Page 9 - Scots Language News Today

HEEDRUM-HODRUM THE recent tartan days in Canada and the USA put me in mind of terms for Scottish traditions. I landed on heedrum-hodrum, though Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) defines this as: “a derogatory term for Highland music”. Its appearance in the DSL dates from 1988 in Raymond Vettese’s collection The Richt Noise and Ither poems: “the spreit that lowps whaun it meets the swecht o oor true past, and greets no oot o seep-sappin heedrum-hodrum but oot o whit we were .....

AS somebody that’s campaignt for the Scots language owre mony years, I wis maist upliftit tae read aboot the young singer Iona Fyfe, supportit by MSP Clare Adamson, persuadin Spotify tae recognise Scots as a language, an saicondly, tae hear her arguing the case for a Scots Language Act. It’s a proposal some o us hae buin advocatin for mony years – probably even afore Iona wis born– but withoot much success it has tae be said, at least up tae noo. On the ither haun, when I read som...

Spotify has recognised the Scots language on its global streaming platform following a campaign by Huntly singer Iona Fyfe.

In Scotland, we have three national languages – English, Gaelic and Scots. The 2011 census revealed that 1.5 million people identified as speaking Scots, yet much of Scotland’s population is unaware that they possess skills in reading, writing and speaking Scots. Scots is part of the West Germanic language family and is a sister language to English with close affinities with Scandinavian languages such as Danish and Norwegian. Scots has four main dialects: Insular, Northern, Central a...

HUDDERIE LOCKDOWN has been tough for so many of us, but I hadn’t realised quite how important a haircut was for morale. Home hairdressing has, for me at least, never really “cut it” and I fear that – when I finally manage to get professional attention – I will be much more shaggy than I care to be. In other words, I am becoming exceptionally hudderie. According to the citations in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk), the adjective hudderie first appears at the b...

How should we use Scots words? IN our Sunday edition last week, we ran a column by Rab McNeil headlined: “How did Scotland adopt a white horse with a big stick coming oot its heid as a national system?” It got us thinking about our use of Scots in The Herald. Senior Assistant Editor Garry Scott, who wrote the headline, says: “I thought it was appropriate to use Scots in this headline as Rab uses Scots terms in his copy. It was also a lighter piece. Would I have headlined a piece by, s...

Flichter

LIFT FOR obvious reasons I – like many other people – have spent much time indoors recently, looking out, rather wistfully, at the same bit of sky. But a small plus is that it has given me the idea for today’s word: lift (sometimes spelt luft, luift). Lift is possibly the most common word in Scots for ‘sky’. It appears alongside rarer, figurative uses of words such as carry – a north-eastern usage that can also mean ‘motion of the clouds’ -- and pen or pend (which more usu...

Thank you for signing up to The Courier daily newsletter Something went wrong - please try again later. Sign Up Alistair Heather and Sheena Wellington – who have launched free online sessions helping participants develop their understanding of Dundee’s Scots language. For Dundee born and bred traditional singer Sheena Wellington, the Scots language has always been an important part of life. Coming from a family of weavers, the 76-year old former Blackness Primary and Harris Academy...

Exam chiefs say they are battling stigma against the internationally recognised language of Scotland.  Figures show 418 pupils achieved the Scots Language Award (SCQF) in 2020 compared to just 100 in 2019. A "significant jump" in those signing up for the qualification in 2021 has been noted, although official figures for this year have yet to be published. An increase in the number of pupils using Scots in written assessments has also been highlighted by the SQA, with the quality of s...