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Helen Lewis

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The death of the Cromarty fisherfolk dialect

Listening to extinct languages and dialects is an eerie, but incredible, experience.

By Helen Lewis Published 04 October 2012 13:38

The last native speaker of the Cromarty fisherfolk dialect, Bobby Hogg, has died - and with him, a version of our language which had unique words, expressions and character.

You can listen to Hogg and his brother Gordon speaking here: the dialect has a lilting, sing-song quality. Linguists think it was influenced by Norse and Dutch, and survived because of the close-knit community and relative geographical isolation of Cromarty in the Scottish Highlands.

Image: Google Maps

We're lucky that in 2009, a researcher called Janine Donald set out to preserve and record as much of the Cromarty dialect as she could. She wrote up her findings here, and it's quite hard to see what the roots of some of the words are that were in use. For example, where did "amitan", meaning "a fool" come from? (Also, can we revive "belligut" for "a greedy person"?)

"Am fair sconfished wi hayreen; gie’s fur brakwast lashins o am and heggs." (I’m so fed up with herring, give me plenty of ham and eggs for breakfast.)

Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of specialist vocabulary relating to fishing, which I imagine is now gone for good, like "o the teydin" meaning "seventh fishing line".

There's always something poignant about the death of a last speaker of a language, pidgin, creole or dialect. According to K. David Harrison's film for National Geographic, in 2010 there were around 7,000 languages in the world, but they were disappearing at the rate of one every two weeks. Dialects and other particular sub-forms of a language, therefore, are probably disappearing more regularly. For example, linguists think that only two forms of Gaelic will survive.

Here are some other disappearing languages. First, Lydia Stepanovna Bolxoeva, one of the last speakers of "Tofa" in Siberia, from 2001:

And here's Ned Maddrell, the last native speaker of Manx, the language of the Isle of Man. This was recorded in 1964, and he died in 1974 at the age of 97:

Finally, to illustrate how much living languages change, here is Shakespeare read out in Original Pronunciation. I love how OO-AR this is. (Skip to three minutes if you just want to hear Henry V.)

My favourite dialect of English is that of Tangier, Virginia, where some of the first settlers arrived in the New World. It's also relatively remote, in an island on Chesapeake Bay, and is a wonderful mixture of "goshdarn" Americanisms and archaic English. The clip is from the American Voices documentary.

Thankfully, after years of neglect, there are now several organisations doing their best to capture these languages and dialects before an increasingly interconnected world means they are lost for ever.

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More from Helen Lewis

View the discussion thread.

15 comments

Fri, 2012-11-16 22:53 — mick Pitchford (not verified)

what both of the crystals don't mention is that our Bill was from the West Midlands and so would have had a sort of rural Brummy accent when he acted

Tue, 2012-10-16 18:23 — New Platesman (not verified)

O the splendid and unspoilt isolation of Cromarty. It's about 30 minutes from Inverness and rammed with oil platforms going in and out. Must seem wildly exotic to those who have never ventured north of Bedford.

Mon, 2012-10-15 07:48 — jumping jack (not verified)

While I regret his passing. If he was the only one who spoke the dialect, does it really matter because he had no one to whom to talk. Isn't it similar to a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it?

Sun, 2012-10-07 19:35 — Daniel Lewis (not verified)

There is something unique about Gaelic influence on English speakers.... The ,ajority of settlers in the SE US were Scots Irish, and to this day, you can tell the linguistic influence. Particularly in people who come from the Appalachian Regions. "Y'on go on don the rode yonder ways a bit, ya hear?" (You go down the road aways, or get out of here....)...just one example.

Sun, 2012-10-07 19:35 — Daniel Lewis (not verified)

Fri, 2012-10-05 11:32 — Thomas Dunlop (not verified)

Whilst it is sad when dialects are lost, I take great comfort in the fact that human communication, through language, evolves and that new languages & dialects spring forth endlessly.
So I do not think we should get bogged down in the past all the time and embrace our new forms and shape them. Preserve the old forms for posterity not for pomposity.

Fri, 2012-10-05 08:34 — Daldravaig (not verified)

Amitan may well be Irish Gaelic for fool, but I suggest it would arrive in Cromarty because it is also Scots Gaelic for fool.

Thu, 2012-10-04 21:57 — saltyseadog1

I doubt very much that it will die out at all. The vast majority of folk in the NE of Scotland talk in the regional dialect some would say language of Doric in their daily conversations, very similar in sound to the video from the Black Isle. No good speaking it to a tourist or a "white settler" as they wouldn't understand a word of it, therefore we talk English to them "yi kain fit ah mean?.

Thu, 2012-10-04 14:59 — Paul Danon (not verified)

The place looks some way from the highlands. The dialect seems to be one of English. Modern, mainstream English has been influenced by Norse.

Thu, 2012-10-04 15:21 — Rob Cairns (not verified)

Cromarty is at the NE tip of the Black Isle peninsula. The topography of the immediate surrounding area is not "highland" in character but it is part of the Highland Council area (& formerly part of Ross & Cromarty, a distinctively highland county). Look out from the town and the hills rise just across the water to the north and west.

Thu, 2012-10-04 14:04 — admin

Thank you - @Qaoileann on Twitter has said the same. It's "'amadán" in Irish Gaelic.

- Helen

Thu, 2012-10-04 14:00 — Mao (not verified)

amitan would come from the Irish, "amadon" eejit ect., will listen ta.

Thu, 2012-10-04 16:55 — Daniel deB (not verified)

Agreed, Amadáin is a fairly common phrase in Irish Gaelic for fool, so apparent mystery solved quite easily.

Fri, 2012-10-05 08:37 — Daldravaig (not verified)

Amadain may well be Irish Gaelic for fool, but I suggest it was also used in Cromarty because it's also Scots Gaelic for fool.

Fri, 2012-10-05 10:28 — Daniel deB (not verified)

Of course. My point was that the writer suggested that there was no linguistic stem to it. I was suggesting one stem and as Sots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are of the same origin, it's the same point.