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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 are planning to repeat it in Scots, Doric, Orcadian, Gaelic and even Zimbabwean Shona. The oath has...

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 told to “talk properly” while trying to be talked out of her seemingly impossible dream. ‘Peo...

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 exclusively, in the Highlands”. Although Beltane has been recorded since the 15th century, the ea...

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 far north and dotted around the coast and islands. Shetland and Orkney, in particular, were settled b...

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 part in New Roots 2020 join more experienced performers. Aberdeenshire singer Iona Fyfe has beco...