Borders dialect

Straddling between the rest of Scotland and the old frontier with England, the people of the Borders and Dumfries made war and peace independently of the central powers either side of the border. They stood apart in their speech as well. Whereas most speakers of Scots would say ‘you’, a person from this region would say ‘yow’, and whereas one might say ‘pea’, people from this region would say ‘pey’. By this classic test, in which words ending in the usual sounds –oo and –ee become –ow and –ey, we discover the more obvious ways in which the speech of this region differs from the rest of Scots. Other features include the the manner in which the sounds –ai (as in baith or claes) become –eea (as in beeath or cleeaz), and –e in the middle of word such as ‘bed’ becoming –a in this region, sounded like ‘bad’. In addition to these features, there are a number of Romany words, such as ‘barry’ (good) or ‘gadgie’ (man) which were adopted into the dialect, though since then they have been adopted into other dialects too. The kings of the Romanies – the Faa family – lived in the Borders.