Speaking Scottish by V E H (Vicki) Masters

'Speak properly,' my mother was forever reminding me as a child. By which, of course, she meant don't use Scots - either the words or the grammar. Fortunately my dad did use it, so I know and understand the language of my country. How much richer is Haud yer wheesht than Be quiet.

On one memorable occasion, when Dad came to pick me up from university I introduced him to some American exchange student friends. His greeting was, ‘Aye, and it’s a gey dreich day the day is it no.’ Blank looks all around – although he was right. It was a damp, dreary day.

Because of the general injunction to speak properly I always thought Scots was a form of corrupted, and inferior, English. When I came to write my first book The Castilians, which is set in St Andrews, Scotland, one of the many things that exercised my mind was what would be considered ‘correct’ speak in 1546.

I soon discovered that Scots is a language in its own right. It seems both Scots and English, are descended from the same Germanic language — Anglo-Saxon, although Scots also contains words from and Old Norse, like bairn and kilt, and Dutch, like haar (a sea mist). From the early 1400s it began to replace Latin in formal documents and statutes. Court poets, playwrights and story tellers also started to write in Scots.

Here’s William Dunbar (1490s) complaining about having a migraine or, as we’d say in Scots, ‘a verrie sair heid.’

Cartoon by George Cruikshank

My heid did yak yester nicht,

This day to mak that I na micht.

So sair the magryme dois me menyie,

Perseing my brow as ony ganyie,

That scant I luik may on the licht

My head did ache last night

And today I could not write.

So sore does the migraine hurt me

Piercing my brow like an arrow

That I can scarce look at the light

(Any errors in translation are entirely mine – and my Scots dictionary)

When Mary Queen of Scots returned to Scotland in 1561 she could barely remember her country’s language after living in France from when she was a small child. French was spoken amongst the nobles but Scots was the principle language and so Queen Mary learned to speak it rather than English.

John Knox, on the other hand, returning to Scotland just in time to make life difficult for Mary, had slipped into speaking English. He’d lived in Geneva for a number of years, where he led an English congregation and also wrote his many works in English, including The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. 

John Knox in full counterblast

There were two main reasons that contributed to Scots ultimately being considered as not ‘proper’ speak.

After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James VI of Scotland departed with all possible speed to wealthy London his language, certainly in papers and letters, becomes anglicised.

James VI and I

Here’s an extract from his Counterblast Against Tobacco… A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs…  Translated into Scots – ‘smokin’ is verra bad fur ye’. Perhaps a pity he didn’t use his kingly prerogative and ban tobacco at the time, but in any case he increasingly spoke English (no doubt with a good Scottish accent), so the upper classes did, and it rapidly became a sign of wealth, and standing, to speak English – and still is.

Scotland turned Protestant in 1560. A core component of Protestantism was that everyone should learn to read the Bible themselves rather than having the Latin version interpreted by the church. This meant that we needed bibles, and lots of them, quickly. Initially the Geneva version, which was written in English and published in 1557, was adopted. This was closely followed by the King James (sixth and first) version in 1611, also in English. Scotland soon had one of the highest literacy rates in the world – but everyone was learning to read in English, and not the Scots they spoke at home. And surely, the language you are communing with the Lord in must be the correct one to speak…

We did see a revival in the use of Scots in the 18^th century, most famously exemplified by that charming philanderer Rabbie Burns, but it was more an entertaining curiosity for the wealthy than any genuine resurgence. Nevertheless Burns saved lots of songs in the vernacular which would likely have disappeared if he hadn’t written them down. 

Robert Burns

He’s probably most famous world wide for Auld Lang Syne (Old Times Past) sung at countless Hogmanay celebrations and then there’s Burns Night on the 25 January every year when the haggis is stabbed with gusto whilst being addressed in good Scots. 

In writing The Castilians I took the decision, since Bethia’s Mother had lived in England, that Bethia would speak an anglicised Scots although I do have some characters who use Scottish words, (I provide a glossary). Initially, I had far more Scots in it, but I did want the book to be read, and understood, widely. It’s always a balance…

Scots is the language of the Lowlands, Orkney and Shetland, and Northern Ireland (Ulster Scots) and even within that there’s much variation. The accent and some of the words used are quite different between say Fife and the Doric of the North East and then again Orcadian. 

But at least Scottish-speaking children didn’t suffer the fate of their Gaelic counterparts (Gaelic was never the language of Lowland Scotland). In the last century, children in the Highland and Islands were often beaten if they spoke Gaelic in school. I was fourteen before I first heard it, on holiday in the Western Isles. Thankfully Gaelic was saved in the nick of time, and is now more widely spoken. And as for Scots, well we’ve hung on tae it despite aywis being telt tae speak properly.

crabbit; scunnersome; drookit; gowk; oxters; guddle; midden; glaikit; besom

For more information on Scots see https://www.scotslanguage.com and also the Scottish Language Bill which the Scottish government is currently consulting on. 

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A VISIT TO THE CUTTY SARK by Adèle Geras

It was my friend Sally Prue who  suggested the visit, bought the tickets, fixed the time, looked up the trains etc and was in charge of all the practical arrangements. So a huge thank you is due to her. I wanted to visit the ship because I thought it would be useful for a forthcoming historical novel I intend to write. 

And there she is, looking glorious  as you step out of Cutty Sark station, having travelled on the Docklands Light Railway. But have you ever given any consideration to the ship's name? I must admit to being aware of  it for almost the whole of my life without once asking myself: what does it mean? What's the origin of the words? I'm willing to bet  that 90% of my readers will be just as ignorant. 

