A north-east primary school has been awarded for its dedication to the north-east’s “Mither Tongue” during the first ever week-long celebration of Doric.
Doric Wik encouraged employers to use the region’s historic dialect in the workplace in a bid to change attitudes.
It was organised by academic Don Carney, who runs Carney Heritage Productions and has spent a career capturing Aberdeenshire’s cultural heritage on video.
QUIZ: How good is your Doric? Do you know what these 17 phrases mean?
He has also been dubbed “Dr Doric” after he was awarded a Phd for his working safeguarding local culture.
Among the places that took part was Monymusk Primary School, where the youngsters and staff impressed Mr Carney with their efforts – earning themselves six Doric DVDs.
Last night, he said: “Pupils and teachers didn’t just encourage Doric but delivered lessons that way.
“Their Doric Fly time which I attended was a great success and no mean feat to make happen.
“The children had to think, plan, do and practice Doric not just for a week but much longer. A role model for other schools to emulate.”
Mr Carney said the event itself had been a huge success with hundreds of firms in the area stepping up to support the campaign.
But he also acknowledged there remained work be done in order to continue reviving and preserving the dialect for future generations.
“I have had people who are incomers to the region asking where they could get lessons in Doric. That was a very difficult one to answer,” he added.
“As far as I know there is no formal offer of lessons available. Perhaps we need to address this so that incomers can feel more included within our society.
“I have had educationalists, teachers and pupils contact me speaking about what they have done featuring the dialect. I have had e-mails from Doric speakers in other parts of the world also.
“I plan to provide some feed back to the key organisations, universities, councils and educationalists about what the Doric Wik meant for folk. That hopefully might encourage these key organisations to do a bit more than what my one-man initiative intended to do.
“I can confidently say that Doric is not a thing of the past but is a contemporary dialect alive and kicking here in the north-east and beyond.”
