Throughout the pandemic, we have heard various news stories about languages and either their sad declines or their great revivals. From South American to Australia, all around the globe, language preservation has come to the forefront of linguists’ minds. With an accelerated decline in indigenous languages, they are wondering what can be done to start preserving indigenous languages now instead of later.
One positive language preservation effort comes to us in the form of Doric, the “fourth language” of Scotland, that has seen a revival in popularity recently. Doric had been in relative obscurity and had a reputation of being impossible to understand. However, thanks to its portrayal in the Disney-Pixar movie Brave, there has been a surge in its popularity.
The name Doric Scots itself is a reference to Doric Greek, an ancient dialect that was used in Sparta and other rural areas. Doric Scots’ usage historically is in the Mid Northern and Lowlands of Scotland. It is now most associated with Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire; in fact, undergraduate studies of Doric are now offered at the University of Aberdeen.
Being a dialect of the Scots language, it shares most of its phonology and writing system with Scots. Using the Latin alphabet, Scots and Doric both feature 27 letters, the additional letter being a ʒ, or yogh. This letter can also be portrayed as zz, but both are pronounced with a gh or y sound. Phonologically, while most consonants are pronounced the same (consonant clusters being the exceptions), many of the vowels are distinct from other modern Scots. For example, beauty, roughly the same in Scots and English, will become byowty spelled phonetically, and guid (good) will be pronounced closer to gweed.
Far from simply the butt of a joke, the dialect has proven its resiliency as a cultural icon of Aberdeen and a perfect linguistic example of how dialects can evolve regionally. There are examples of literature written in Doric, although it is still sometimes seen as old-fashioned or pastoral, and more recently sections of the Bible and Aesop’s Fables have been translated into Doric. Likewise, at the local level, attempts are being made to keep the dialect alive for a new generation and to preserve a cultural heritage. For example, several organizations such as the aforementioned University of Aberdeen, and several newspapers have featured articles, posts, and programs in Doric.
Further Reading
A Beginner’s Guide to Doric Scots
Omniglots’ general information on Scots
The video below, “North-East Scots (Doric): The History, Present & Future” was provided by the University of Aberdeen