Doric, the popular name for Mid Northern Scots or Northeast Scots, refers to the Scots language as spoken in the northeast of Scotland. There is an extensive body of literature, mostly poetry, ballads, and songs, written in Doric. In some literary works, Doric is used as the language of conversation while the rest of the work is in Lallans Scots or British English. A number of 20th and 21st century poets have written poetry in the Doric dialect.
Scots is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, Northern Isles, and northern Ulster, it is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Goidelic Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English. Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source: Early Middle English (1100–1300).
Lallans, is a term that was traditionally used to refer to the Scots language as a whole. However, more recent interpretations assume it refers to the dialects of south and central Scotland, while Doric, a term once used to refer to Scots dialects in general, is now generally seen to refer to the Mid Northern Scots dialects spoken in the north-east of Scotland.
Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson led a bohemian life in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish Enlightenment. Many of his extant poems were printed from 1771 onwards in Walter Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine, and a collected works was first published early in 1773. Despite a short life, his career was highly influential, especially through its impact on Robert Burns. He wrote both Scottish English and the Scots language, and it is his vivid and masterly writing in the latter leid for which he is principally acclaimed.
Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes works in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin, Norn or other languages written within the modern boundaries of Scotland.
(James) Hamish Scott Henderson was a Scottish poet, songwriter, communist, intellectual and soldier. He was a catalyst for the folk revival in Scotland. He was also an accomplished folk song collector and discovered such notable performers as Jeannie Robertson, Flora MacNeil and Calum Johnston. Born in Blairgowrie, Perthshire on the first Armistice Day 11 November 1919, to a single mother, Janet Henderson, a Queen's Nurse who had served in France, and was then working in the war hospital at Blair Castle. His name was recorded at registration as James but he preferred the Scots form Hamish.
Charles Murray was a poet who wrote in the Doric dialect of Scots. He was one of three rural poets from the north-east of Scotland, the others being Flora Garry and John C. Milne, who did much to validate the literary use of Scots.
Violet Jacob was a Scottish writer known especially for her historical novel Flemington and for her poetry, mainly in Scots. She was described by a fellow Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid as "the most considerable of contemporary vernacular poets".
Robert Garioch Sutherland was a Scottish poet and translator. His poetry was written almost exclusively in the Scots language, he was a key member in the literary and language revival in the mid-20th century. However, his biggest influences were the 18th-century poet Robert Fergusson and the Italian Romanesco dialect sonneteer Giuseppe Gioachino Belli.
Rosemary de Brissac Dobson, AO was an Australian poet, who was also an illustrator, editor and anthologist. She published fourteen volumes of poetry, was published in almost every annual volume of Australian Poetry and has been translated into French and other languages.
Alexander Scott (1920–1989) was a Scottish poet, playwright and scholar born in Aberdeen. He wrote poetry in both Scots and Scottish English as well as plays, literary reviews and critical studies of literature. As a writer, scholar, dramatist, broadcaster, critic and editor, he showed a life-long commitment to Scottish literary culture. He was latterly a tutor and reader of Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, where he was instrumental in establishing Scotland's first Department of Scottish Literature in the academic year 1971–72.
Sheena Blackhall is a Scottish poet, novelist, short story writer, illustrator, traditional story teller and singer. Author of over 180 poetry pamphlets, 15 short story collections, 4 novels and 2 televised plays for children, The Nicht Bus and The Broken Hert. Along with Les Wheeler, she co-edits the Doric resource Elphinstone Kist, and has worked on the Aberdeen Reading Bus, as a storyteller and writer, also sitting on the editorial board for their children's publications in Doric, promoting Scots culture and language in the North East. In 2018 Aberdeen University awarded her the degree of Master of the University. In 2021 she was appointed SPL’s poetry ambassador for the Scots language.
That part of the United Kingdom called Northern Ireland was created in 1922, with the partition of the island of Ireland. The majority of the population of Northern Ireland wanted to remain within the United Kingdom. Most of these were the Protestant descendants of settlers from Great Britain.
Marion Emily Angus (1865–1946) was a Scottish poet who wrote in the Scots vernacular or Braid Scots, defined by some as a dialect of English and others as a closely related language. Her prose writings are mainly in standard English. She is seen as a forerunner of a Scottish Renaissance in inter-war poetry – her verse marks a departure from the Lallans tradition of Robert Burns towards that of Hugh MacDiarmid, Violet Jacob and others.
Edith Anne Robertson was a Scottish poet who wrote in both the English and Scots tongues.
John Clark Milne (1897–1962) was a Scottish poet who wrote in the Doric dialect of the Scots language. He was also a teacher and educationalist. Some of his poetry was written for children.
Poetry of Scotland includes all forms of verse written in Brythonic, Latin, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French, English and Esperanto and any language in which poetry has been written within the boundaries of modern Scotland, or by Scottish people.
Scots-language literature is literature, including poetry, prose and drama, written in the Scots language in its many forms and derivatives. Middle Scots became the dominant language of Scotland in the late Middle Ages. The first surviving major text in Scots literature is John Barbour's Brus (1375). Some ballads may date back to the thirteenth century, but were not recorded until the eighteenth century. In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works included Andrew of Wyntoun's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harry's The Wallace. Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the royal court, which included James I, who wrote the extended poem The Kingis Quair. Writers such as William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry. In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. The first complete surviving work is John Ireland's The Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s. The landmark work in the reign of James IV was Gavin Douglas's version of Virgil's Aeneid.
John Malcolm Bulloch (1867–1938) was a Scottish journalist and magazine editor, known also as a genealogist, and a literary and theatre critic.
Bell Robertson was a Scottish reciter of folk songs who contributed almost four hundred memorised ballads to the Greig-Duncan collection.
