Page 8 - Scots Language News Today

LUCKY TATTIES I WAS reminded recently about lucky tatties. These make a relatively late appearance in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) with the following definition: “A candied confection covered in cinnamon powder with a small gift inside." I remember these as a child. I also recall that they came with a small plastic charm in the middle. However, this was not always the case – sometimes there was financial reward. This was revealed in the very earliest example I have found f...

An 84-year-old unsung hero of the Scots language has scooped an accolade for his talents from the Traditional Music Society Association.

BLAWORT

GRIMLINS I HOPE folk attending the coming Orkney Folk Festival will have a good time, despite its virtual nature this year. Whilst many Scots on the mainland would describe our lengthy summer twilight as the “gloaming”, in Orkney it is described as the “grimlins”. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) defines it as “twilight, the first or last gleams of daylight”. The word is derived from Norwegian “grimla”, to “glimmer, twinkle, blink”. In 1908, the DSL recor...

FOUSTIE

New Holyrood MSPs to take oaths in Scots, Gaelic, English, Urdu and Zimbabwean Shona © DCT Media Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, will recite his oath in Doric. On Thursday all the newly elected MSPs will take their oaths or affirmations at Holyrood as they are officially sworn into the Scottish Parliament. Taking the oath or affirmation is the first thing all the MSPs must do before they can start their parliamentary business, and although it officially has to be done in English, many...

Updated: 11/05/2021, 12:57 pm © Mull Theatre/DCT Media Morna Young, pictured right, wrote the animation Stella to explore class and language attitudes. A new animation by north-east writer Morna Young explores how attitudes towards the Scots language could be a barrier for some career aspirations. Stella tells the story of a feisty 15-year-old with a big dream of becoming an astronaut to look down on the “totty wee planet”. However, when the teen meets stuffy career advisor Mrs Berk she is...

BELTANE BELTANE is thought to come from Scottish Gaelic, meaning the beginning of May, the beginning of summer. Scots celebrate it on the first day in May. As noted in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL), it was marked as a quarter day – “Hallowmas, Candlemas, Beltane (or Whitsunday) and Lammas”. Beltane was also celebrated by lighting hilltop fires, described in DSL thus: “A fire festival observed on the hill-tops generally on May 1 and 3 ... and more particularly, but not...

SOUK Yesterday was St Magnus Day, patron saint of Orkney, which put me in mind of this week’s word. Ever since Scotland emerged at the end of what scholars no longer call “the Dark Ages”, it has been a multilingual nation. A time-traveller visiting what is now Scotland around the year 1000 would encounter speakers of Old Northumbrian in the south-east, of Celtic varieties across large swathes of the country, and of Old Norse (Norroen or “Norn”), the language of the Vikings, in the f...

Iona Fyfe will perform at the next Folk at the Maltings online concert. - Credit: Elly Lucas While audiences await the return of live performances in person, a music organisation is hosting another online concert this weekend. Folk at the Maltings virtual gig on Friday, April 16 will feature award-winning young Scottish singer Iona Fyfe plus New Roots finalists Callum Granger and Oisin Kisdon-Ireland. It continues the St Albans Folk Music series of concerts in which young performers who took...