Matthew Fitt (born 1968) is a Scots poet and novelist. He was writer-in-residence at Greater Pollok in Glasgow, then National Scots Language Development Officer. He has translated several literary works into Scots.
Fitt was born in 1968 in Dundee. His mother was a journalist, working for publications such as Mandy. His great-grandfather William Beharrie was a novelist who wrote in Scots.
In his final year of school, his teachers showed him the works of Robert Burns and Hugh MacDiarmid. After he graduated from university, he became a teacher but continued to write. [1]
He was writer-in-residence at Greater Pollok in Glasgow, later National Scots Language Development Officer.
In 2002, together with James Robertson and Susan Rennie, he co-founded Itchy Coo, a publishing imprint and educational project to reintroduce schoolchildren to the Scots tongue. [2] [3] [4]
His best known work and debut novel is But'n'Ben A-Go-Go , a cyberpunk novel in Lowland Scots. [1] Earlier works included The Hoose O Haivers, a loose retelling of the Metamorphoses of Ovid in Scots and The Smoky Smirr O Rain, a Scots anthology.
He wrote the lyrics to Icker in a Thrave, the 2007 Scots entry for the Liet-Lávlut song contest for minority languages in Europe. The tune was written by Simon Thoumire, and the song was performed by Mairi Campbell (singing), Kevin Mackenzie (guitar), Clare McLaughlin (fiddle), and Simon Thoumire (concertina).
Fitt has translated several Asterix books into Scots. The first was Asterix and the Picts (Asterix and the Pechts), published in 2013. [5] He has also translated several Roald Dahl novels, including The Twits (The Eejits), [6] George's Marvellous Medicine (Geordie’s Mingin Medicine) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Chairlie and the Chocolate Works), [7] and, in 2018, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stane . [8]
In May 2020, he was awarded the Scottish Book Trust's outstanding contribution to children's books award. [9]
In December 2021, he became the cofounder and editor of Scots-language magazine Eemis Stane. [10]
Kenneth MacAlpin or Kenneth I was King of Dál Riada (841–850), and King of the Picts (848–858), of likely Gaelic origin. According to the traditional account, he inherited the throne of Dál Riada from his father Alpín mac Echdach, founder of the Alpínid dynasty. Kenneth I conquered the kingdom of the Picts in 843–850 and began a campaign to seize all of Scotland and assimilate the Picts, for which he was posthumously nicknamed An Ferbasach. He fought the Britons of the Kingdom of Strathclyde and the invading Vikings from Scandinavia. Forteviot became the capital of his kingdom and Kenneth relocated relics, including the Stone of Scone from an abandoned abbey on Iona, to his new domain.
The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. The name Picti appears in written records as an exonym from the late third century AD. They are assumed to have been descendants of the Caledonii and other northern Iron Age tribes. Their territory is referred to as "Pictland" by modern historians. Initially made up of several chiefdoms, it came to be dominated by the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu from the seventh century. During this Verturian hegemony, Picti was adopted as an endonym. This lasted around 160 years until the Pictish kingdom merged with that of Dál Riata to form the Kingdom of Alba, ruled by the House of Alpin. The concept of "Pictish kingship" continued for a few decades until it was abandoned during the reign of Caustantín mac Áeda.
Dál Riata or Dál Riada was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is now Argyll in Scotland and part of County Antrim in Northern Ireland. After a period of expansion, Dál Riata eventually became associated with the Gaelic Kingdom of Alba.
Scots is a language variety descended from Early Middle English in the West Germanic language family. Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, the Northern Isles of Scotland, and northern Ulster in Ireland, it is sometimes called: Lowland Scots, to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the 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 from the same medieval form of English.
Constantine, son of Cuilén, known in most modern regnal lists as Constantine III, was king of Alba (Scotland) from 995 to 997. He was the son of King Cuilén. John of Fordun calls him, in Latin, Constantinus Calvus, which translates to Constantine the Bald. Benjamin Hudson notes that insular authors from Ireland and Scotland typically identified rulers by sobriquets, noting for example the similarly named Eugenius Calvus, an 11th century King of Strathclyde.
A trow is a malignant or mischievous fairy or spirit in the folkloric traditions of the Orkney and Shetland islands. Trows may be regarded as monstrous giants at times, or quite the opposite, short-statured fairies dressed in grey.
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.
The Cruthin were a people of early medieval Ireland. Their heartland was in Ulster and included parts of the present-day counties of Antrim, Down and Londonderry. They are also said to have lived in parts of Leinster and Connacht. Their name is the Irish equivalent of *Pritanī, the reconstructed native name of the Celtic Britons, and Cruthin was sometimes used to refer to the Picts, but there is a debate among scholars as to the relationship of the Cruthin with the Britons and Picts.
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
Irish-Scots are people in Scotland who have Irish ancestry. Although there has been migration from Ireland to Scotland and elsewhere in Britain for millennia, Irish migration to Scotland increased in the nineteenth century, and was highest following the Great Famine and played a major role, even before Catholic Emancipation in 1829, in rebuilding and re-establishing the formerly illegal Catholic Church in Scotland following centuries of religious persecution. In this period, the Irish typically settled in urban slum neighborhoods and around industrial areas. Irish ancestry is by far the most common foreign ancestry in Scotland.
The origins of the Kingdom of Alba pertain to the origins of the Kingdom of Alba, or the Gaelic Kingdom of Scotland, either as a mythological event or a historical process, during the Early Middle Ages.
James Robertson is a Scottish writer who is the author of several novels, short stories and poetry collections. Robertson was born in Sevenoaks, England but grew up in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. He has published seven novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still, The Professor of Truth, and To Be Continued… and News of the Dead. The Testament of Gideon Mack was long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.
Black & White Publishing is an independent publishing house based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Since 1999, the company has produced a range of titles, with more than 350 in print, including over 50 in the award-winning Itchy Coo imprint, and their new imprint for young adult fiction, Ink Road. Books published include biography, sport, humour, general non-fiction, fiction, young adult fiction and children's books.
Scottish Romani are the Romani people of Scotland. This includes Romanichal and Lowland Romani.
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.
Modern Scots comprises the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, from 1700.
Edith Anne Robertson was a Scottish poet who wrote in both the English and Scots tongues.
Asterix and the Picts is the 35th book in the Asterix series, and is the first book to be written by someone other than René Goscinny or Albert Uderzo. It was written by Jean-Yves Ferri and illustrated by Didier Conrad. The English-language version was translated by Anthea Bell.
Thomas Clark is a Scottish poet and writer. He is best known for his work in Scots language and his writing about football.
The Humber-Lune Line is a term used for the traditional dialect boundary in England between descendants of Northumbrian Old English to the north and Mercian Old English to the south. It is considered the most significant dialect boundary within the Anglic dialect continuum and separates the Scots language and traditional Northern English dialects from all other Anglic varieties. The line trends from south-east to north-west, from the Humber estuary to the mouth of the Cumbrian River Lune west of Lancaster. In the 1899 publication On Early English Pronunciation, Part V, the dialectologist Alexander John Ellis attempted a precise plotting of the line, which he referred to as the "hoose line" because areas north of the line uses the "hoose" pronunciation rather than the "house" found south of the line.