | 0:15:17 | |
I wanted them back | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
I wanted my old accent back | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
My old tongue | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
My dour, soor, Scottish tongue | 0:15:23 | 0:15:27 | |
Sing-songy | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
I wanted to gie it laldy. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:31 | |
One of the Scots words I love to use is clarty, and that means when you're covered in mud. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:41 | |
As a zoologist I'm out in the field a lot, hunting for animals and bugs, and you get covered in mud. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:46 | |
When that happens, your hands get clarty. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
You sometimes have to give them a dicht, which means a wipe on your trousers or your jacket. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:53 | |
It's such an expressive word. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
Look at that. There's loads of them here, look at that. Fantastic. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
I'm going to have a wee keek at these bugs. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
You can tell it's a beetle larva because it's got three pairs of legs at the front. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
George McGavin is a man with a passion for creepy-crawlies | 0:16:10 | 0:16:14 | |
and it leads him to some pretty unusual places. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
Very often, when you're hunting for animals, especially if they're insects, | 0:16:20 | 0:16:25 | |
you have to get into a tight space and that usually means getting dirty, or clarty. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:31 | |
So I usually come home covered in mud. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
But that's the only place you can find really interesting things. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:38 | |
I think there's something lurking behind here, | 0:16:38 | 0:16:40 | |
so I'm going to give that.... a prise off. Now look at that. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:45 | |
That's interesting. Something's been eating up here, | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
hidden away here, and all this is falling down. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:53 | |
Ah! | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
Yes, very clarty. | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
I'm often asked why I find animals and plants interesting. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:09 | |
Obviously there's history and music and art and stuff, but if you take | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
all that away, you take everything away, what have you got left? | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
The answer is animals and plants, the natural world, so I just find it much more interesting. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:21 | |
At the right place, at the right time, they can be extraordinary. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:26 | |
This is just breathtaking. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:30 | |
These are just some of the amazing insects of Borneo. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
It's a huge cicada. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
The whole of the abdomen's hollow. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:42 | |
Hear? | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
That's probably one of the ones that wakes us up in the morning. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
That's a beauty, an absolute beauty. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
Back in Britain in early spring, insects are a little harder to come across, but thankfully a lot smaller. | 0:17:53 | 0:18:01 | |
An average eight-year-old child could find out something new | 0:18:01 | 0:18:05 | |
about the world of insects in their back garden if they just looked. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:10 | |
If I had £1 billion, I would buy every kid a hand lens like this, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:17 | |
because you can see things happening on the ground, in soil, | 0:18:17 | 0:18:21 | |
in bits of dead wood, that you just wouldn't believe would happen. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
There are so many words that are just brilliant when you're outside. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
Like if you're in a stream in mud, you're hae'in a guddle. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:35 | |
Or if you're just out for a walk, you'd say, "I'm just away for a birl around these woods". | 0:18:35 | 0:18:41 | |
It's a walk, basically, a look. A keek. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
All these words that I recall from being a small boy. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:51 | |
The first spring day, like today, when a few folks are in their shorts, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:56 | |
you say to yourself, "Look at his legs. They're awfully peely wally." They're pale. | 0:18:56 | 0:19:01 | |
My favourite Scots word has to be feart. I love the way it sounds. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
It's a really descriptive and expressive word. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
Catriona Shearer reads the news for the BBC around 30 times a week. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:20 | |
The first time I ever did a live news broadcast, I was so nervous. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:31 | |
My heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
I had to hook myself up to London and I was really feart. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
Nowadays I manage to slip in the occasional ocht or dreich into a news bulletin, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:46 | |
especially when handing over to the weather presenters. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
But like most news readers these days, I just blether on in English. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
Good morning. Scottish and Welsh nationalists are joining forces at Westminster... | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
Scots words are only occasionally heard on television today, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
but back in the 16th century, Scots was the most dominant national language. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:10 | |
It was spoken in Parliament and almost all official documents were written in Scots. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:16 | |
Now these words are rarely written down, except perhaps in poetry. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:24 | |
But what if Scots hadn't declined? | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
Would the language still be alive and spoken more widely on the radio and television? | 0:20:27 | 0:20:32 | |
The Queen has opened a new Scottish Parliament building... | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
Here's a recording of the news on 9th October, 2004. It's in English. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:41 | |
The Presiding Officer George Reid said the people, the Parliament and | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
the Palace had come together to mark the Royal opening. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
Here's our home affairs correspondent, Reevel Alderson. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
Officially at home, the representatives of Scotland, the MSPs. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:59 | |
Now here's that news again in Scots. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
Good evening. The Queen has jist appened the brand new Scottish Pairlament, | 0:21:06 | 0:21:11 | |
beginning with a challenge to wir MSPs to mak sure | 0:21:11 | 0:21:15 | |
that Holyrood is seen as a lawndmerk o' 21st century democracy. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
The Presiding Officer, George Reid, said that the folk, the Pairliament, | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
and the Palace had came thegither to handsell in the royal opening. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
Here's wir hame affairs correspondent, Reevel Alderson. | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
Since devolution, Scots has made a tentative return. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:37 | |
Very occasionally we hear a hint of the language of the old Parliament. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
What do the people want of the place? | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
They want it to be filled with thinking persons, as open and adventurous as its architecture. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:51 | |
