The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Speaking in mither tongues
A BBC Radio documentary is highlighting the efforts to promote the use of Scots in Dundee. Michael Alexander speaks to one fervent advocate of the dialect
“Oor east coast gibbir iz quite yooneeck, Itz got thi rehst ih Sco-lind uh’irlay seeck – an’ jehliss, Thiht that canna speek this Dundee speek.”
Those words of Dundee street poet Gary Robertson are an unashamed nod to the unique dialect that has developed in the city over the centuries. Last year’s release of the Dundee version of award-winning children’s book The Gruffalo – translated into Dundonian by Matthew Fitt – is another.
Dundonese is a rich and beautiful dialect of an ancient language which captures the beauty and rich cultural heritage of the city.
And now Diane Anderson, principal teacher of English at the city’s Morgan Academy, is on a mission to reverse the notion that the “mither tongue” is something to be ashamed of and educated out of native speakers.
She has been trained as one of Education Scotland’s Scots language coordinators and is taking part in a BBC Scotland radio documentary being aired today and presented by Billy Kay.
Far from being embarrassed about local dialects, she insists they should be a source of great pride.
“The system in general shouldn’t encourage the educating out of Scots,” she says.
Encouraged
“I think there is a feeling that standard English should be encouraged – that learners will become confused if they speak Scots or that they need to learn proper English first.
“Yet all the research shows that if Scots is your mither tongue you are going to do better in English if your Scots is acknowledged.
“That goes for any bilingual child, whether you are Scots or Polish.”
Born in Canada, Diane grew up in Macduff, Aberdeenshire, from the age of five, where she was immersed in Scots and the traditional Doric tongue.
Her parents, both from farming stock, actively encouraged the language and it was the lingua franca at home and in the village.
Yet having studied at Aberdeen University and then worked in England before her move back north, it’s only relatively recently she’s felt comfortable using Scots in a professional context.
She has noticed a tendency to regard Scots as slang and not as a viable means of communication and her experience of working in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee is that urban speakers tend to be ashamed of their native tongue, rather than seeing it as an asset.
Pride
Through the Curriculum for Excellence, she is now helping Dundee pupils realise they too should be proud of their city’s dialect.
“There are bairns here in Dundee who unconsciously speak Scots all the time,” she says.
“There are children who use it because they assume the teacher will not understand them. They’ve almost weaponised it as a means of keeping a teacher out of conversation.
“But there are an awful lot of them who will tell you they are not Scots speakers because they are encouraged not to be at home – quite often by Scotsspeaking parents who don’t have any pride in the fact they are bilingual.”
She can reel off examples of dialect that have crept into our everyday speech, including rich words like “bairn” or “dreich”.
And she is dismissive of those who frown upon the native language, saying they often tend to be monolingual English speakers who somehow think they are “superior”.
“It actually beggars belief,” says Diane. “It is perpetuated by people looking down on it, thinking of it as slang. Yet it’s rich and beautiful.”
The system in general shouldn’t encourage the educating out of Scots