Translation of the Bible into Doric

More news from the area of Bible translations: After a year-long effort a Scotsman has now completed his translation of the New Testament into Doric. Gordon Hay, the translator, is financing the publication himself. Hay used a Doric dictionary, which did not contain all the terms he needed. In some instances, he had to use a transliteration or keep the English word. Apparently there is no word in Doric for “peace” or “joy”! These concepts are seemingly foreign to Doric speakers. Hay has already started translating the Old Testament.

Doric is a Scottish dialect spoken in north-eastern Scotland. It is a sub-dialect of Northern Scots and can be divided even further into regional dialects. It is spoken in a region south of Aberdeen, bordered by the Grampian Mountains. Because of this natural border Doric has kept its status as an independent and almost unchanged dialect.

Eagle-eyed readers of our blog will notice that we have already published a few articles on various Bible translations. This is due to increasing news coverage of this topic. The Bible always seems to be the first port of call for translations when the aim is to preserve the written form of languages threatened by extinction or test out new ways of translating (we reported on the translation into Marik and the translation in script format).

Source: The Scotsman