Click on names to find out more about the participants.
Relationship of interviewees: Creative writing/storytelling group members
Where: Edinburgh, Lothian
Language of interview: Scots
Voice clip 1
The group discuss words which have entered Edinburgh dialect from the travelling community. Today there is a new vocabulary amongst drug-users in Leith which borrows some words from traveller language and which includes many unique words.
Voice clip 2
The group discuss how words for the main room in the house have changed through time and reminisce about 1950s tenement life when overcrowding was common.
Mildred Gray, Writer and storyteller
Mildred cuts to the point when she says a long-winded phrase could easily be replaced by a five-word local saying.
John Fee, Retired teacher
John advises that if anyone wants to find the remnant of the Scots language, they need look no further than to go into large communities which are 'economically and socially disadvantaged'.
Long description of interview: The group is well-educated and acutely aware of the language they use and what it means. The relationship between class and language was a key theme throughout the interview. We met in a general purpose room in Leith Community Centre and contributors were equally vocal aside. Tenement life in 1950s Edinburgh caught the group's attention and discussion of travellers' words was quite fruitful.