CUTTY SARK is the name of a garment traditionally given to  young Scottish girls when they were deemed to be grown up...a sort of rite of passage. It means 'short petticoat'  - quite a risqué garment in the 19th century. John Willis, the Scot who built this ship, was a great Robbie Burns fan and the name is taken from Burns's poem Tam O'Shanter.  Tam, riding his horse Maggie, spies on a witches' Sabbath, taking place in a desecrated church. The music is played by the Devil himself.  The witches are all hideous and old except for Nannie, who  is young, ' a winsome wench' and wearing a cutty sark. Tam cries out 'Well done, Cutty Sark!" and the witches see him spying on them and start to chase him. He runs for the nearest bridge, because everyone knows witches can't cross the water, but Nannie, following close on Tam's heels, catches hold of Maggie's tail and tears it off. The ship's figurehead shows Nannie, in her cutty sark, holding poor Maggie's tail aloft. There's a photo further down in which you can see this.


The Cutty Sark was a clipper ship. She sailed the waters between England and China bringing back quantities of tea which would boggle your mind. Tea consumption in the 19th century was astonishing and on the trips back from China the whole hold was packed with crates such as the one below, to provide for the needs of a population which couldn't get enough of it. The very beautiful decoration on  the tea crates was like an early bar code: many of the men unloading the ship  couldn't read,  and the pictures showed them where the tea came from and what sort of tea it was. The crates were mostly broken up after they were unloaded and the lead strips which you can see in the photographed were gathered up and sold to the printers in nearby Fleet Street. The Cutty Sark carried tea and later on, wool from Australia and many other cargoes too.   Tea and wool are light cargoes and the ship needed to be ballasted with stones coming back from China. Going out to China via Sydney, coal was often packed into the hold but in her time, Cutty Sark also carried (on the way out to China and I am quoting from the excellent guide book I bought) "baking powder, cocoa, currants, fruits, liquorice, marmalade, sugar, tobacco, brandy, sherry, wine.......oils and paints, galvanised iron,....spades, nails, bolts, paper, books, machinery, engine springs....boots and shoes, candles and matches." You get the idea...I've left out more than I've copied.  

Anyone can Google the Cutty Sark and learn all the facts and figures: how speedy she was, (there were Clipper Races to see how quickly the tea could arrive in London. Higher prices were paid for the cargo carried by the winner of these races. The English liked their tea as fresh as possible), how many voyages she made, what happened to her during the fire of 2007 and how she's been restored. What you can't get, either from the website nor from this account, is a sense of how uplifting and wonderful it is to visit her in real life, so to speak. It's the best tourist experience I've had in London because since the restoration of the ship after the fire, real imagination has been used everywhere to make sure that a) it's a physical pleasure to be walking the decks of such a beautiful craft b) it's an education. Exhibits like the collection of figureheads shown below, (with the white figurehead of the Cutty Sark right in the middle of the display) together with various interactive displays both on film and via recordings dotted about the deck that you can listen to, ensure that all the facts and figures are there ready to be  acquired. The café  is called The Even Keel and is situated directly under the copper- clad hull of the ship, which is suspended in the air over the space where you're having your coffee and cake. (An aside: the Ladies' loo is the cleanest  and shiniest I have ever seen anywhere, even in Germany and Switzerland,  and something for London to be proud of!)

A crew of about 25 men sailed the Cutty Sark across the world's oceans. As you can see from the photos below,  the conditions were, for the time and the conditions, rather good. In all her years at sea, with almost 600 men having sailed on her through every kind of weather, only five men were lost overboard. That's quite a record. The bunks are narrow but I've seen  worse quarters in modern prisons. There was even a student residence I once stayed in which was not as pleasant as these little rooms. The bunks were shared, because as one watch went on duty, the other watch went to sleep. This meant that in cold weather, the bed was warm when you got into it.

This is the galley. Again, I've seen a lot worse. It's easy to imagine this space  being much messier and dirtier when in use,  but still, the china is of good  quality, and the fixtures and fittings are plain and solid and well-made. This, with the smoothness of the decks, (again, restored to the way they must have been when the ship was first built) gives an impression of neatness and prosperity which pervades the Cutty Sark.   

It occurred to me while I was walking round the ship that even though it was easy to imagine the terribly hard work undertaken by the men who sailed her; icy conditions, storms at sea, icebergs and typhoons, and so forth, there was no lingering taint of suffering such as you'd find on  a slave ship, say, or a  ship that was used to transport prisoners to the penal colonies in Australia and Tasmania. The atmosphere is comfortable. It reminds you of trade properly conducted: commerce expanding, the world shrinking; the business of the globe being transacted by this vessel, and other vessels, and I like to imagine these tea clippers riding  the waves in every kind of weather and looking more beautiful than any ship before or since, with those magnificent sails set. The Cutty Sark had a mast vane, shown below, which was once gilded so that it caught the sun as the ship sailed into harbour. This was lost for many years and only surfaced in an auction in 1960, without its gold but still splendid.

Below is the view  from the top deck looking across the river. 

And this, below,  is the rigging. If you look carefully, you can see a man sitting on one of the masts. Rather him than me, I say, but even so, it's a sight that lifts the heart. Anyone who wants to enchant  a child, or a class of children and who can get to London would be well-advised to book a ticket to the Cutty Sark.  I will go back...