Johnny Gibb an the Doric

William Alexander was born at Rescivet in the Chapel of Garioch, the son of a blacksmith, in 1802. Destined to follow in the family tradition, the young Alexander lost a leg in an accident which saw him change course in life to the sedentary occupation of a writer. An essay on the ways of farm servants won him local acclaim and secured him employment on the ‘North of Scotland Gazette’. Thereafter he would join and eventually become editor of the ‘Aberdeen Free Press’.

In agreement with the views of the eponymous character of his novel, Alexander was a keen supporter of the reform of both the parliamentary franchise and the Church of Scotland, at that time embroiled in the Intrusion controversy over the rights of congregations to elect their parish ministers. Following the Disruption of 1843 Alexander became an elder of the breakaway Free Church. Alexander also wrote ‘Sketches of life among my ain folk’, published in 1875. A recognisable figure among philosophical circles in Aberdeen, his name was honoured in the naming of Mount Alexander in New Guinea by an explorer and associate.

The ‘Doric’ of Alexander’s novel found earlier inspiration through the Scots vernacular revival of Allan Ramsay. In 1768 Alexander Ross’s ‘Helenore, or The Fortunate Shepherdess, a Poem in the Broad Scotch Dialect’, was first published. Written some time before 1740 it is believed that ‘Helenore’ had originally been circulated in manuscript form to either complement or stand in direct rivalry to Ramsay’s acclaimed ‘Gentle Shepherd.’ Extending to four thousand verses and until that time believed to be the most ambitious work to be written in Scots, ‘Helenore’ drew not only on the Scots language but on the distinctive speech of northeast Scotland, where the poem attained great popularity. ‘Helenore’ was admired by Burns and is said to have influenced him in his writing of ‘The Vision’.

The Rev John Skinner’s ‘The Monymusk Christmas Ba’ing’ was published in 1739, a spirited description of a winter ball game written in ‘Standard Habbie’, the verse form first set out by Robert Sempill in his ‘The Life and Death of Habbie Simpson, the Piper of Kilbarchan’. Standard Habbie would be used to strong effect in the poetry of Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Burns. Skinner’s poem hums along with swift movement and onomatopoeiac effect. Skinner was also the author of several popular songs including ‘Tullochgorum’, which Burns enthused on as being ‘the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw.’

In 1742 came Robert Forbes’s ‘Ajax his Speech to the Grecian Knabbs, from Ovid’s Metamorpheses, attempted in broad Buchans’. Forbes’s translation of Classical Literature into northeast Scots echoed Gavin Douglas’s 1513 translation of Virgil’s ‘Aenid’ from Latin into Middle Scots.

An extraordinary character came to the Doric revival of the 18th century in the figure of Alexander Geddes, a priest and linguist who in 1779 had translated the ‘Verses of Horace’ into English. In 1792 Geddes presented his ‘Three Scottish poems with a previous dissertation on the Scoto-Saxon dialect’, published in ‘Archaeologica Scotica – Or Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland.’

Geddes’s dissertation begins with something of an apologia where he downplays the contemporary worth of Scots. He comments on its imperfections as a literary medium, its lack of a consistent orthography and questions its practical use to any aspiring writer. Geddes includes Allan Ramsay in this plight of the Scots language and curiously omits any mention of Burns. Thereafter, however, he goes forth on a historical quest to show the divergence of the Scots and English tongues from their common root, through military incursion, trade, political dynamics and the spread of gospel religion. As Geddes progresses he asserts the benefits in linguistic range and meaning of the Scots tongue over its southern counterpart, demonstrating the differences in vowel an consonant construction, some still recognisable in variations between Scots and standard English in the present day. Geddes then proposes a new Scots orthography with an alphabet comprising 42 symbols or symbol combinations, with explanations given for each.

In three of his poems, Geddes presents two o these, ‘The First Eklos of Virgil’ an ‘The First Idillion of Theokritus’ written in his unique Scots or Skotis orthography. Geddes finalises his dissertation to the Society of Antiquaries with a proposal that a new project be undertaken for the setting out of a Scoto-Saxon lexicon.

By the time Geddes was setting out his proposal, John Jamieson had already begun gathering words and expressions for his ‘Etymological dictionary of the Scottish language’, published in two volumes in 1808. Jamieson’s dictionary would become the foundation for subsequent etymological studies of the Scots language.