Doric Identity

Posted by Margaret Tong

I’ve been in California for thirty twa eers, so fit wye is it that I still speak the Doric? I left Buckie in 1967 tae ging tae Edinburgh University, syne bade in Cambridge for sivvin eers afore I cam here.

Fowk hiv been spierin me that, ivver since I jyned the Doric page on Facebook.

There wiz a time fin I wiz ower thrawn tae speak English, even fin fowk didna unnerstan fit I wiz sayin. An aul freen, Mary, fae my Buckie High School days recently reminded me o this. She telt me I eest tae affront her and mak her mad. She hid tae translate for me an she kent fine I cwid sot speak English.

It wiz a thocht that fairly gart me think.

It came tae me that I spoke the Doric because I lived it. I wis nae o the toonsfolk. I grew up in a fisher faimly in the Catbow, in Buckie. The Catbow is a name for an area o the Seatoon far a few families hid kept cats an used the skins for buoys for the nets.  That practice hid stoppit lang ago an I nivver saw a cat buoy masel. Bit there is a dog buoy in the Buckie Fishing Heritage Museum, so it must hiv been so.

I myne the wynter nichts, fin the men were aa at the sea an the neeper wifies wid cam in wi their wyvin an claikin.  They gaithert roon the fire, bucklet on their wyskers an workit on ganzies in lovat wisset.  Sometimes it wid be socks or baby booties. There wis aye something on the weers. I sat on my creepie at Granny’s feet an took a’thin in; the stories they telt o the guttin at Yarmooth, the birthin o bairnies or the layin oot o the deid. Fylies, the Doric cwid fair lichten up a sad situation. Ye jist cwidna say in English:

 “He wiz affy like hisel, wi his teeth in. We cwidna fin the fyte socks, so we jist pit coatie perkies on his feet.”

I myne fin the local weemin washed an laid oot a deid body, tae get it ready for kistin. There wiz a shroud an a pair o fyte socks in the dresser drawer.

Fae my creepie, I wis observin a wye o life that wis passin awa. I kent I’d hiv tae ging awa someday, bit I took the Catbow wi me.  

So that’s fa I am, OorMargit fae the Catbow.

I’d like tae share this interestin airticle bi Professor John Raible, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, ’Identity: You are What You Speak.’

He says, “Through language, each of us asserts our identity (that is, our personality, our preferences, our individuality), which is in turn reacted to, affirmed, and at times, even challenged by those we interact with.”

He also says, “… we actually have some say in how other people see us, and are simply not stuck with an identity imposed from the outside.”

Although Professor Raible’s topic is transracial adoption, I think his thochts on “identity as a product of language” kin be applied tae ma ain thochts aboot ma Doric identity.

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