Dialect Writing

As we meandered around the Scottish Borders, I was thinking about the some of the Scottish writers who wrote predominately in the Scots dialect. Robert Burns is probably the most important poet, but there are many others including William Barnes and Hugh MacDiarmid. Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg also incorporated Scots dialogue into their writings, and in the twentieth century, so did D E Stevenson, Lillian Beckwith and O Douglas.

I love all of the writers I have mentioned, but realise that I sometimes find their work difficult to understand and often somewhat alien. My introduction to Scottish dialect writing was Tam o' Shanter by Robert Burns:

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An’ folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
And getting fou and unco’ happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and styles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonny lasses.) 

I was 16 and it was one of my O' Level poems! I can still quote it verbatim but, although I love this poem, I haven't gone on to develop a love of Burns. I've found this strange but wonder if it is because his poetry is somewhat impenetrable.

There is also a great deal of dialect writing in English. Dorothy Una Ratcliffe writing in the broad Yorkshire dialect comes to mind, although she was from Sussex with no accent of note. Thomas Hardy, Edwin Waugh, Emily Bronte and Simon Armitage all incorporate dialect into their writing. They did this to establish regional identity, preserve local language traditions and give characters distinctive voices. 

All of these writers are praised and enjoyed for their use of language and then we come to Enid Blyton! Blyton was reviled for her use of vernacular and dialect; for the use of the language of the ordinary people. She was accused of looking down on people and mocking them. I have always found this perverse. I think some of Blyton's best (and most loved characters) like Ern in the Five Find Outers speak in non-standard English. His speech is a splendid mix of malapropisms and invented words and phrases. They make him one of the most memorable characters in Blyton's books.

I think my thoughts on dialect writing are as rambling as our days in the Scottish Borders, but they have inspired me to seek out more dialect writing and see if I enjoy it, or find it as difficult as many of the Scottish writers.