THE Scots leid is one of the richest languages in the world and at no time is this more apparent than at Halloween.
The festivities are embroiled in the language – going dookin for apples while guisin is nothing short of a rite of passage in Scotland, never mind the whole new meaning taken on by moggies and tumshies at the spookiest time of the year.
Putting more common Scots Halloween words to the side, I’ve compiled a list of lesser known words that you might want to keep in mind for the festivities:
- Boglet Hoose – Haunted House
- Baneshanks – Grim Reaper
- Deidclaithes – Shroud
- Eldrich – Supernatural
- Ganfer – Ghost/apparition
- Gloamin – Twilight/dusk
- Puddock – Frog
- Spaewife – Fortuneteller
- Tattiebogle – Scarecrow
- Undeidlike – Immortal
While I’m sure we can all agree that these words are braw, if you would like to get an even bigger fix of the Scots leid this October, you can do so via @Scotstober/#Scotstober.
As a Scots-speaking author who was never formally educated in the leid, the event which showcases a different Scots word every day improved my literacy of spooky Scots words to no end.
Scotstober words have even gone on to appear in my books, including The Tongue She Speaks – “Ma heart feels like it’s floatin above ma chest like some sort o anxious wee ganfer” – and my upcoming children’s book The Moggy Thit Meowed Too Much: “The streetlichts turn themselves oan wan by wan. Granny would say wur in the gloamin.”
Established by Dr Michael Dempster (above), director of the Scots Language Centre, Scotstober encourages people to get creative with the leid – whether it’s by writing poems, sharing examples of spooky Scots words that have struck a chord, or even creating visual art with the language in mind. Best of all, it’s free and accessible to everyone, even those outside Scotland.
But the Scots leid provides a lot more than just creative opportunities in October, it once again illustrates that Scots is very much a real language because there are so many words to describe what is a relatively small yearly festival. Words like puddock, ganfer and even the more common tumshie would almost certainly leave an English speaker scratching their head.
More importantly, these words are the perfect illustration of why it is so important to foster literacy in both Scots and English. A wider vocabulary improves literacy across the board and provides opportunities for not only creativity but connection with the wider community, past and present.
The same, of course, goes for any language, but notably Scottish Gaelic and British Sign Language, which are also official languages in Scotland.
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Almost a year on from the introduction of the Scottish Languages Bill in November 2023, which proposed giving Scots legal protection for the first time in its history, there is a huge opportunity to embrace one of the many things which give Scotland such a unique place on the world stage.
For the first time in hundreds of years, Scots speakers are on the verge of being legally protected from the type of linguistic discrimination that has seen past generations have the language quite literally beaten out of them. But with arts and cultural funding and governmental suffering after a decade of Tory austerity, this has to start with the individual.
We have to embrace the leid and demonstrate through its usage that it is not “nedspeak” or a hallmark of Scots speakers being somehow lesser than the more dominant English speakers.
Looking to the future, I would love to see Haunted Houses in Scotland being advertised as Boglet Houses, widespread tumshie carving competitions, and naturally, a Ganfer Train at the Irn Bru Carnival.
It would be an act of cultural vandalism for these words to be lost to history, as has very nearly been the case through a combination of the Union, classism and austerity.
While steps are being take in the right direction at a governmental level, true change can begin through embracing the leid this Halloween.
The newly released 2022 Scotland census revealed that a whopping 2.24 million people reported an understanding of the Scots language – now it’s time to build our vocabularies.
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