Promoting Scots - The Elphinstone Institute
No Special Focus on Scots could be complete without a look at the strong linguistic traditions of the north east of Scotland. The north eastern variety of Scots is often referred to as 'Doric' - after a dialect of Greek once associated with country areas. The well known writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon uses this variety of Scots in his great cycle of novels A Scots Quair. Doric is also associated with the very rich tradition of folk songs known as Bothy Ballads.
North east society has undergone significant changes in the last few decades, significantly with the impact of North Sea oil industry on the local economy. The Elphinstone Institute, based at Aberdeen University, is dedicated to the preservation and study of north east Scottish people, culture and history.
In recent years it has funded an outreach project for schools, with particular emphasis on the use of Doric. Sheena Blackhall, Scottish Arts Council Creative Writing Fellow in Scots at the Institute from 1998-2003, and Les Wheeler, Research Associate, were behind this initiative. Visiting both primary and secondary schools, Sheena and Les ran Doric workshops for pupils, with a particular emphasis on creative writing.
The workshops included awareness-raising sessions on Scots and its varieties, working with traditional texts and storytelling. For secondary pupils, topical issues and scenarios were used to encourage pupils' own creative writing such as drugs and alcohol abuse, urban homelessness and 'neighbours from hell'.
As well as running workshops for both pupils and teachers, Sheena Blackhall and Les Wheeler edited The Elphinstone Kist, a website launched in 2002 by the Elphinstone Institute. The Elphinstone Kist is a rich collection of poems, folk tales in the oral tradition and prose in Doric. The background to most of the writings is the life and language of the north east of Scotland, but their interest is far from confined to the north east. Teachers throughout Scotland looking for original texts in Scots to use in a class setting will find the Elphinstone Kist invaluable.