Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets

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Series exploring dialect poetry in different parts of the UK.

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Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets: North East Scotland

North East Scotland

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Writer and performer Shane Strachan celebrates the North East Scots dialect of Doric.

Writer and performer Shane Strachan discovers how the North East Scots dialect of Doric is not just surviving but thriving.

Through discussions with passionate dialect poets and advocates, writer and performer Shane Strachan uncovers the breadth of exciting initiatives promoting the North East Scots dialect, Doric, to new audiences. He finds that Doric is not only surviving; it's thriving. 

In his home city of Aberdeen, Shane performs his own contemporary work in the dialect before delving into its complex linguistic history with Scots language expert Robert McColl Millar. The region’s most prolific poet, Sheena Blackall, shares her experiences of speaking in Doric during her school years and her time promoting the dialect in schools since, while teacher Jamie Fairburn discusses the positive impacts his burgeoning Scots language course has had on his pupils in Aberdeenshire.

Shane also meets spoken-word artists Jo Gilbert and Mae Diansangu, who have been engaging with the dialect in new and inclusive ways, such as Jo’s Doric Poetry Slam, open to all, and Mae’s queer nature poetry with a Doric twist.

Other episodes in this fourth series of Tongue and Talk look at the dialect poetry of Northern Ireland and Wales.

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Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets

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