A former north-east politician is now hoping to spend more time casting his “mither tongue” of Doric into the public eye.
Former North East MSP Peter Chapman used his last opportunity to address the Scottish Parliament to call for the traditional north-east dialect to be used more widely in all walks of life.
A proud supporter of Doric, Peter Chapman believes the language, which is having a widespread resurgence in popularity, should be more commonly heard in local politics and our schools.
The 70-year-old former farmer and local councillor, will not seek re-election and retired last month after five years as a Conservative MSP for the North-east Scotland region.
And in his farewell speech Mr Chapman said the recent surge in its popularity shows Doric will no longer be ignored outside of the north-east.
He told MSPs he “wid love tae see” Scots given the same level of support and funding as Gaelic and for schoolchildren to learn local poetry in their own tongue.
No stranger to using the dialect himself, Mr Chapman has been Holyrood’s renowned native speaker since being elected in 2016, with a video of one his previous Doric addresses racking up more than 270,000 views online.
That speech extolled the language’s virtues with a rendition of Peterhead skipper Peter Buchan’s “Panloaf”.
However his latest Doric address called for proper accreditation of the language and funding to enhance it country-wide.
Mr Chapman previously raised £4,000 for the Crimond Medical and Community Hub with a CD entitled Poems and Sangs in the Doric.