A nest of fearties is what they do not want. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:56 | |
A nest of fearties! Doesn't that just sound great? | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
And that's all from us for the moment. Our next update's at 1:30. Hope you can join us then. Bye-bye. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:07 | |
My favourite word in Scots would be braw. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:21 | |
Rab Wilson is a man who lives his life in Scots. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
He writes it, he speaks it, and he makes his living from it. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
-You been busy today? -It's been good, yes. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
Brought up in East Ayrshire, Rab became a writer and poet | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
and he's now a passionate advocate of the Scots language. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:43 | |
I left the school about 16 and I done an engineering apprenticeship for the Coal Board. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:50 | |
So I worked down the deep mines for eight year, so I was immersed in this local dialect. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:57 | |
But later, when I was post 30 year old, it became apparent | 0:22:57 | 0:23:02 | |
that this language had been used | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
by local poets and rhymers for centuries. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:12 | |
So I thought to myself, "Well, if I'm going to write, I'll write in that language too." | 0:23:12 | 0:23:18 | |
It's a tremendous thing that you can still walk doon virtually | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
ony street in ony village or toon in Laland Scotland | 0:23:22 | 0:23:28 | |
and hear this... a seuch o' this wonderful lede | 0:23:28 | 0:23:34 | |
still being spoken there. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:37 | |
I mean, it's such a braw, braw thing. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
But if you ask thae folk to write in Scots, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:45 | |
they just couldnae dae it. They wouldnae be able to dae it. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
There is a wonderful word, mawdelit. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:54 | |
M-A-W-D-E-L-I-T. Mawdelit. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
It's a crazy word really. Only the Scots could have invented such a word as that. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:03 | |
It means inventing - no, feigning, feigning an illness in order to avoid going to a court appearance. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:11 | |
Now how weird is it that we should have a such a specific word | 0:24:11 | 0:24:15 | |
in the Scots language as mawdelit? | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
But yet that word came directly from France | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
because in France, that would be mal de lit, | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
an illness that puts you in your bed. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
So it's travelled ower the watter here to Scotland | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
where it's been kind of corrupted in its pronunciation into mawdelit. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:37 | |
I remember I got said to me one day to "away and fetch the big Monday, son." I went, "Whit?" | 0:24:43 | 0:24:49 | |
"Away and get the Monday hemmer." I said, "Why is there a hemmer called Monday?" | 0:24:49 | 0:24:55 | |
I didnae get it, I went and only asked for the hemmer. Now a heavy hammer is | 0:24:55 | 0:25:01 | |
like a nine-pund mash hammer, but the Monday hammer is a hammer that's about 20 pund. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:08 | |
It's a great, big, giant floor hammer. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
If you cannae get something to shift or move with an ordinary hammer, | 0:25:11 | 0:25:15 | |
you use this great, big, giant Monday. Go and fetch the Monday. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:20 | |
And of course, it wasnae till years after the penny dropped. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
It's Scots. It means maun dae. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:27 | |
This is the thing that will do. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:30 | |
You maun dae that. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
You will do that, you must do that. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:34 | |
You know, this is the hammer that must, that will dae the job. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:37 | |
You know, when everything else fails, ya bigger hemmer! | 0:25:37 | 0:25:42 | |
I think my favourite Scots word is probably gowk. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
Fool, clown, simpleton. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
It's basically an insult. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
"You called my mother a gowk and now you must die! Argh!" | 0:25:54 | 0:26:01 | |
Like most adults, I've a lot of regrets about my childhood. | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
The wrestling, for example, never took off. I was supposed to be The Laminator. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
I wish I'd learned how to breakdance. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
I wish I'd finished building that quite large particle collider. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
And I really, really wish that I'd been taught how to speak Scots. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:28 | |
I was three years old when the family moved to Scotland from England. My dad was from India. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:34 | |
He wanted me and my brothers to learn Punjabi, which was fair enough, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
part of my cultural heritage and all that, but not much use in the playground. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:42 | |
What I was actually reading was Oor Wullie, much more helpful. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:46 | |
Oh, help ma boab! | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
Scots is a great language. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
It's expressive, it's muscular, it's brilliant for comedy and it's brilliant for insults. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:59 | |
You see, the ability to deliver a class insult is an art form and it's part of the Scottish psyche. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:04 | |
Wee Scots, and big Scots, are all about being grounded. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:09 | |
Don't get any ideas above your station, pal. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:11 | |
Don't get too big for your boots, son. That hat with those shoes, Mum? | 0:27:11 | 0:27:17 | |
We like to burst arrogance, to explode pomposity. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
And the best way to do that is with an insult. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
And the best language for insults is Scots. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:26 | |
I wish I'd known a bit of Scots that day in Primary Seven when I'd experimented with my hair. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
What you looking at, ya scabbit wee puddock? Ya scourie raggabash. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
Ya carnaptious scroosh. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:37 | |
Yeah, baby, who's crying now? Sorry. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
Wha's greetin' the noo? | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
Here's my gift to you, the best Scots insults ever. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:49 | |
Take them away, play with them, practise in the mirror. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
Ya mislushious skrink. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
Ya pooshinous sloosht. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
Ya nebbie snauchle. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
Ya rackle-handed gowk! | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
The next time you've got toilet paper on your shoe in a casino, you know exactly what to say. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:10 | |
Oh, before you go, my favourite Scots joke, right? | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
What do you call a Scottish guy with one foot inside the front door? | 0:28:14 | 0:28:20 | |
Hamish. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:22 | |
Hame-ish! | 0:28:22 | 0:28:23 | |
Aw, get out my house, ya bucksturdie scurliquitor! | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 |